6 ms·

Humans will not 'migrate' to exoplanets, Nobel winner says

41 points by bitcharmer 7y ago

luxuryballs 7y ago
Hey at least he says it, sometimes I think half or more of the people who end up famous for some reason and also talk about going to live on other planets are only doing it for the hype. It’s insanely impractical, we’d be millions of times more likely to develop a way of living under the sea than on another planet, and that is only a few hours drive away and nobody wants to live under the sea given current capabilities. Imagine how much worse life on Earth would have to get (and how much better undersea living would have to get) to make it a viable place to raise a family and get old.
- dustingetz 7y ago
  is there money buried under the sea? We all spend 70% of our life living through a screen anyway, what’s the difference
- im3w1l 7y ago
  The main feature of living on another planet is that it's harder for the earthlings to police you and your deviant lifestyle / society.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Actually that would be the worst reason to live on another planet. Take your average totalitarian state. Say China. Multiply times 10. That would be what living on another planet will be like. It wont be some pristine unexplored planet, where you'd be let to go settle anywhere you like, explorer style. At least not on the solar system. It would be something like a small, tightly controlled, and highly co-dependent colony, where everyone must stick together. There will be less room, no places to just roam (except with your suit and air). Away from the food, air, generators etc, would be mostly death. Oh, and at least for the first decades the government and/or some big corporation will select who goes and who can't go. And everybody will be monitored 24/7, first because it would be made with high tech, which can just as easily include tracking chips, smart doors, cameras, and so on, and because if anybody goes crazy/suicidal and does something stupid, they can get everybody killed easily (e.g. sabotage something)... If you want that kind of freedom of being deviant you'd be much more likely to get it in Alaska, Antarctica, Siberia, and so on, than in another planet we're going to go anytime soon... (Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the end of the world" alludes to that, and shows some such types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 ).
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Or it would be like the Puritan settlements in the New World - a totalitarian state, sure, but one that shares that fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever of yours.
      - coldtea 7y ago
        That's unlikely though, because the Puritans went to the New World themselves, on their own means - crossing the ocean, building their cabins, etc. Whereas the space colony will need trillions of dollars to be set up, coughed up by some big government. And they're unlike to send people there to fulfill their fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever lifestyle... Heck, the puritans were persecuted from their old country. No government is going to pay billions to send persecuted people to a space colony... Except if it's a doomed mission, and e.g. they send death row volunteers or something, like The Dirty Dozen movie...
        DuskStar 7y ago
        And you think that going to the New World was cheap? I would have to disagree. Religious groups can bring surprising amounts of money to bear for things that reduce the chance of eternal damnation. If the price of space travel comes down enough for colonies to be viable, I would not be surprised to see a mix of governmental, corporate and religious settlements setup.
        coldtea 7y ago
        >And you think that going to the New World was cheap? Dirt cheap. They were persecuted people, they gathered, paid together for a ship to take them, and landed there. Money weren't that good where they settled, as there was hardly an economy at the time. Most of the stuff they built themselves, started growing, etc.
- shantly 7y ago
  Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch of super-hardened bunkers and pay people to live in them in shifts, cheaper than you could build a Martian colony and move people there. It's less sexy but it gets the job done cheaper, if anyone cares to do it. As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.
  - cryptoz 7y ago
    > As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
    - paulryanrogers 7y ago
      > It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
    - shantly 7y ago
      It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.
- benreesman 7y ago
