New Earth?

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aditiudupa

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Look, do you think it is possible for people to go to another planet with an appropriate sun, in another solar system, having many generations because it's too far for one generation to complete its journey, take many plants and animals, land on that planet and make some place to live? I know it sounds crazy, but why not?
 
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Saiph

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well, that is the idea behind the popular science fiction concept of "generation ships"...so,sure, it's possible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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vogon13

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Orion Nuclear Impulse Propulsion, designed back in the 50s and 60s, will send 20 million tons of goodies to the nearer stars in under 2 centuries.<br /><br /><br />Pretty much what you are wanting to do . . . . . . <br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>
 
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dannyd

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What would be your reaction if you were alive on one of those "generational" deep space arks and just as your massive ark was about to enter Alpha Centuri territory a newer and much faster ship from earth passed you guys up and got to Centuri ahead of you? -dannyd
 
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qso1

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Not possible with current technology but you probably know this already. But certainly possible in the future.<br /><br />Multigenerational starship travel may well be the way we have to do it once we start interstellar travel. Just getting to the point where we are ready to go maybe a minimum of 100-200 years from now. It would also rest upon having enough evidence for a habitable world provided by telescopic and unmanned space probes.<br /><br />The limiting factor for now is the speed of light which many scientists believe to be an absolute barrier. This will force generational star travel on humanity assuming no radical new discoveries concerning FTL travel are made. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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nexium

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There will always be reasonable doubt about whether a planet will be suitable, so why not leave for the Centarii system as soon as we can complete (and thoroughly test) the generation ship? I think there would be enough volunteers. At an average speed of 1% of the speed of light, the trip takes 426 years. The ship can communicate continuously with Earth, so upgrades enroute may be practical, and we will surely have new ideas for dealing with a less than perfect planet, by arrival date.<br />If we invent life extension, a few of those who leave Earth, may reach the Centarii system alive. Neil
 
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qso1

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This is the logical approach considering Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system. You mentioned we will surely have new ideas for dealing with less than perfect planets. We will or should have a decent catalog of earthlike planets by the time we are ready to send out a generational starship and hopefully, one will orbit AC. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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alokmohan

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We are not much sure that we know our own solar system well.There is so much hesitation in landing on moon second time.No body is sure we can live in mars.How many planets are there we dot have complete inventory.Is there life beyond earh or it is feasible?With so much to know about our own solar system,how dare we take up journey to proximo!!
 
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pizzaguy

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Earth is our home, and it always will be.<br /><br />The idea of traveling to other solar systems sounds silly to me. Just because you find a planet around some star does NOT mean that it is suitable to support human life.<br /><br />And getting there (as Crazyeddie points out) is not simply a matter of building a "space travel version of the biosphere".<br /><br />I remain a non-believer: as the sun dies, so will we. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1"><em>Note to Dr. Henry:  The testosterone shots are working!</em></font> </div>
 
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barrykirk

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I think that we would find a lot more volunteers if the first ships to other stars are robots.... It's so much easier to get robots to volunteer for missions....<br /><br />And we don't have to spend money or resources to slow the robots down at the other end.<br /><br />It means we can go cheaper, sooner, and don't have to solve that pesky recycling problem.
 
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Boris_Badenov

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<font color="yellow"> I remain a non-believer: as the sun dies, so will we. </font><br /> Thats sooooooo depressing<img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>
 
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qso1

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alokmohan:<br />We are not much sure that we know our own solar system well...<br /><br />Me:<br />Thats certainly true. We don't know all there is to know about Earth, much less our own solar system. Only real reason there is any hesitation about landing on the moon a second time, is cost. And again, your right, we are not 100% certain we can live on Mars. But before we undertake the lunar mars missions...we should know enough to judge whether we can take them or not.<br /><br />Prior to Apollo, some in the scientific community believed the moon to be covered in deep fine dust that they though a lunar lander would sink in. The answer to that question was obtained before sending humans. The unmanned Surveyor probes safely landed on the moon proving the surface was dusty, but only as a thin layer on a harder, landable surface.<br /><br />alokmohan:<br />With so much to know about our own solar system,how dare we take up journey to proximo!!<br /><br />Me:<br />We will not likely know every detail of our Earth or solar system. And by the time we are ready to undertake an interstellar journey, we will know quite a bit more but not know everything. Where cataloguing planets are concerned. Much of that work would be accomplished by astronomers by the time we go to another star system.<br /><br />We won't be able to know everything about a potential earthlike world before we go there. But we need only know the basics...can it support human life? How dare we...well, daring is a part of exploration. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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qso1

