25 Things That Will Change Everything In The Next Century

2056 (40 years)

17. Permanent Human Presence On Mars

By the 2050s, a permanent team of scientists, researchers and even the odd tourist will have taken up residence on Mars.

Still far from colonisation, these are still scientific missions, with international teams living in communities of habitat modules, possibly 3D printed and lowered from orbit. There might be the beginnings of industrial interest, perhaps scouting out resources that could be mined on a large scale in the future.

With advanced propulsion technology, travel times to the red planet are down from six months to a matter of weeks, making space tourism a genuine, if pricey, reality.