  This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to efforts to colonize the galaxy. Living in Antarctica or in the middle of the Gobi desert or at the bottom of the ocean (independently and sustainably) are way easier than living on Mars, and that’s orders of magnitude easier than finding and reaching a viable exoplanet. The break even point for living on an exoplanet or Mars is when Earth is the worse environment, and I don’t think even a serious Dinosaur-killer asteroid impact makes Earth less habitable to mammals than anywhere else we know about. Maybe a gamma-ray burst would but at some point if the universe wants you, it’ll get you. Climate change is real, environmental pollution is serious, the powers that be most likely aren’t going to do enough in time, so we’re going to get a screwed-up Earth. But it’ll still be the best place we have access to for living in.
  - me_me_me 7y ago
    I see the point and I wouldn't want to go to live on Mars as the 'first wave', but there are people on earth living in the harshest environments because they are used to living there. Some towns in Russia, or Canada where its deadly cold outside in the winter. Why don't they move out of there? People are more adaptive then you'd give them credit for it.
LiquidSky 7y ago
Clarke’s First Law: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
- kingkawn 7y ago
  Doesnt this negate itself?
  - mLuby 7y ago
    Clarke said it's unlikely for a distinguished but elderly scientist to accurately predict what's unlikely. Clarke was a distinguished but elderly scientist. Therefore it's unlikely that Clarke accurately predicted what's unlikely?
    - tempestn 7y ago
      Clarke stated that distinguished, elderly scientists claiming something is impossible are "very probably" wrong, not that it's impossible for them to be right. (Also he was more of a science fiction writer than a scientist himself, although it would probably be fair to loosely call him a scientist as well.)
      - bostonpete 7y ago
        He also wasn't elderly when he wrote the first law in 1962.
      - mLuby 7y ago
        Good point, edited.
- tempestn 7y ago
  The point he's making isn't really that it's utterly impossible to get to an exoplanet though; it's that it would be completely impractical to migrate there en masse since it would take so long (if indeed we could get there at all), so we need to take care of the planet we have.
mellosouls 7y ago
This isn't about an unimaginative scientist, which could be taken from the headline. Reading the article, while he supports the claim with the impracticality of the science in the foreseeable future, he seems more motivated by his frustration with the idea that if things deteriorate too much here we can just go somewhere else. He wants us to treasure our home. Sounds pretty sensible tbh.
- Certhas 7y ago
  Also note that the headline is wrong. He is talking about planets outside the solar system. Terraforming Mars is quick and easy compared to flying to a more habitable planet.
  - cryptoz 7y ago
    The author isn't just talking about being hard or take a long time, as opposed to quick and easy. The scientist is suggesting that humans will never go; it seems to me that it's much too early into the history of spaceflight to make such a determination.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Not really, there are some pretty hard limits on interstellar travel and humans don't seem particularly suited to the task either in lifespan, general durability and ability to deal with boredom. I like SF quite a bit but I'm well aware of what the 'F' stands for.
    - Certhas 7y ago
      That's an overly literal reading of the statements quoted. The context of the statement is "when it comes to treating our planet well". That is, at the timescales at which we are currently threatening the integrity of the ecosystem (~centuries) interstellar space travel is irrelevant.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > Terraforming Mars is quick and easy compared to flying to a more habitable planet. It's super hard compared to fixing Planet Earth.
vbezhenar 7y ago
Men sailed the seas to find new lands not because they ran out of space, but because they want to explore and spread out. I don't think that it'll change in the future. As soon as economics allows, men will colonize space.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  The Nobel winner, the headline and the article all use gender-neutral language ("humans" is what they chose, over "men" only). Please consider being more inclusive in the future.
  - mLuby 7y ago
    Yes, and there's a good chance those who do make the trip will not be "natural" humans (as hibernation, zero-g adaptations, or increased lifespan would be invaluable in sub-light interstellar trips) or even biological, so… Let's just say people.
  - Smithalicious 7y ago
    Not everything needs to be political. Nitpicking people's speech is not a viable way to push your agenda; it will only turn people off of it.
  - mar77i 7y ago
