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Astronomers: Earth's 'bigger cousin' detected

jayscheuerle said:
Other than the launch from Earth and the landing wherever, it's hard to imagine something more mind-numbing than colonizing a lifeless rock.
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Ah, but it would be an adventure. I'd do it, but I'll be too old when the chance comes :D

And its not just a lifeless rock, there are some really interesting places on Mars and the Moon, different gravity and a different view of the sun and on the Moon, Earth rise, which would be awesome. I don't know if I'd want to do it permanently, but I'd have no problem dealing with an extended stay.

D
 
jayscheuerle said:
Well, as far as we know, by definition...

I'm not saying it wouldn't be interesting, I'm just not convinced that the return is worth the investment when it comes to sending people versus ever smarter probes and landers.
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I wasn't implying that there was life there, just that its not totally barren.

And probes and landers are fine, but at some point we're going to need to get off Earth and start spreading humanity around the solar system and beyond.

You can't do that by sending robots. Besides, all the tech needed to support life on other planets needs to be developed - we have to start somewhere....

D
 
Mr. Anderson said:
And probes and landers are fine, but at some point we're going to need to get off Earth and start spreading humanity around the solar system and beyond.
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Ah, well I don't believe that's ever going to happen other than in movies. Even an Earth that we screw up is going to be far more hospitable than any other place we'll ever reach. Things will get worse here before they get better, but we'll see the light, snip some balls and get our planetary harmony together long before we "colonize" even the moon. We won't have a choice, which is pretty much the ONLY way we get anything done...
 
Once the commercialization of space really begins, I don't think we'll see any turning back. That's going to take a while, but we might see it in our lifetimes. Right now its just a few players, but things will change soon enough - especially with the success of Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites.

D
 
anonymous161 said:
Well let's see, Voyager is the fastest spacecraft we have ever built and it could hit about 36,000 mph, so a ship that fast would travel 15 light years in ....
260,000 years or so. Wow, you are going to be old!! :)
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ah, but using some newer technology, the solar sail stuff they're going to send up soon, we could see speeds of 100,000 mph and that's with out gravity assits....so we could probably make it there in under 80,000 years :D

D
 
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