Titan: The next middle-east?

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I know we have a lot of space speculators, my attention to this kind of detail was mostly in my distant past. However, what's your take on our ability to prospect other planets' moons? From what I've seen discussed it sounds like the most practical way of building large freighter ships we'll find any time soon is to build a large space station with a nanofiber umbilicus/elevator to move parts from earth's surface upward, from there solar collection would probably power most if not all activities (and if it has to be the bottleneck - so be it). As of right now it sounds like we may be pretty close to having the materials and engineering to do it, the next step would be us having the right people with the right amount of money who'd see enough profitability to make the idea seem like its worthy of the investment.

I'm curious now just how long it will be before space gets industrialized. What do you all think? Will the pieces start moving into play by 2050? 2100? 2200? I'd figure it has to be likely to happen in the next 150 years. There's also realistic likelihood that by the time we have that technology a moon full of hydrocarbons might be of limited necessity to us anyway.

Anyway, what do you guys think on this? Great idea or is it likely to be a bust for at least another 300 or 400 years?

I think we need fusion power first, by the time which we will be long past hydrocarbons, which would not burn in anaerobic Titan's atmosphere. Fission power is good but uranium is rare in the universe while isotopes of hydrogen are common. With current technology, we could colonize Mars, Venus and maybe Titan, but only if the latter has Uranium because Titan is too far away from the Sun for solar power to work. Thus, I suggest we put our efforts into fusion reactors which will not only power our travel to the outer Solar System and beyond but power our colonies as well.

I think in my lifetime (I got God willing 50+ years left) we will be too busy spending our money on war and giving people free stuff to ever launch anything other than communication satellites and stuff of that nature into space. I mean, our defense budget for one year is more money than NASA's used in it's entire existence. Also, Medicare costs the same every year as our entire defense force budget. So if we had simply the drive to go to space, we'd be there. I mean, the Soviets were (if my information is right) planning a mission to Mars in the 80s, but they got hung up in Afghanistan and their entire country collapsed because of it.

People, while they might think space travel is cool, usually don't give a rip about space. They'd much rather the government "create jobs" and give them stuff for free. Politicians find war much more fun and rewarding in the short term compared to space travel, which they might never see the fruits for in their lifetime. "The future, what's that ever done for me, anyway?"

I guess we could look to the private sector for space travel, but as of what I can see, it's not going anywhere particularly fast.

I also think the idea of going to space for resources is a bit absurd as of right now, even if, let's say, we more or less ran out of oil. We'd just use other stuff. I mean sure, there'd be wars over oil and whatnot, but we'd use things on Earth and adapt and survive. First natural gas, biofuels, but also, gasification of biomass. In Germany in WWII, numerous cars were converted to run off biomass, just wood and whatever, gasified without the presence of oxygen, then burnt in the car's ICE like anything else. Also, right now, it's probably theoretically possible to run everything off biofuel with genetically engineered algae or some other genetically engineered plant. We have the capability of it, just it's not safe. However, if things go bad, caution will be thrown to the wind, unsafe things will be labeled safe, and we'll have our biofuel, even if it causes consequences to the enviroment and becomes an invasive species and we all die of starvation.

The big problem with space is it takes too much time for results to occur. Nobody will really see what they want happening in their lifetime, so they're unwilling to do it. It is I guess a good ultimate contingency plan, but it simply takes too much time and effort for people to want it, as the results aren't going to happen now.

I agree with 1000Knives on the lack of motivation being key in space exploration's slow development; the Chinese or the EU could, however, get past the issues that the USA has. The EU especially is on a very sustainable track to space exploration given its member states' generally low military budget compared to the economic might of its member states. And China is about to launch Tiangong 1, Heavenly Palace 1, its first space station without outside help.

I disagree about the biofuels issue; what is the risk? GMO crops are specifically bred to grow in such a way that is not evolutionary competitive: Huge maize kernels waste energy on producing more seed that could be spent on producing more seeds, thus giving GM maize an evolutionary disadvantage, for example.

As far as moons go, Titan has rather high gravity so it would not be very cost effective to harvest resources from initially. Low mass asteroids, the moon, and the lower mass moons of Jupiter would be more profitable before we can establish bases around Saturn.

I don't really know much about this area... but the asteroid belt seems to be so full of resources that scarcity would not be much of a problem if it could be reliably accessed and harvested.

I'm feeling lazy and don't feel like re-writing my views on space industrialization so I'm going to quote myself from not too long ago:

With nuclear pulse propulsion fusion the harnessing of fusion energy is a reality with today's technology.
Black hole power is also practical.