    I don't want to delegitimize your cause, but I always feel kind of trolled reading lines like yours. > Women and nonbinary people will be there too. You could type that to almost any content out there. A history of topology? Hopefully features humans of all shapes and sizes. Cough syrup in the far future? Will hopefully be available to humans of all shapes and sizes. I wonder, therefore, why even point this out? A history of politics? Hopefully not only features humans of all shapes and sizes, but also, humans of all opinions - because, think about it, some shapes and sizes of humans might have more diverse opinions than others. And now things start to get complicated, because, of course, different humans already have different traits and talents. I somehow believe that I'm not a good political leader, therefore I, up and including today, kept my hands out of political business. Also, I don't want to take that kind of responsibility. Disregarding of whether that is right or wrong, people of my opinion on their own talent in political leadership would stay painfully underrepresented in history books about political matters, and I can't help but think how that could supposedly be anything but fine. So, help me, if you mind: why point out the obvious, again?
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
I suspect that Michel Mayor is right about exoplanets but we might be able to colonize the moon or Mars. I've wondered how evolution will affect humans that are born in space colonies. I would think that over a few generations it would be impossible for a space-born human to return to earth without special equipment. At the very least the difference in gravity would change how much weight our bones can support. I would also think that the increase in radiation would cause many more mutations. So even if we are able to colonize nearby space humans in space colonies would evolve into different human species over time. In some sense, it means that humans, as we are now, could never leave earth and colonize space.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I suspect that Michel Mayor is right about exoplanets but we might be able to colonize the moon or Mars. I've wondered how evolution will affect humans that are born in space colonies. I would think that over a few generations it would be impossible for a space-born human to return to earth without special equipment. Evolution on such things works on the span of tens of thousands of years, not merely "some generations".
cryptoz 7y ago
Is someone really advocating for destroying Earth and moving lightyears away? I've honestly never heard this idea spoken or written down seriously - surely this is the realm of fantasy and science fiction?
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Is someone really advocating for destroying Earth and moving lightyears away? I've honestly never heard this idea spoken or written down seriously - surely this is the realm of fantasy and science fiction? It's part of the "californian ideology" thing (developing from "technological utopianism"). Not suggesting we destroy Earth, but, "well, destroying it isn't that bad, surely technology will (handwaving) get us to another planets, it's (handwaving) inevitable that man will colonize the universe".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Tepix 7y ago
With nanoassemblers we could send just a tiny mass to an exoplanet, then transmit our DNA to spawn life there. The breakthrough project is working on very lightweight probes that travel at super high speeds.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- defterGoose 7y ago
  Nanotech like that is years away albeit possible. The real problem is the tyranny of the rocket equation.
  - Tepix 7y ago
    The rocket equation doesn't apply to probes accelerated by light that do not carry fuel.
stenl 7y ago
The title of the post is wrong though. He’s talking about migrating outside the solar system (i.e. to exoplanets), not just to other planets (e.g. Mars).
- dang 7y ago
  Ok, we'll s/other /exo/ the above. Note that space.
andrewstuart 7y ago
Anyone who thinks we'll ever travel to another solar system really truly fails to understand the distances involved. The furthest humanity has ever travelled, by way of analogy, is a couple of millimeters - to the moon. The nearest star system relatively speaking is another 200 kilometers further. And sure you can appeal to the "well you never know what humans are capable of in the future" line of thinking, but that's really just star trek fantasy - there's not the remotest chance, nada, never. Here's a fun video that explains and will totally dismiss any idea that we'll ever get there - apart from Star Trek fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk
- devoply 7y ago
  To quote dumb and dumber, so you mean there's a chance?
- est31 7y ago
