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Holy Fuck! A habitable planet only 20 LY away?

#1

Dave

Dave

Could it be true? Could we conceivably find another planet to colonize in my kids' or grandkids' lifetimes?

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/gliese-581d-con.php

Hey Congress! Stop being fuckwits and FUND THIS SHIT!


#2

LordRendar

LordRendar

Seriously.THe world should just stop bickerin with each other over useless shit and fund a project to find and get us to new planets.


#3

Dave

Dave

If we could find a better way of propulsion and could get to different planets it's possible that we could in the next few hundred years actually set foot on another planet. Think about that. I won't be around to see it but how cool?


#4

Espy

Espy

LordRendar said:
THe world should just stop bickerin with each other over useless shit and start bickering over who gets to rule the new planet
Click to expand...
Is probably more how it's gonna go down.

Seriously can you imagine the battle over who gets what on a new planet? Yikes.


#5

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

With our current speed limit it would take us like 10-20 years just to get out of the solar system.


#6

Dave

Dave

sixpackshaker said:
With our current speed limit it would take us like 10-20 years just to get out of the solar system.
Click to expand...
Correct. Which is why we'd need a different form of propulsion.


#7

LordRendar

LordRendar

Espy said:
Is probably more how it's gonna go down.

Seriously can you imagine the battle over who gets what on a new planet? Yikes.
Click to expand...
Best would be if there would be an hostile Alien race.so we can eradicate em. For "Mankind"
/sarcasm


#8

Piotyr

Piotyr

LordRendar said:
Best would be if there would be an hostile Alien race.so we can eradicate em. For "Mankind"
/sarcasm
Click to expand...
WE are the hostile Alien race.


#9

Gusto

Gusto

Hey let's maybe get back to the moon first.


#10

LordRendar

LordRendar

Piotyr said:
WE are the hostile Alien race.
Click to expand...
Nooooooooo! We can't be! We are the good guys! Have you never seen a movie?


#11

Dave

Dave

Gusto said:
Hey let's maybe get back to the moon first.
Click to expand...
I disagree with this. With the moon we run into the facts that:

  1. Been there. Done that.
  2. It's only rocks, anyway.
Disregarding the fact that both of these statements are amazingly short-sighted and wrong, it is the commonly held belief by the people with whom we need to convince - i.e. Congressmen. But they are too busy trying to become wealthier and to kowtow to their constituents (and by that I mean the business interests who have purchased their votes).

But a new planet with the possibility of sustaining life and possibly having abundant minerals or new items to discover? Well, sir, now you are talking!


#12

HCGLNS

HCGLNS

We'll get to that new untapped unregulated source of oil some time in the next 50 years.


#13

Dei

Dei

I'm still waiting to find out that Bioware was right about Charon not being a moon. (Because hey, that would be epic).


#14

figmentPez

figmentPez

The planet is probably inhabited by giant lizards that can move at super-speed.


#15

Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

This is pretty interesting news... not much we can do about it currently but still very cool none the less.


#16



Wasabi Poptart

Espy said:
Is probably more how it's gonna go down.

Seriously can you imagine the battle over who gets what on a new planet? Yikes.
Click to expand...


#17

Gusto

Gusto



#18

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Not to be a party-pooper, but reading the article on the details of the planet, we're looking at:

-twice Earth's gravity
-perpetual murky red twilight on one side of the planet
-nothing but night on the other side, because this planet apparently has one side always facing its sun and the other facing away
-nothing about land mass, just water so far
-mostly CO2 atmosphere, in which we would suffocate

Still, for me it'd be exciting just to find out about animal or plant life on another planet.


#19

Allen who is Quiet

Allen who is Quiet

Gusto said:
Hey let's maybe get back to the moon first.
Click to expand...
And bring the chicks this time.


#20

Espy

Espy

Dave said:
I disagree with this. With the moon we run into the facts that
  1. It's only rocks, anyway.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah?