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pizzaguy:<br />Earth is our home, and it always will be.<br /><br />Me:<br />Couldn't agree with you more.<br /><br />pizzaguy:<br />Just because you find a planet around some star does NOT mean that it is suitable to support human life.<br /><br />Me:<br />Again true, but this is why you study that world, examine its spectrum and any other data you can get to see if its suitable for human life. Of course, you will probably only be able to make a basic determination and the rest of your data gathering will be done en-route. An example being that we could detect a world very nearly identical in spectra to Earth. But we could never know without going, how it got that way. What kind of living organisms are present if any, and an earthlike spectra pretty much suggests life is present.<br /><br />pizzaguy:<br />And getting there (as Crazyeddie points out) is not simply a matter of building a "space travel version of the biosphere".<br /><br />Me:<br />And I agree. But it should be realized thats a daunting, and pretty much impossible task for humanity at the present time. An interstellar mission is not likely to take place much before the 23rd century barring some major breakthrough, and maybe in spite of a major breakthrough. A breakthrough in propulsion and other technology areas required for such a mission.<br /><br />An interstellar mission is not necessarily about getting all of humanity away from earth (Addressing the earth is our home line). This is probably an impossible task. I can't really envision a scenario for which we would relly be able to prepare for such a contingency. Going to another world would be for exploration and determination if life exists elsewhere in the Galaxy and Universe. At the very least, if life independantly arose on a planet around another star. And is there intelligent life we can relate to.<br /><br />Those who do not wish to undertake the journey would not have to simply because it will be a much longer time before we can build fleets of space arcs.<b></b> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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qso1

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BarryKirk:<br />I think that we would find a lot more volunteers if the first ships to other stars are robots...<br /><br />Me:<br />Thats correct. I forgot to mention that in my previous post. Robotic explorers could make the final determination as to suitability of human life before a human mission departs. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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newtonian

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Voyager12 - Well, obviously this would not be a generation ship, at 10 ounces!<br /><br />Would it be able to go into orbit rather than crash into the star?<br /><br />By relativistic speeds do you mean near the speed of light?
 
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green_meklar

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Would it be able to go into orbit rather than crash into the star?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Well, from what I've heard, it's actually rather hard to crash a ship into a large object accidentally. At that speed, any trajectory besides heading directly towards the object will either put you in orbit or leave you heading off back into space.<br /><br />Which brings up a good point: How exactly is this probe supposed to slow itself down? Or is the whole idea for it to go on through and out the other side?<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>By relativistic speeds do you mean near the speed of light?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Yes, that's the usual meaning of 'relativistic speeds'. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>________________</p><p>Repent! Repent! The technological singularity is coming!</p> </div>
 
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voyager12

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The idea of this probe, as I understand it, is to fire it towards a point in space that's a few arc seconds away from the star itself (mind you there are *two* large stars here to think about, A and B in the Alpha Centauri main binary system).<br /><br />The proponents of the idea hypothesise that there may be a dust/debris ring surrounding Alpha Centauri. The object of the exercise is then to hope that this 10 ounce micro-probe will hit the dust particles surrounding the star and generate an x-ray explosion, the effects of which can be *theoretically* detected from Earth.<br /><br />This means the probe will never be able to send back any data or images of anything like a large planet, which could be in orbit in the Centauri system.<br /><br />If such a probe were designed to be large enough to be able to do this, by carrying cameras, radio antennae, science instruments, etc. then it would be far too big to accelerate that fast in the first place and it would take of the order of centuries to get there.<br /><br />This means our only hope of detecting an Earth-like planet is by using interferometry based telescopes in orbit around the Earth. There was a great scheme in the NASA pipeline called 'Terrestrial Planet Finder' mission, which I believe has been cancelled as of this year. That seems a great shame to me, considering there are no viable alternatives <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />cheers,<br />Voyager12 <br />http://www.myspace.com/aa_spaceagent
 
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qso1

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Voyager12:<br />That seems a great shame to me, considering there are no viable alternatives.<br /><br />Me:<br />There may be some pretty impressive ground telescopes ready to image planets as small as earth before too long.<br /><br />Its never been entirely clear exactly what can be seen with the largest ground based scopes. I recall it being said Hubble had a 50/50 chance of imaging an exoworld and that hasn't happened in Hubbles case yet.<br /><br />I wouldn't write off the possibility of earthlike worlds being imaged just yet. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>
 
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newtonian

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stevehw33 - a super brief response:<br /><br />I agree loss of bone mass must be addressed.<br /><br />Can exercise with artificial gravity solve this?<br /><br />My understanding is not enough - i.e. it is still a serious problem for long term space flight.
 
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newtonian

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stevehw33 - That is as I thought. Thanks for the details.<br /><br />Now I must sign off as I recover (hopefully) from the flu (or something similar in symptoms).<br /><br />Relax, you can't catch it from me on the internet!
 
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dannyd

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If we can come out of the far end of insane religious strife and other madnesses we may well do astounding things in this solar system and eventually others. I can envision a time when future humans (?) look back upon the centuries and say, "Can you believe it - they used to die!" danny d
 
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tom_hobbes

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Now <i>that</i> is a prospect well worth waiting for. Let's hope the concept gets off the ground. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>
 
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