  I doubt that we'll build generational ships with current humans inside. Instead we'll have to find out ways to prepare us ourselves for the journey. E.g. hibernation. Something that changes our perception of time. The Milky way is 100k light years apart. If we manage to travel at an average 0.01c, we can reach any point in the Milky Way in 10 million years. That's still more than ten times shorter than the time span of the dinosaur occupied earth.
- varjag 7y ago
  Are you really seriously suggesting that noone dreaming of interstellar travel appreciates interstellar distances?
- carapace 7y ago
  Not everyone, but most people. I think anyone dreaming of interstellar travel and not also dreaming about human life extension is being silly. Until and unless we can live for at least 10Ky there's almost no point in going beyond the heliopause, unless you just want to live like an anchorite. Just going to space within our own Solar System will be like living (not just working) in a very unsafe mine. Without some sort of "magic" FTL and/or "stasis field" we are as trapped as a beetle on Hawaii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(fiction)
867-5309 7y ago
I will read this fully once Elon wins his Nobel prize..
teslaberry 7y ago
humans will not migrate to or even colonize other planets or the moon until after 2100. as launch costs come down, the probability of colonization by robots divided by the probability of colonization by humans for extended periods of time increases exponentially. some argue as robots prepare the future colong for us, it makes us more likely we will go. perhaps. but our robots suck. it will take ages before they are good enough to prove it is 'safe' for us to colonize another planet. we cannot even safely colonize antarctica. fixed it for you.
jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago
I've come to the realization that planetary colonization is sort of a dangerous and anesthetizing science fiction fantasy. It allows us to mentally defer our reckoning of the finite nature of our planet and its resources.
JesseAldridge 7y ago
> "These planets are much, much too far away. Even in the very optimistic case of a livable planet that is not too far, say a few dozen light years...We are talking about hundreds of millions of days using the means we have available today. We must take care of our planet, it is very beautiful and still absolutely liveable." That's actually a good point and one I hadn't really thought about. The only way I can think of for humanity to get to these other planets would be to build a network of self sustaining space station colonies. And if we can do that we don't really need planets any more.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
droithomme 7y ago
Also, if some distant planet is capable of supporting life, it almost certainly is supporting life, and that life may not be compatible with ours, requiring the extermination of either us or them. Models that claim life is so rare as to be impossible are obviously speculative, and more reasonably deemed wrong.
georgeecollins 7y ago
It would be easier to change humans to be something that could live comfortably on Mars than it would be to make Mars that is comfortable for humans. If Mars is ever really permanently colonized it won't be by "us" as we are now, but maybe something like us. In a similar way I could see something we make traveling out of the solar system, maybe we could even seed life. But it would be something different than us.
lyqwyd 7y ago
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943 Mayor’s claim doesn’t seem any more credible than Watson’s. Mayor might wind up being right, but not due to any deeper insight. It will happen, or it won’t. My opinion is we will do it as long as we don’t destroy ourselves first. He’s also conflating the migration with protecting the earth. I don’t think there are very many credible people saying we should protect the planet as we can migrate to an exoplanet. Protecting the planet is worthwhile, regardless of whether we can flee it.
viach 7y ago
Probably this is not that bad that species which can't manage to sort things out with their own planet are not able to reach other worlds. This is sort of a natural quarantine. Actually I suspect if we knew the attitudes and histories of the other civilizations similar to ours we would be grateful the interstellar distances are that big.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Why is that a problem, when we could have something like an [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder ? Multiplied by so many times across OUR solar system, until the building materials from asteroids, moons, moonlet, whatever runs out? Why would one try to bend another unfriendly or hostile ecosystem into something which supports human life, instead of building one from scratch, with the added benefit of the right (rotational) gravity? Endless solar power. No storms. No quakes. No radiation, if done right?

