World enews: Nasa reveals the future of space travel in incredible sci-fi video

Nasa has shared its vision for human space exploration in the future in a new sci-fi video.

The minute-long ‘Visions of the Future’ short shows holiday destinations booked through the Exoplanet Travel Bureau, such as the Moon, and Mars.

Venus has a futuristic observation deck – looking like an ice cream cone with a large glass come over it – while Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is orbited by a metal bubble with a family inside gazing at the ringed planet.

Another astronaut kayaks on one of Saturn’s other moons, Titan, and yet another skydives into the exoplanet HD 40307 g, which was discovered to be a potential ‘super-Earth’ that could have a life-supporting climate and even water.

The video was inspired by a series of travel posters created by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab, with the agency sharing a series of behind-the-scenes shots showing the before-and-after of green screen technology.

Human exploration of other planets has seemingly become a closer reality with the development of private space travel, although many have criticised the billionaires responsible for failing to help those struggling on Earth or tackle climate change.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said that he plans to send the first craft to Mars by 2022, with humans following in the next four to six years.

“I’d say six years from now, highly confident [that humans will travel to Mars]. If we get lucky, maybe four years, and then we’re going to try and send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years,” he said in December 2020.

“I’m mostly concerned with developing the technology that can enable a lot of people to go to Mars and make life multi-planetary, have a base on the moon, a city on Mars, and I think it’s important that we strive to have a self-sustaining city on Mars as soon as possible.”

The billionaire believes that terraforming – blasting the planet with nuclear weapons at its poles to cause the ice caps to melt and induce accelerated warming – will be a key component to live on other planets.

“Life in glass domes at first. Eventually, terraformed to support life, like Earth,” he said.

However, the path to another world will not be easy. “A bunch of people will probably die in the beginning”, he said candidly in an interview in April 2021. Even if humans do get to Mars the battle between these corporations and Earth governments to develop Martian laws will be intense, and unlikely to be resolved quickly.