If you could take a trip into space, where would you go?

Perhaps you wouldn't go at all.  Perhaps you might consider the risks too great, be it taking off or the prospect of being surrounded by an environment that could kill you in seconds.  That's entirely understandable, but you'd be missing out on a lot.

Maybe you'd be content with just a sub-orbital flight?  These are available now (to anyone with several million dollars to spare).  Blue Origin's New Shepherd flies passengers to the edge of space (just over 60 miles up), from where they see the sky go black and experience the curvature of the Earth.  Up there, any passenger has a claim to being an astronaut - although this is being disputed.  But, if you want to dip your toe and no more, then the good news is this flight only takes 10 minutes.

If that's not long enough, World View Enterprises might have the answer.  They are hoping to be able to offer a balloon flight to about 20 miles up.  You will still see the sky go dark and the horizon curve, but you wouldn't experience weightlessness, and won't have a claim to being an astronaut.  However, you'd have more time to enjoy the view and the cabin you'd travel in would be far larger and more luxurious.

However, it seems a shame not to go into orbit.  In that case, perhaps you'd aim for a trip to the International Space Station or, if they'd have you, China's Tiangong - smaller but far more modern.

But let's push it further.  In the next century or so there might be far more space-based destinations that mankind could reach.

The easiest of these is a trip to the moon.  There are plans to return in the next few years.  A mission called Artemis 2 is scheduled to fly a human crew past the moon in 2026 and the mission after that is aiming for a lunar landing (but it's waiting for a lunar lander to be built).  The Chinese aim to get to the moon by 2030, and there's a good chance there'll be the first to do so this century.

Travelling to the moon really lets you appreciate the beauty of the Earth, be that an Earth rise in lunar orbit or standing on the surface and looking up at our blue marble.  The moon is our nearest extra-terrestrial body and visiting it would be quite the experience.  In this case, you can there and back in just over a week.  But, if we build a moon base, it would be a pity not to stay for longer.

Beyond the moon, your next ambition should be to land on another planet - and it's conceivable that the technology could one day exist to do so.  Here, there are three options: Mercury, Venus and Mars.  The other planets in the solar system are gas giants, which have no surface to land on - and they are also a long way away.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and has the most extreme range of temperatures in the solar system.  In the daytime, the surface reaches 430°C, while at night it drops as low as -180°C.  The only viable option would be to land on the night side and, with days lasting almost 60 times longer than on Earth, this would give you a lot of time to explore.  But it seems a pity to stay in the dark - and have to be so cold.

Venus, unbelievably, is even hotter than Mercury.  The victim of a runaway greenhouse effect, atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of Earth at its surface and the atmosphere itself is highly corrosive, with thick clouds of sulfuric acid.

In short, going to the surface is a non-starter.

Staying high up in the atmosphere is possible, at an altitude where the pressure drops to that on the surface of the Earth, temperatures are in the high twenties (Celsius).  But there's still the corrosion to contend with and you've gone all the way to visit a planet without actually landing on it.

Mars is by far the most viable option.  It gets very cold, but its maximum temperatures can approach 20°C.  It has an (extinct) volcano twice the height of Everest and a canyon system that makes the Grand Canyon look no more than a ditch.  There's even the chance that you might be the first to discover evidence that life once existed there.  Beyond its surface it even has a couple of moons to explore, likely to be captured asteroids.

Speaking of asteroids, beyond Mars lies the asteroid belt.  This has any number of destinations to choose from.  The largest asteroid is Ceres, a near spherical asteroid large enough to be classified as a dwarf planet, yet only a quarter of the size of the moon.  The big advantage of asteroids is that none of them are large enough to possess a significant amount of gravity.  A trip to the asteroid belt could potentially be the opportunity to visit several destinations, as the fuel required to hop from one to the next is far less than required to take off from one planet and land on another.  Almost as large as Ceres are Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea.  But perhaps the most interesting asteroid to visit is 16 Psyche.  This is a metallic asteroid, which is thought likely to have been part of a proto planet's metallic core.  The raw materials it contains are estimated to be worth ten thousand quadrillion dollars - that's a 1 with 19 zeroes after it!

Beyond the asteroid belt we're really beginning to stretch what might be possible anytime soon(ish).  Uranus and Neptune, the two furthest out planets have only been visited once to date, and only in passing.  So let's leave them out of this.

Jupiter and Saturn might be possible.  After all, we've managed to put spacecraft into orbit around both of them.  The main challenge with these two worlds is radiation.  Jupiter is by far the worse of the two, but Saturn's radiation is not insignificant.  To go there and survive would require some kind of medical treatment or spacecraft shielding beyond what is currently possible.

But let's assume it is!

While you can't land on these planets, they both offer a larger number of moons to visit.  For me, the pick of Jupiter's moons is Europa because of the tantalising prospect of life existing below its icy shell.  Io, an extremely colourful, highly volcanic moon, is a close second.  But I would never feel entirely safe on its surface.

As to Saturn, Titan is its most famous satellite.  It's the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere denser than Earth's.  In the far future it might become hospitable to life.  But for now, you might want to take walks by lakes of methane while it gently rains from the sky.  On a clear day you would be able to see out into the cosmos and might be treated to a stunning view of Saturn and its rings.

An alternative might be Enceladus.  It's famous for its 'tiger stripes' - these exhibit cryovolcanic activity; shooting ice out into space.  Again, there is the tantalising prospect of liquid water below the surface and, therefore, maybe life as well.

It's a hard choice to make.  Mars is probably the pick of the bunch for me, but I'm torn with pushing on out to the asteroid belt.  To open up the solar system it's likely that we're going to have to learn to live there and exploit its resources.  So the sooner we get there the better.

But, the truth of the matter is that we're already living on by far the best planet in the solar system.  When it comes down to it, wherever else we might go, we're always going to be thinking of coming back here…