41 points by bitcharmer 7y ago

Hey at least he says it, sometimes I think half or more of the people who end up famous for some reason and also talk about going to live on other planets are only doing it for the hype. It’s insanely impractical, we’d be millions of times more likely to develop a way of living under the sea than on another planet, and that is only a few hours drive away and nobody wants to live under the sea given current capabilities. Imagine how much worse life on Earth would have to get (and how much better undersea living would have to get) to make it a viable place to raise a family and get old.

dustingetz 7y ago
is there money buried under the sea? We all spend 70% of our life living through a screen anyway, what’s the difference
im3w1l 7y ago
The main feature of living on another planet is that it's harder for the earthlings to police you and your deviant lifestyle / society.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Actually that would be the worst reason to live on another planet. Take your average totalitarian state. Say China. Multiply times 10. That would be what living on another planet will be like. It wont be some pristine unexplored planet, where you'd be let to go settle anywhere you like, explorer style. At least not on the solar system. It would be something like a small, tightly controlled, and highly co-dependent colony, where everyone must stick together. There will be less room, no places to just roam (except with your suit and air). Away from the food, air, generators etc, would be mostly death. Oh, and at least for the first decades the government and/or some big corporation will select who goes and who can't go. And everybody will be monitored 24/7, first because it would be made with high tech, which can just as easily include tracking chips, smart doors, cameras, and so on, and because if anybody goes crazy/suicidal and does something stupid, they can get everybody killed easily (e.g. sabotage something)... If you want that kind of freedom of being deviant you'd be much more likely to get it in Alaska, Antarctica, Siberia, and so on, than in another planet we're going to go anytime soon... (Herzog's documentary "Encounters at the end of the world" alludes to that, and shows some such types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0KzBHJLQ80 ).
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    Or it would be like the Puritan settlements in the New World - a totalitarian state, sure, but one that shares that fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever of yours.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      That's unlikely though, because the Puritans went to the New World themselves, on their own means - crossing the ocean, building their cabins, etc. Whereas the space colony will need trillions of dollars to be set up, coughed up by some big government. And they're unlike to send people there to fulfill their fetish/deviant lifestyle/whatever lifestyle... Heck, the puritans were persecuted from their old country. No government is going to pay billions to send persecuted people to a space colony... Except if it's a doomed mission, and e.g. they send death row volunteers or something, like The Dirty Dozen movie...
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        And you think that going to the New World was cheap? I would have to disagree. Religious groups can bring surprising amounts of money to bear for things that reduce the chance of eternal damnation. If the price of space travel comes down enough for colonies to be viable, I would not be surprised to see a mix of governmental, corporate and religious settlements setup.
        coldtea 7y ago
        >And you think that going to the New World was cheap? Dirt cheap. They were persecuted people, they gathered, paid together for a ship to take them, and landed there. Money weren't that good where they settled, as there was hardly an economy at the time. Most of the stuff they built themselves, started growing, etc.
shantly 7y ago
Earth could take a big ol' comet strike or a nuclear war—or probably both—and still be better able to support human life than Mars is. You could build a bunch of super-hardened bunkers and pay people to live in them in shifts, cheaper than you could build a Martian colony and move people there. It's less sexy but it gets the job done cheaper, if anyone cares to do it. As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  > As for any other reason to live on Mars aside from temporarily in the name of science—I'm not seeing it. Why don't you see the human desire to move to new places? It's a simple matter of wanting to go. No other reason should be required to explain why humans will go live on Mars. It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    That explains why humans want to live on Mars, certainly. But "we really want to" is not, on its own, a compelling reason to spend billions of dollars.
  - paulryanrogers 7y ago
    > It's going to happen simply because people want it to happen. This sounds a lot like the religious arguments for supernatural healing, just have to believe and try. Human willpower is limited by the laws of physics. Barring some fundamental breakthroughs in resource utilization, like cold fusion, I don't see it happening--no matter the desire to do so. And if the cost is making Earth uninhabitable then it'd a be foolish to pursue blindly.
  - shantly 7y ago
    It's an incredibly difficult place to live? It's probably not much easier than living on the Moon, really. A little more gravity but that's about the only useful thing it's got that the Moon doesn't—not enough atmosphere to be much help. That for a months-long travel time, versus days. It'd be like living on top of Everest, but a solid 100x worse in just about every way. It's wicked inhospitable. It's a romantic notion for some because we've got over a century of science fiction about Mars behind us, but it'd be a pretty miserable (and extremely expensive) existence. People'll probably go there at some point. A long-term colony? I really doubt it. It'd be a colossal waste of money more or less doomed to failure.
benreesman 7y ago
This is a really important argument and one that I think gets far too little airtime. It’s just as applicable to efforts to live on e.g. Mars as it is to efforts to colonize the galaxy. Living in Antarctica or in the middle of the Gobi desert or at the bottom of the ocean (independently and sustainably) are way easier than living on Mars, and that’s orders of magnitude easier than finding and reaching a viable exoplanet. The break even point for living on an exoplanet or Mars is when Earth is the worse environment, and I don’t think even a serious Dinosaur-killer asteroid impact makes Earth less habitable to mammals than anywhere else we know about. Maybe a gamma-ray burst would but at some point if the universe wants you, it’ll get you. Climate change is real, environmental pollution is serious, the powers that be most likely aren’t going to do enough in time, so we’re going to get a screwed-up Earth. But it’ll still be the best place we have access to for living in.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  I see the point and I wouldn't want to go to live on Mars as the 'first wave', but there are people on earth living in the harshest environments because they are used to living there. Some towns in Russia, or Canada where its deadly cold outside in the winter. Why don't they move out of there? People are more adaptive then you'd give them credit for it.

