Well, here's the thing--which would be easier to accomplish, Faster than Light (FTL) travel, or terraforming? I would say that FTL travel is easier to accomplish, because the Moon does not have enough mass to have an atmosphere. It simply does not have the gravity required to hold in gases. Same thing with Mars--it doesn't have a liquid core, so there is no magnetic field. The atmosphere has long since been blown away by solar wind and the planet is mercilessly bombarded by solar radiation.

Terraforming would only be theoretically possible on Venus, which is probably too close to the sun to be habitable in any case.

So, FTL travel and extrasolar colonization would be our best option--and that probably won't happen until humans unify under one political banner. The nation-state system will have to collapse before we are able to engineer any sort of extrasolar colony. The reason? One nation alone will not be able to amass the resources required for a project on that scale. Gaining the ability to travel faster than light--and there are numerous theories on how this could be done--is not going to be easy, and one nation--even the giant United States--is not going to be able to figure it out alone.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.