#21

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

escushion said:
Not to be a party-pooper, but reading the article on the details of the planet, we're looking at:

-twice Earth's gravity
-perpetual murky red twilight on one side of the planet
-nothing but night on the other side, because this planet apparently has one side always facing its sun and the other facing away
-nothing about land mass, just water so far
-mostly CO2 atmosphere, in which we would suffocate
Click to expand...


#22

Mathias

Mathias

Dave said:
Could it be true? Could we conceivably find another planet to colonize in my kids' or grandkids' lifetimes?

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/gliese-581d-con.php

Hey Congress! Stop being fuckwits and FUND THIS SHIT!
Click to expand...
Are you on crack? Do you know how far 20 LY is? The fastest manned flight ever was Apollo 10 @ like 24k mph it would take a half million years to get there. Even at 1000x THAT speed 24 million miles an hour ( which is 3.5% the speed of light) it would take like 550 years. We will NOT be able to travel at even double Apollo 10 within 2-3 generations with out killing people due to acceleration G forces, unless some majorly, majorly, MAJORLY HUGE fundamental physics findings are made in the near future. I'm talking about as major a leap as it was to get from alchemy to quantum physics. We are no where near understanding how the universe (or even gravity) works for that matter, and the universe is a HUGE place.

Just as a reminder: Take an ordinary light bulb and pretend it is a scale model of the Sun. The earth is the size of a dot next to it, and the scaled orbit of the Earth is 30 feet -and that's just 1 AU. The entire solar system would be the size of a football field. It's almost dumbfounding how small we are.

You really need to work in the field of science to fully understand how many questions have top people in their respective fields scratching their heads. It really is grasping in the dark a lot of the time. I'm a very Socratic thinker in regard to science. For all that we know, we don't know shit.

I know that mankind has progressed technologically at an amazing pace, but I'd give inner stellar travel at least another 1000 years. What you're saying is analogous to someone in 2 A.D. saying we'll be able to create flying machines in the next 1o0 years.
Added at: 18:45
Dave said:
I disagree with this. With the moon we run into the facts that:

  1. Been there. Done that.
  2. It's only rocks, anyway.
Disregarding the fact that both of these statements are amazingly short-sighted and wrong, it is the commonly held belief by the people with whom we need to convince - i.e. Congressmen. But they are too busy trying to become wealthier and to kowtow to their constituents (and by that I mean the business interests who have purchased their votes).

But a new planet with the possibility of sustaining life and possibly having abundant minerals or new items to discover? Well, sir, now you are talking!
Click to expand...
Any feasible manned inner and extra solar travel (like Mars) will have to involve launching from the moon with current technology. Before we can even think of inter stellar travel, we need to be able to colonize in orbit around our planet, the Moon, Mars, and possibly Jovian moons. I don't think you appreciate just how hard it is for NASA to just launch the Space Shuttle and coordinate unmanned space exploration. Rocket science ain't easy like brain surgery.


#23

GasBandit

GasBandit

20 light years is ~ 117,569,996,000,000 miles.

That is, roughly one hundred seventeen and a half TRILLION miles.

Can't exactly hop in the prius and drive there on a weekend.

The distance to the moon is about 240,000 miles.

It took Apollo 11 around 4 and a half days to get to the moon. Let's be nice and round it off to four. That would mean it covered about 60k miles a day (my dad's station wagon looks on in envy).

That means, at current propulsion levels (and I don't think we travel a whole lot faster in space these days), it would take about 1,959,499,933 days to get there.

1.9 billion days. Hard to wrap your head around a number so big. Maybe if we switch to years...

5,368,492 years. Five point three six eight MILLION years.

You know what happened even around 3 million years ago?

Homo erectus.

It would take us longer to get there than OUR ENTIRE SPECIES HAS EXISTED TO THIS POINT.

Your grand, or great grand, or great great grandchildren will NOT be colonizing this planet. We stand a better chance of terraforming a planet in our own solar system before we reach this one, unless there's a sudden breakthrough in space folding.