LiquidSky 7y ago

Clarke’s First Law: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

kingkawn 7y ago
Doesnt this negate itself?
- mLuby 7y ago
  Clarke said it's unlikely for a distinguished but elderly scientist to accurately predict what's unlikely. Clarke was a distinguished but elderly scientist. Therefore it's unlikely that Clarke accurately predicted what's unlikely?
  - tempestn 7y ago
    Clarke stated that distinguished, elderly scientists claiming something is impossible are "very probably" wrong, not that it's impossible for them to be right. (Also he was more of a science fiction writer than a scientist himself, although it would probably be fair to loosely call him a scientist as well.)
    - bostonpete 7y ago
      He also wasn't elderly when he wrote the first law in 1962.
    - mLuby 7y ago
      Good point, edited.
tempestn 7y ago
The point he's making isn't really that it's utterly impossible to get to an exoplanet though; it's that it would be completely impractical to migrate there en masse since it would take so long (if indeed we could get there at all), so we need to take care of the planet we have.

mellosouls 7y ago

This isn't about an unimaginative scientist, which could be taken from the headline. Reading the article, while he supports the claim with the impracticality of the science in the foreseeable future, he seems more motivated by his frustration with the idea that if things deteriorate too much here we can just go somewhere else. He wants us to treasure our home. Sounds pretty sensible tbh.

Certhas 7y ago
Also note that the headline is wrong. He is talking about planets outside the solar system. Terraforming Mars is quick and easy compared to flying to a more habitable planet.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  The author isn't just talking about being hard or take a long time, as opposed to quick and easy. The scientist is suggesting that humans will never go; it seems to me that it's much too early into the history of spaceflight to make such a determination.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Not really, there are some pretty hard limits on interstellar travel and humans don't seem particularly suited to the task either in lifespan, general durability and ability to deal with boredom. I like SF quite a bit but I'm well aware of what the 'F' stands for.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    That's an overly literal reading of the statements quoted. The context of the statement is "when it comes to treating our planet well". That is, at the timescales at which we are currently threatening the integrity of the ecosystem (~centuries) interstellar space travel is irrelevant.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > Terraforming Mars is quick and easy compared to flying to a more habitable planet. It's super hard compared to fixing Planet Earth.

vbezhenar 7y ago

Men sailed the seas to find new lands not because they ran out of space, but because they want to explore and spread out. I don't think that it'll change in the future. As soon as economics allows, men will colonize space.

