Teleportation of Energy Is Possible

This is the kind of discovery that takes a while to percolate before useful technologies come from it. The implications of teleporting information and/or energy are enormous. Imagine living on Mars with all the connectivity we enjoy in one of Earth's major cities.

Physicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible | Popular Science
"Over five years ago, scientists succeeded in teleporting information. Unfortunately, the advance failed to bring us any closer to the Star Trek future we all dream of. Now, researchers in Japan have used the same principles to prove that energy can be teleported in the same fashion as information. Rather than just hastening the dawn of quantum computing, this development could lead to practical, significant changes in energy distribution."

Next stop before Mars? Perhaps L2?

Astronauts and technicians working and living at Lagrange points will develop the technologies needed to change the Mars mission from a visit into a colony. There is immediate, profitable work to be done at L2. Industry and people will always follow profits, and in this case civilization benefits enormously.

Why future astronauts may be sent to 'gravity holes' - space - 29 August 2009 - New Scientist:
". . .
Lagrange, or Lagrangian, points are great swathes of space where the gravitational acceleration from the Earth and the sun are exactly equal, letting objects stick there with very little effort.

Because they're far from warm stars and planets, they make useful havens for ultra-cold telescopes that measure fluctuations in the temperature of deep space.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures radiation from the big bang, lives at a Lagrange point called L2 more than 1 million kilometres away. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the massive James Webb Space Telescope, will also be sent to the spot, which lies in line with the sun and Earth . . .
. . .

But what would humans do there? One useful task is repairing and upgrading the new telescopes, like astronauts have done five times with Hubble.

"Hubble is probably the most productive scientific facility ever developed in the history of science, and it's largely because every four or five years, we take out the old instruments ... and go up with brand-new instruments that address different questions and embrace the latest technology," Lester says. "If we want to have humans having anything to do with these new telescopes, we really have to think about Lagrange points."

. . .

It takes surprisingly little energy to travel between these points. That's because massive bodies like the sun and planets have gravitational fields that resemble mountains and hills, but Lagrange points are all at gravitational lowlands. Once set on the right path, spacecraft can coast along the gravitational contours of space between these lowlands, as if travelling on an interplanetary superhighway.

"Going back and forth between Earth-sun Lagrange points and Earth-moon Lagrange points is pretty much a matter of giving the thing a swift kick," Lester told New Scientist.

Future astronauts could repair telescopes at a staging area at the nearest Earth-moon Lagrange point and send them sailing back to L2 when they're done. They could also assemble large telescopes or spaceships at the staging area and then send them out to farther-flung destinations.
. . .

Others see Lagrange points as stepping stones on the way to places like Mars.

"It's a convenient crossroads on the way to a place you really want to visit," says Lou Friedman, founder and executive director of the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group that supports sending astronauts to Mars.

"The place we all want to go is Mars. Stepping out into interplanetary space, Lagrange points present the nearest milestone to Earth that's still beyond the moon," Friedman told New Scientist.

Going to L2 would take about a month and communications from Earth would take about four seconds to arrive at L2, while a trip to Mars would take at least six months and would involve communications delays of about 20 minutes."

L5 Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The name comes from the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr. O'Neill envisioned. L4 and L5 are points of stable gravitational equilibrium located along the path of the moon's orbit, 60 degrees ahead or behind it.

An object placed in orbit around L5 (or L4) will remain there indefinitely without having to expend fuel to keep its position, whereas an object placed at L1, L2 or L3 (all points of unstable equilibrium) may have to expend fuel if it drifts off the point."

Spaceport America construction starts in New Mexico

We start slowly - currently only the wealthy can consider vacationing in space. This will change over time - start saving now.

Eventually life on Earth will be improved as we tap the wealth of our solar system. Privatization of space travel is an essential component of this transition. We're seeing privatization happen now.

Construction Begins on Spaceport America | Popular Science:
". . .
For everyone looking to hop the next commercial flight to space, your departure gate has finally been announced. Almost two years after the first plans were announced, construction has finally begun on Spaceport America. The spaceport, which will serve as the launch and landing pad for Virgin Galactic flights, is the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and represents the first serious commitment of infrastructure to manned commercial spaceflight.
. . .

Currently, Virgin Galactic only has two space ships, so it will probably be sometime before the facility experiences O'Hare and LaGuardia level traffic."

We need new pioneers

NASA - Why Explore Space?:
" ... for the foreseeable future, space travel is going to be expensive, difficult and dangerous. But, for the United States, it is strategic. It is part of what makes us a great nation. And the report declared that if we are going to send humans into space, the goals ought to be worthy of the cost, the risk and the difficulty. A human spaceflight program with no plan to send people anywhere beyond the orbiting space station certainly did not meet that standard.

President Bush responded to the Columbia report. The administration looked at where we had been in space and concluded that we needed to do more, to go further. The result was the Vision for Space Exploration, announced nearly three years ago, which commits the United States to using the shuttle to complete the space station, then retiring the shuttle and building a new generation of spacecraft to venture out into the solar system. Congress has ratified that position with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, making the Vision for Space Exploration the law of the land. "

Permanent populations on the Moon, Mars, & in the asteroid belt will one day improve life on Earth. This can come in part by moving some industrial processes off planet, but it will come mostly from the application of new knowledge - lessons we'll never learn if we aren't out there trying things - being pioneers.