#24

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

GasBandit said:
Your grand, or great grand, or great great grandchildren will NOT be colonizing this planet. We stand a better chance of terraforming a planet in our own solar system before we reach this one, unless there's a sudden breakthrough in space folding.
Click to expand...
But what about when the sun dies! Noooooooo...


#25

GasBandit

GasBandit

escushion said:
But what about when the sun dies! Noooooooo...
Click to expand...
Our current best estimate is that the sun will burn out in about 5 billion years. What a coincidence.

Also, consider that the star Gliese 581 is a red dwarf, not a yellow sun... so... no superman. So there.


#26



makare

Does this mean I can stop all this stupid recycling bullshit?


#27

Mathias

Mathias

makare said:
Does this mean I can stop all this stupid recycling bullshit?
Click to expand...
I see what you did there.

Gas, you're off by a factor of 10. It's half a million years; not 5.5 million. But still, it doesn't invalidate your point. 500,000 years ago our ancestors were just about done with flinging poo at each other, and starting to verbally communicate with words.


#28

Dave

Dave

See, I know the math. I also know that currently it would take a couple hundred THOUSAND years to get there. But that's using current technology and not gaining any new. What I'm saying is that this is the perfect carrot to put on the stick for the politicians to refund the space program.


#29

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

A couple hundred thousand at current? Gasbandit's plugging us at 5 million years at current. That's a big difference as to whether it would even be possible in any way.


#30



makare

Still wicked awesome. aw yeah wicked awwwsome.


#31

Mathias

Mathias

Dave said:
See, I know the math. I also know that currently it would take a couple hundred THOUSAND years to get there. But that's using current technology and not gaining any new. What I'm saying is that this is the perfect carrot to put on the stick for the politicians to refund the space program.
Click to expand...
Like I said I don't think the tech is going to advance enough to ever see it happen in our lifetime. Manipulating space-time and gravity is a mighty leap. To be honest right now, it's like a caveman trying to build a computer.


#32

HCGLNS

HCGLNS



#33

Mathias

Mathias

The distance to that solar system is 1.18 x 10^14 miles. Traveling at a velocity of ~24,000 mph (24791 mph to be exact) of Apollo 10, the fasted manned velocity to date = 4.76 x10^9 hours or 1.98 x 10^8 Earth days or 543,355.2 Earth years.


#34

figmentPez

figmentPez

GasBandit said:
That means, at current propulsion levels (and I don't think we travel a whole lot faster in space these days)
Click to expand...
Actually, we can travel faster in space these days, or could if we just threw enough money at the issue. If we really wanted to we could get up to speeds much faster than were used to get the moon, but it would either involve high risk or lots of money/resources (just build a bigger ship that carries more fuel and accelerate longer). There are also various propulsion systems that are in development that promise to provide much more efficient propulsion as well, without the great risk (nuclear pulse propulsion) or cost (conventional chemical propulsion). If ion propulsion pans out it will be roughly 10 times the efficiency of chemical propellants.

If we did build a ship to go to another star, it would be going faster than when we went to the moon.


#35

Mathias

Mathias

HCGLNS said:
Click to expand...
Just think, in about 200,000 years that's what people will think of us!
Added at: 20:57
figmentPez said:
Actually, we can travel faster in space these days, or could if we just threw enough money at the issue. If we really wanted to we could get up to speeds much faster than were used to get the moon, but it would either involve high risk or lots of money/resources (just build a bigger ship that carries more fuel and accelerate longer). There are also various propulsion systems that are in development that promise to provide much more efficient propulsion as well, without the great risk (nuclear pulse propulsion) or cost (conventional chemical propulsion). If ion propulsion pans out it will be roughly 10 times the efficiency of chemical propellants.

If we did build a ship to go to another star, it would be going faster than when we went to the moon.
Click to expand...
Yeah except it'll take a whole shitload of fuel and a shit load of time to accelerate at levels low enough not to kill a person. Realistically you can't have a person even doing 2 g's for like 10 years.