cryptoz 7y ago
The Nobel winner, the headline and the article all use gender-neutral language ("humans" is what they chose, over "men" only). Please consider being more inclusive in the future.
- mLuby 7y ago
  Yes, and there's a good chance those who do make the trip will not be "natural" humans (as hibernation, zero-g adaptations, or increased lifespan would be invaluable in sub-light interstellar trips) or even biological, so… Let's just say people.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  Not everything needs to be political. Nitpicking people's speech is not a viable way to push your agenda; it will only turn people off of it.
- mar77i 7y ago
  I don't want to delegitimize your cause, but I always feel kind of trolled reading lines like yours. > Women and nonbinary people will be there too. You could type that to almost any content out there. A history of topology? Hopefully features humans of all shapes and sizes. Cough syrup in the far future? Will hopefully be available to humans of all shapes and sizes. I wonder, therefore, why even point this out? A history of politics? Hopefully not only features humans of all shapes and sizes, but also, humans of all opinions - because, think about it, some shapes and sizes of humans might have more diverse opinions than others. And now things start to get complicated, because, of course, different humans already have different traits and talents. I somehow believe that I'm not a good political leader, therefore I, up and including today, kept my hands out of political business. Also, I don't want to take that kind of responsibility. Disregarding of whether that is right or wrong, people of my opinion on their own talent in political leadership would stay painfully underrepresented in history books about political matters, and I can't help but think how that could supposedly be anything but fine. So, help me, if you mind: why point out the obvious, again?

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

I suspect that Michel Mayor is right about exoplanets but we might be able to colonize the moon or Mars. I've wondered how evolution will affect humans that are born in space colonies. I would think that over a few generations it would be impossible for a space-born human to return to earth without special equipment. At the very least the difference in gravity would change how much weight our bones can support. I would also think that the increase in radiation would cause many more mutations. So even if we are able to colonize nearby space humans in space colonies would evolve into different human species over time. In some sense, it means that humans, as we are now, could never leave earth and colonize space.

coldtea 7y ago
>I suspect that Michel Mayor is right about exoplanets but we might be able to colonize the moon or Mars. I've wondered how evolution will affect humans that are born in space colonies. I would think that over a few generations it would be impossible for a space-born human to return to earth without special equipment. Evolution on such things works on the span of tens of thousands of years, not merely "some generations".

cryptoz 7y ago

Is someone really advocating for destroying Earth and moving lightyears away? I've honestly never heard this idea spoken or written down seriously - surely this is the realm of fantasy and science fiction?

coldtea 7y ago
>Is someone really advocating for destroying Earth and moving lightyears away? I've honestly never heard this idea spoken or written down seriously - surely this is the realm of fantasy and science fiction? It's part of the "californian ideology" thing (developing from "technological utopianism"). Not suggesting we destroy Earth, but, "well, destroying it isn't that bad, surely technology will (handwaving) get us to another planets, it's (handwaving) inevitable that man will colonize the universe".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Tepix 7y ago

With nanoassemblers we could send just a tiny mass to an exoplanet, then transmit our DNA to spawn life there. The breakthrough project is working on very lightweight probes that travel at super high speeds.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
defterGoose 7y ago
Nanotech like that is years away albeit possible. The real problem is the tyranny of the rocket equation.
- Tepix 7y ago
  The rocket equation doesn't apply to probes accelerated by light that do not carry fuel.

stenl 7y ago

The title of the post is wrong though. He’s talking about migrating outside the solar system (i.e. to exoplanets), not just to other planets (e.g. Mars).

dang 7y ago
Ok, we'll s/other /exo/ the above. Note that space.

