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12 light years is actually very close as interstellar distances go. Such a mission could probably be launched in our lifetimes if the whole world got together b

12 light years is actually very close as interstellar distances go. Such a mission could probably be launched in our lifetimes if the whole world got together behind it (which they won't but still...)

dmix 9y ago
Which has fascinating implications when considering extraterrestrial life. But at the same time it's entirely possible that the closest other life is extremely far away which would make any theoretical travel time be too long to meaningfully discover earth. Does anyone recommend any books that have explored these ideas?
jogjayr 9y ago
From a practical standpoint though (assuming that every nation decided to work together) how would such a mission work? We'd most likely need a generation ship, given that current estimates of max velocity is in the range of 0.5 to 0.8c. That means spending trillions of dollars and putting thousands of people in a ship in orbit, sending them off and most likely never seeing them again. But before that we'd want to send unmanned probes to: a) test out the propulsion and other systems b) scout the planets themselves, identify a good candidate But the probe itself would take 20-30 years to reach + 12 more to report back. Otherwise you're asking thousands to be explorers and guinea pigs for all this technology, with no guarantees about finding a habitable planet or coming back home. With something like the Mars mission you'd probably get volunteers without any family. People would be far more reluctant if it's a generation ship.
- kuschku 9y ago
  > Otherwise you're asking thousands to be explorers and guinea pigs for all this technology, with no guarantees about finding a habitable planet or coming back home. That sounds like Mass Effect: Andromeda. Which is basically about that, humanity sending a sleeper ark to another galaxy (due to a perceived threat that might wipe out humanity in our galaxy), with no guarantee that there will be something there (although they did do some telescope measurements of the potential planets there).
pizza 9y ago
Developing lifetime extension & stasis technology is a way to significantly increase the amount of space we can have access to.

dmix 9y ago

Which has fascinating implications when considering extraterrestrial life. But at the same time it's entirely possible that the closest other life is extremely far away which would make any theoretical travel time be too long to meaningfully discover earth. Does anyone recommend any books that have explored these ideas?

jogjayr 9y ago

From a practical standpoint though (assuming that every nation decided to work together) how would such a mission work? We'd most likely need a generation ship, given that current estimates of max velocity is in the range of 0.5 to 0.8c. That means spending trillions of dollars and putting thousands of people in a ship in orbit, sending them off and most likely never seeing them again. But before that we'd want to send unmanned probes to: a) test out the propulsion and other systems b) scout the planets themselves, identify a good candidate But the probe itself would take 20-30 years to reach + 12 more to report back. Otherwise you're asking thousands to be explorers and guinea pigs for all this technology, with no guarantees about finding a habitable planet or coming back home. With something like the Mars mission you'd probably get volunteers without any family. People would be far more reluctant if it's a generation ship.

kuschku 9y ago
> Otherwise you're asking thousands to be explorers and guinea pigs for all this technology, with no guarantees about finding a habitable planet or coming back home. That sounds like Mass Effect: Andromeda. Which is basically about that, humanity sending a sleeper ark to another galaxy (due to a perceived threat that might wipe out humanity in our galaxy), with no guarantee that there will be something there (although they did do some telescope measurements of the potential planets there).

pizza 9y ago

Developing lifetime extension & stasis technology is a way to significantly increase the amount of space we can have access to.