#36



makare

"These people worshiped a... Bieber, apparently."


#37

strawman

strawman

Hey, if the singularity is right around the corner, it won't matter how long it takes.

:awesome:


#38

Mathias

Mathias

stienman said:
Hey, if the singularity is right around the corner, it won't matter how long it takes.

:awesome:
Click to expand...
What I'm hoping is that biotech and physics advances enough that we can simply upload our very consciousness into a collective thought "cloud", and manipulate it somehow as an EM signal. Then (according to relativity), if your conscious mind is zipping around as a light particle you'll pretty much be able to experience anywhere you want to go in an instant; possibly upload your conscious mind in a body 1 billion light years away. Of course, in the mean time, on Earth, your "lifeless" body will sit around relative to observers for a billion years or so. Really, I think that's going to be the secret to the immortality of humanity (if we even make it to that point). The whole concept raises tons of questions fundamentally to the point of what it even means to be human.

And, no, you assholes can't steal this as a novel plot device. I'm already well on my way using it in my own sci fi novel. :unibrow:


#39

figmentPez

figmentPez

Mathias said:
Yeah except it'll take a whole shitload of fuel and a shit load of time to accelerate at levels low enough not to kill a person. Realistically you can't have a person even doing 2 g's for like 10 years.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that the difference is enough to make the trip feasible, just that Gas's assumptions that we can't travel faster than we did to the moon are wrong.


#40

Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Mathias said:
What I'm hoping is that biotech and physics advances enough that we can simply upload our very consciousness into a collective thought "cloud", and manipulate it somehow as an EM signal. Then (according to relativity), if your conscious mind is zipping around as a light particle you'll pretty much be able to experience anywhere you want to go in an instant; possibly upload your conscious mind in a body 1 billion light years away. Of course, in the mean time, on Earth, your "lifeless" body will sit around relative to observers for a billion years or so. Really, I think that's going to be the secret to the immortality of humanity (if we even make it to that point). The whole concept raises tons of questions fundamentally to the point of what it even means to be human.

And, no, you assholes can't steal this as a novel plot device. I'm already well on my way using it in my own sci fi novel. :unibrow:
Click to expand...
A similar idea was briefly explored in part of Asimov's short story The Last Question, which everyone should read.


#41

Mathias

Mathias

figmentPez said:
I'm not saying that the difference is enough to make the trip feasible, just that Gas's assumptions that we can't travel faster than we did to the moon are wrong.
Click to expand...
Well, I think he was referencing current manned space flight. But that's why I included a further example for my model. Even if you could Jimmy a way to go 1000x faster than Apollo 10, you'd still require 550 years to get there. You'd essentially need a self-sustained ark for that kind of trip. Remember 550 years is a long time too. 550 years ago, the Ottoman empire was in full swing taking over most of the civilized world.
Added at: 21:18
Chad Sexington said:
A similar idea was briefly explored in part of Asimov's short story The Last Question, which everyone should read.
Click to expand...
Yeah, is there anything Asimov hasn't done? He's like the fucking HP Lovecraft of science fiction. SIMPSONS' DID IT! And incidentally, that short story is one of the things that helped me to draw inspiration for my own.
Added at: 21:30
Bottom line children:



#42

strawman

strawman

Chad Sexington said:
A similar idea was briefly explored in part of Asimov's short story The Last Question, which everyone should read.
Click to expand...
ftfy


#43



makare

Pastiche is a pain in the ass.


#44

Gusto

Gusto

Hey guys it'll only take less than 5 days!

At warp 9.


#45

figmentPez

figmentPez

I won't take any time at Warp 10!

But you'll turn into an amphibian afterwards.


#46

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

I miss the old 1960's science books I had as a child. The plan to make the trip to Jupiter at a higher velocity was to take a couple of atom bombs into space. The eject an atom bomb into a rocket cone at the far, far end of the craft and detonate... ZOOM! off you go...

