[HedgeYourBets]

Originally posted by Seeker
www.space.com

It's called Gliese 581 C,

5 x earth size, about double the gravity.

Probably tidally locked.

It's only 20.5 LY!! You can see its star with a telescope.

Watery, 0-40 Celsius...big, roomy...

After those Aussie murders I'm packin' my bags to get away from the rest of you psychos! nice for the natives I'm sure! But i don't think unmodified humans would be very healthy or comfortable in a 2g environment.

[HaroldMY]

2g is easily doable with a pretty simple exoskeleton. Babies born there might even go without it.

[CealialactBek]

It's a shame that it's so far. If it was closer, say at around 5-7LY, it's existence could've added some fuel to FTL research. Or at least research on conventional nuclear powered probes that can reach a fraction of c. Orion maybe.

[PaulCameron]

I'm looking on it from the point of view of exploring it.

5-7 ly is feasible if you achieve c fractional velocities. I mean, we're waiting 9 years for a Pluto probe to reach it's destination and all for a flyby, so waiting 20-30 years for that is reasonable.

But 20ly? Nah. No one would bother sending anything without FTL.

[TyncTyncSah]

Well, there are roughly 70 G-type (like Sol) and K-type (slightly cooler) stars within 40LY of us, so to find even one marginal planet orbiting an M-type star (red dwarf, cooler still) within 20LY is a fantabulous discovery all by itself. I would think the fact that it's there orbiting a type of star we considered less likely to have such a planet would spur a greater desire to get there on its own merits. Anyway, we're right back to that thread we had some time ago about how to reach nearby stars without FTL. I maintain that ~20LY is doable with a generational ship using current technologies, but we would need a greatly expanded industrial capacity for the prep work.

[TNgqZhLR]

I refuse to go there. I'd put on lots of weight

[Phouepou]

Originally posted by Lazerus
Be funny if a more modern ship passes them by 20years after take off They might expect that would occur and in that case wait 20 years instead of going. But after a hundred years or so of waiting and no huge improvements in travel time I imagine they might be willing to risk being overtaken on their trip there.

[Ivanaishere]

One century is not centuries plural. Subluminal journeys of a century or so are not unreasonable. Thinking we'll get anywhere outside our system within the next few decades is.

Again, generational ships allow colonists to live their lives and prepare their children for a new life on a new world. If Earth develops FTL in the meantime, there's no reason they can't stop and pick up the colonists on the way. There's also suspended animation to consider, which would greatly decrease the amount of resources necessary to support colonists during the voyage, but it would also reduce their ability to prepare for the planet or respond to emergencies.

[JonatonM]

Imagine spending your whole life on a spaceship going somewhere just because your parents were stupid enough to sign up for it...
I would be pissed of at my parents if they did something stupid like that.

[7kitthuptarill]

...unfortunately if you give up your mission and astronaut training HAL will delete your Holodeck girlfriend program....


We have ways to motivate the next generation....

EDIT: IMO, even a probe must be a round trip I don't think we can retrieve that kind of sophisticated data from so far away remotely.

[krasniyluch]

EDIT: IMO, even a probe must be a round trip I don't think we can retrieve that kind of sophisticated data from so far away remotely.

What kind of data? A probe with a decent sized parabolic dish (1 meter diameter) operating in optical frequencies would be able to send stuff at dialup speeds from 20 ly for less than a kilowatt (from back of the envelope calculation)

[HedgeYourBets]

Generational ships are a hellish concept. Just freeze the colonists and be done with it. You only need a small number anyway.

This planet would be a pretty weird place to live. No seasons, no day, no night, just a dark half and a light half. It's easy to imagine it being a completely sterile place, with all the water locked up as ice on the dark side, whilst the light side is a scorched desert.

I suppose vulcanism, a thick atmosphere or massive oceans could disturb this equilibrium. There's at least one large planet nearby which may be enough to stir things up.

[juidizHusw]

KH, is there anyway to "probe" the planet with a signal from earth?

[ChyFDjfed]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Even if the engine could achieve that (which I'm fairly positive it cannot) you'd be history as soon as you hit the tiniest grain of dust. Which argues for a "spread spectrum" approach to spacetravel, does it not? Divide whatever you want delivered into numbers of smaller packages and reassemble them at the end with errors and ommissions (caused by space dust) filled in using error correction techniques.

[tofRobbroolve]

Dar, big ships with a lot of people might be the way to go in the end, but what about the problabilities of an accident on the way that destroys the ship? Very high, I think.

[apatteopipt]

I with DRoseDARs on this. Asteroids are the way to go, and not only in interstellar travel.

Forget about Mars and the Moon. Start mining asteroids for resources, eventually leaving a sort of a hollow shell with room enough for tens of thousands of people(multiple levels of habitation). The shell serves as protection from radiation.

This gives us a body big enough to have a rudimentary ecosystem and with a potential to become close to self-sustainable.

500 years from now, Earth will be Europe, Mars will be Australia, the Moon New Zealand and the asteroid belt will be the USA, dominating them all.

[Alex Photographer]

But that just brings us back to HOW do we get Humans there? Unless you know something about cryogenics that the rest of Humanity doesn't. Stop holding out on us, Ned! Short of FTL which can get us from here to there in times comparable to at least ocean voyages of old (think in terms of months at sea), the only other way is to send large groups of people together so they can interact, keep each other from going crazy, and raise families prepared from what lies ahead.

[CathBraun]

Originally posted by Ned
KH, is there anyway to "probe" the planet with a signal from earth? With a decent array of interferometric satellites you could check out the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Look for chemical byproducts of life for example.

[Soulofpostar]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
But that just brings us back to HOW do we get Humans there? Unless you know something about cryogenics that the rest of Humanity doesn't. Stop holding out on us, Ned! Short of FTL which can get us from here to there in times comparable to at least ocean voyages of old (think in terms of months at sea), the only other way is to send large groups of people together so they can interact, keep each other from going crazy, and raise families prepared from what lies ahead. That's why you use slow moving asteroids. Even constellations of asteroids which together will hold a community of 50-500k people - enough diversity for people to not go batshit crazy after a few years, and big enough to maintain good contact with earth, thus not being completely isolated from the human race.

[Numbiydq]

Originally posted by Ned


Which argues for a "spread spectrum" approach to spacetravel, does it not? Divide whatever you want delivered into numbers of smaller packages and reassemble them at the end with errors and ommissions (caused by space dust) filled in using error correction techniques. Not really - there's too much dust.

Basically, you have to go really slow, or build a ship tough enough to take the equivalent of having a hydrogen bomb go off at the prow every now and then. That in turn means huge mass (the hollow asteroid solution) with attendant humongous fuel requirements, or some exotic shielding technology.