andrewstuart 7y ago

Anyone who thinks we'll ever travel to another solar system really truly fails to understand the distances involved. The furthest humanity has ever travelled, by way of analogy, is a couple of millimeters - to the moon. The nearest star system relatively speaking is another 200 kilometers further. And sure you can appeal to the "well you never know what humans are capable of in the future" line of thinking, but that's really just star trek fantasy - there's not the remotest chance, nada, never. Here's a fun video that explains and will totally dismiss any idea that we'll ever get there - apart from Star Trek fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCSIXLIzhzk

devoply 7y ago
To quote dumb and dumber, so you mean there's a chance?
est31 7y ago
I doubt that we'll build generational ships with current humans inside. Instead we'll have to find out ways to prepare us ourselves for the journey. E.g. hibernation. Something that changes our perception of time. The Milky way is 100k light years apart. If we manage to travel at an average 0.01c, we can reach any point in the Milky Way in 10 million years. That's still more than ten times shorter than the time span of the dinosaur occupied earth.
varjag 7y ago
Are you really seriously suggesting that noone dreaming of interstellar travel appreciates interstellar distances?
carapace 7y ago
Not everyone, but most people. I think anyone dreaming of interstellar travel and not also dreaming about human life extension is being silly. Until and unless we can live for at least 10Ky there's almost no point in going beyond the heliopause, unless you just want to live like an anchorite. Just going to space within our own Solar System will be like living (not just working) in a very unsafe mine. Without some sort of "magic" FTL and/or "stasis field" we are as trapped as a beetle on Hawaii. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(fiction) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasis_(fiction)

867-5309 7y ago

I will read this fully once Elon wins his Nobel prize..

teslaberry 7y ago

humans will not migrate to or even colonize other planets or the moon until after 2100. as launch costs come down, the probability of colonization by robots divided by the probability of colonization by humans for extended periods of time increases exponentially. some argue as robots prepare the future colong for us, it makes us more likely we will go. perhaps. but our robots suck. it will take ages before they are good enough to prove it is 'safe' for us to colonize another planet. we cannot even safely colonize antarctica. fixed it for you.

jeffk_teh_haxor 7y ago

I've come to the realization that planetary colonization is sort of a dangerous and anesthetizing science fiction fantasy. It allows us to mentally defer our reckoning of the finite nature of our planet and its resources.

JesseAldridge 7y ago

> "These planets are much, much too far away. Even in the very optimistic case of a livable planet that is not too far, say a few dozen light years...We are talking about hundreds of millions of days using the means we have available today. We must take care of our planet, it is very beautiful and still absolutely liveable." That's actually a good point and one I hadn't really thought about. The only way I can think of for humanity to get to these other planets would be to build a network of self sustaining space station colonies. And if we can do that we don't really need planets any more.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

droithomme 7y ago

Also, if some distant planet is capable of supporting life, it almost certainly is supporting life, and that life may not be compatible with ours, requiring the extermination of either us or them. Models that claim life is so rare as to be impossible are obviously speculative, and more reasonably deemed wrong.

georgeecollins 7y ago

It would be easier to change humans to be something that could live comfortably on Mars than it would be to make Mars that is comfortable for humans. If Mars is ever really permanently colonized it won't be by "us" as we are now, but maybe something like us. In a similar way I could see something we make traveling out of the solar system, maybe we could even seed life. But it would be something different than us.

lyqwyd 7y ago

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943 Mayor’s claim doesn’t seem any more credible than Watson’s. Mayor might wind up being right, but not due to any deeper insight. It will happen, or it won’t. My opinion is we will do it as long as we don’t destroy ourselves first. He’s also conflating the migration with protecting the earth. I don’t think there are very many credible people saying we should protect the planet as we can migrate to an exoplanet. Protecting the planet is worthwhile, regardless of whether we can flee it.

viach 7y ago

Probably this is not that bad that species which can't manage to sort things out with their own planet are not able to reach other worlds. This is sort of a natural quarantine. Actually I suspect if we knew the attitudes and histories of the other civilizations similar to ours we would be grateful the interstellar distances are that big.

LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago

Why is that a problem, when we could have something like an [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder ? Multiplied by so many times across OUR solar system, until the building materials from asteroids, moons, moonlet, whatever runs out? Why would one try to bend another unfriendly or hostile ecosystem into something which supports human life, instead of building one from scratch, with the added benefit of the right (rotational) gravity? Endless solar power. No storms. No quakes. No radiation, if done right?