Greenpeace had kittens over that plan.


#47

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

All we need to do is find that hidden Prothean technology on mars.


#48

figmentPez

figmentPez

sixpackshaker said:
I miss the old 1960's science books I had as a child. The plan to make the trip to Jupiter at a higher velocity was to take a couple of atom bombs into space. The eject an atom bomb into a rocket cone at the far, far end of the craft and detonate... ZOOM! off you go...
Click to expand...
I remember reading about nuclear pulse propulsion in Footfall, published in 1985. Granted, it wasn't used to travel to Jupiter, but it did power the craft that fought off an invasion of evil elephants.


#49

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

This is all well and good, but it's operating under the assumption that they don't find us first. :aaah:


#50

North_Ranger

North_Ranger

Mathias said:
What I'm hoping is that biotech and physics advances enough that we can simply upload our very consciousness into a collective thought "cloud", and manipulate it somehow as an EM signal. Then (according to relativity), if your conscious mind is zipping around as a light particle you'll pretty much be able to experience anywhere you want to go in an instant; possibly upload your conscious mind in a body 1 billion light years away. Of course, in the mean time, on Earth, your "lifeless" body will sit around relative to observers for a billion years or so. Really, I think that's going to be the secret to the immortality of humanity (if we even make it to that point). The whole concept raises tons of questions fundamentally to the point of what it even means to be human.

And, no, you assholes can't steal this as a novel plot device. I'm already well on my way using it in my own sci fi novel. :unibrow:
Click to expand...
Heh, well if that's the only way to get to the stars then I'm gonna have to refuse. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer this glorified sausage we call the human body over some weird-ass collective mind or being slapped into a metal/plastic body that's probably operating on a system made by the lowest bidder ;) I have infinite faith in the human capacity to muck things up, including but not limited to someone introducing the newly-formed group mind to Goatse.


#51



Overflight

Chad Sexington said:
A similar idea was briefly explored in part of Asimov's short story The Last Question, which everyone should read.
Click to expand...
This. In fact, here's a link. Anyone who hasn't read it, drop what you're doing and read it NOW.


#52

Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

North_Ranger said:
Heh, well if that's the only way to get to the stars then I'm gonna have to refuse. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer this glorified sausage we call the human body over some weird-ass collective mind or being slapped into a metal/plastic body that's probably operating on a system made by the lowest bidder ;) I have infinite faith in the human capacity to muck things up, including but not limited to someone introducing the newly-formed group mind to Goatse.
Click to expand...
Don't worry... I'm sure they'll be able to upload your consciousness into a newly cloned organic body if that's your thing... just so you can continue to enjoy the pantless pleasures of the sauna... ;)


#53

Azurephoenix

Azurephoenix

Overflight said:
This. In fact, here's a link. Anyone who hasn't read it, drop what you're doing and read it NOW.
Click to expand...
That was really a great little short story... makes you think...


#54

evilmike

evilmike

escushion said:
Not to be a party-pooper, but reading the article on the details of the planet, we're looking at:

-twice Earth's gravity
-perpetual murky red twilight on one side of the planet
-nothing but night on the other side, because this planet apparently has one side always facing its sun and the other facing away
-nothing about land mass, just water so far
-mostly CO2 atmosphere, in which we would suffocate

Still, for me it'd be exciting just to find out about animal or plant life on another planet.
Click to expand...
This sounds like a planet designed by Larry Niven.


#55

GasBandit

GasBandit

Off by a factor of 10? Blast, I pulled a Harold.


#56

fade

fade

Saying anything like "current rate of tech development" or "caveman building a computer" is flawed, though. The underlying assumptions are that technology is one thread, and that it's monotonically increasing, neither of which is true. If you drew a graph of tech development in, say, sensor development, the chart would be all over the place. Radar would leap the curve ahead in the 40s by some monstrous amount, only to have the curve backtrack right after that.

Which, Mathias, brings me to a sci-fi story idea I've had: stop assuming all tech develops at the same rate. Have an alien race show up on earth with crudely engineered but highly advanced FTL engines, but horrible computer systems (if even present at all--maybe they navigate by eye). If you think that's impossible, look up some of the mechanical wonders from the time before computers took over all those tasks right here on earth.


#57



Overflight

fade said:
Saying anything like "current rate of tech development" or "caveman building a computer" is flawed, though. The underlying assumptions are that technology is one thread, and that it's monotonically increasing, neither of which is true. If you drew a graph of tech development in, say, sensor development, the chart would be all over the place. Radar would leap the curve ahead in the 40s by some monstrous amount, only to have the curve backtrack right after that.

Which, Mathias, brings me to a sci-fi story idea I've had: stop assuming all tech develops at the same rate. Have an alien race show up on earth with crudely engineered but highly advanced FTL engines, but horrible computer systems (if even present at all--maybe they navigate by eye). If you think that's impossible, look up some of the mechanical wonders from the time before computers took over all those tasks right here on earth.
Click to expand...
Well, Prince of Space had that race of chicken men that had mastered space travel yet had the need of invading Earth for our rocket fuel. :p

(Don't get me wrong, fade: it's a pretty neat idea. It's just that I couldn't help but think of PoS when I heard it)


#58

Dave

Dave

Or have their FTL not be true FTL but instead "psychic" manipulation of space/time or the fabric of existence. In this way they could be just as technologically advanced as us but they have a way to travel that we do not.

It's science fiction, bitches! Anything is possible!


#59

Mathias

Mathias

fade said:
Saying anything like "current rate of tech development" or "caveman building a computer" is flawed, though. The underlying assumptions are that technology is one thread, and that it's monotonically increasing, neither of which is true. If you drew a graph of tech development in, say, sensor development, the chart would be all over the place. Radar would leap the curve ahead in the 40s by some monstrous amount, only to have the curve backtrack right after that.

Which, Mathias, brings me to a sci-fi story idea I've had: stop assuming all tech develops at the same rate. Have an alien race show up on earth with crudely engineered but highly advanced FTL engines, but horrible computer systems (if even present at all--maybe they navigate by eye). If you think that's impossible, look up some of the mechanical wonders from the time before computers took over all those tasks right here on earth.
Click to expand...
I saw Space Cowboys too! ;)


#60

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Fade's post had me thinking about the SR-71 spy-plane. The fastest airplane ever built (officially,) but with low-tech by comparison. Three times the speed of sound using vacuum-tube technology on-board.


#61

fade

fade

Mathias said:
I saw Space Cowboys too! ;)
Click to expand...
I don't get it.
Added at: 23:19
(Never saw that movie--that's probably why.)


#62



Overflight

fade said:
I don't get it.
Added at: 23:19
(Never saw that movie--that's probably why.)
Click to expand...
In that movie, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and the other geezers were sent into space because there's a Russian satellite in need of repair that used stolen propulsion technology designed by Eastwood. The other engineers can't do anything because the tech is so old and the satellite is apparently essential to all Russian communications (though there's a rather stupid "twist" reason) so there's no choice but to send a bunch of old guys into space.


#63

Mathias

Mathias

Overflight said:
In that movie, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and the other geezers were sent into space because there's a Russian satellite in need of repair that used stolen propulsion technology designed by Eastwood. The other engineers can't do anything because the tech is so old and the satellite is apparently essential to all Russian communications (though there's a rather stupid "twist" reason) so there's no choice but to send a bunch of old guys into space.
Click to expand...
No the satellite is told to be a communications satellite with a decaying orbit, but in reality it's an orbiting nuclear arsenal.


#64



Overflight

...yes, that's the stupid "twist" reason. I was trying to avoid spoilers in case anyone wanted to watch this (which granted is kinda stupid for a movie released in 2000)


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