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More exciting news from NASA today.
Remember the name Kepler 452b. Because in our search to discover if we are alone in this vast and fascinating universe, a sole life-harboring world among countless dead and uninhabitable planets, we may finally have a true candidate for Earth 2.0.

For the first time, scientists have found what appears to be a rocky world orbiting a Sun-like star at almost exactly the same distance that Earth orbits our own Sun. While other potential habitable planets have been found before, this is the first that could plausibly be another Earth. This might be the real deal, people.

Kepler 452b, found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, is located 1,400 light-years from us. It orbits a star that is 4% more massive and 10% brighter than our Sun. The planet itself is 1.6 times the size of Earth – making it a super-Earth – but the scientists are fairly sure that it is a rocky world, owing to its size and the type of star it orbits.

Its orbit, 384.84 Earth days and 5% more distant than our planet is from the Sun, places it right in its star’s habitable zone, where it is not too hot or cold for liquid water to form: the same region Earth is in around the Sun. This is not the first Earth-sized planet found in a habitable zone; last year, the world was abuzz with the discovery of Kepler 186f, more similar in size to Earth. But that planet orbited a red dwarf star, smaller and cooler than the Sun. Kepler 452b, excitingly, orbits almost an exact clone of the Sun.

http://www.iflscience.com/say-hello-earth-20-historic-kepler-discovery-suggests-we-are-not-alone
 
I saw this in the news the other day too. Very exciting to see and find Class M planets like this!

Sadly though, I fear, that we may never achieve the technology to travel those distances. But there are theory's and ideas of sending robots with human DNA or test-tube baby contraptions that can automate the human creation process upon arrival at one of these planets.

So if that were feasible to do, it could help to ensure the continuation of our species after 1400 years in space, IF, we could achieve light speed, which I have my doubts.
 
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Read about this yesterday. Very interesting, and thanks for posting the link.

Now we just need to the technology to reach there.

Hm. Well, I rather suspect that the technology may not prove to be the problem - eventually. Rather, we will. We have evolved to - and adapted to - the conditions of or home planet; the technology may eventually develop to allow such travel, but whether we could cope with its rigours is another matter entirely.

I saw this in the news the other day too. Very exciting to see and find Class M planets like this!

Sadly though, I fear, that we may never achieve the technology to travel those distances. But there are theory's and ideas of sending robots with human DNA or test-tube baby contraptions that can automate the human creation process upon arrival at one of these planets.

So if that were feasible to do, it could help to ensure the continuation of our species after 1400 years in space, IF, we could achieve light speed, which I have my doubts.

Well, I suspect that sooner or later (most likely later) we may well evolve the required technology to allow for such travel. However, whether we ourselves - given that we have evolved to deal with the specific circumstances of our home planet - could deal with the rigours of such travel, and with somewhat similar - but not identical conditions - elsewhere - is a rather different matter.
 
If we achieve 13% light speed (feasible in the next 100-200 years) it would take 13,334 years to reach Kepler 452b.

The scale of the universe is beyond human ken.
I love that phrase that says: there are two infinite things in the world, the universe and human stupidity and we are not sure about the universe.

Have a lovely weekend guys. Use protection.
 
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If we achieve 13% light speed (feasible in the next 100-200 years) it would take 13,334 years to reach Kepler 452b.

The scale of the universe is beyond human ken.

That is 87,000,000 miles per hour. I think the fastest we have managed to travel is in the 30,000 miles per hour range. Unfortunately I think your timeframe is just a tad optimistic.
 
That is 87,000,000 miles per hour. I think the fastest we have managed to travel is in the 30,000 miles per hour range. Unfortunately I think your timeframe is just a tad optimistic.
To the best of my knowledge, the Helios spacecraft (1974), with a gravity assist from the Sun, propelled it to 157,078 mph is the fastest man-made object in space.

Yet, laughably too slow to get us anywhere...
 
To the best of my knowledge, the Helios spacecraft (1974), with a gravity assist from the Sun, propelled it to 157,078 mph is the fastest man-made object in space.

Yet, laughably too slow to get us anywhere...

When you look at the pace of technological change and innovation over the past two hundred years - two hundred years ago steam had barely begun to power industrial change, let alone power ships and railways; one hundred years ago, the internal combustion engine had barely begun to displace the horse, and aeroplanes were held together with twine and wooden struts - and look at the transformative changes in medicine, rocketry, economies, societies, information technology in that time - it would be foolish to discount the (possible) development of faster and more powerful rockets and other forms of interstellar transport in the (medium to far) future.

Personally, I don't discount the development of a technology which may allow for interstellar transport - at speed - sometime in the next half century, or century or two. We don't have the technology now. But - if past patterns are any guide, some source of power, married to technological breakthroughs, may allow for this.

However, and it is a big however: I don't think that we - our species - may be quite as a adaptable to interstellar space travel, unless we can transport our environment with us. We evolved to be compatible with a particular set of physical circumstances unique to our planet; a certain amount of heat and light from a nearby star of reliable proximity; a certain gravity (within parameters); a specific combination of life-supporting gases (approx 20% oxygen), and so on.

My view is that - long term - and any such dreams will be long term dreams - we will be the weak link in space travel, not our technology. The data which the ISS (and the Russians, years before that) have managed to put together about the long term effects of - for example - weightlessness in space - on the human frame (re bone mass, heart mass, muscle mass and much of human physiology) ought to be serious food for thought for anyone contemplating long distance space travel in the future.
 
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To the best of my knowledge, the Helios spacecraft (1974), with a gravity assist from the Sun, propelled it to 157,078 mph is the fastest man-made object in space.

Yet, laughably too slow to get us anywhere...

Thanks for that information. The Helios probes went into orbit around the sun which accounts for their high velocity. Voyager 2 has a speed of around 17 km/s (38,000 mph). I found an interesting article that you might like too.

In 2018 though, a new NASA mission - Solar Probe Plus - will be launched. Designed to come as close as 8.5 solar radii to the Sun (that's about about 5.9 million kilometers or 3.7 million miles), it will hit orbital velocities as high as 200 kilometers a second (450,000 miles an hour).

To just put that incredible figure into perspective - going this fast would get you from the Earth to the Moon in about 1/2 an hour. It is also about 0.067% the speed of light.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-fastest-spacecraft-ever/
 
That is 87,000,000 miles per hour. I think the fastest we have managed to travel is in the 30,000 miles per hour range. Unfortunately I think your timeframe is just a tad optimistic.

I... Think you need to read up on your physics... Unless we invent some kind of Star Trek style warp drive, then no, we won't be going at anywhere near just 1% of c.

I used Project Daedalus as my baseline. I think a project of this scale will be easily achievable in the next 100-200 years.

To reach Barnard's Star in 50 years (the flight time allotted in the study), a spacecraft would need to cruise at about 12 percent of the speed of light, or 36,000 km/s. This being far beyond the scope of a chemical rocket, the Daedalus team had to consider less conventional alternatives.
 
Thanks for that information. The Helios probes went into orbit around the sun which accounts for their high velocity. Voyager 2 has a speed of around 17 km/s (38,000 mph). I found an interesting article that you might like too.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-fastest-spacecraft-ever/
That's interesting, I hadn't heard of the project previously, thanks!

going this fast would get you from the Earth to the Moon in about 1/2 an hour.

That's very quick. Of course that would be just passing by to make that time. If the destination were the Moon, it would take longer than 30 minutes due to acceleration time from Earth and deceleration time on approach to the Moon.

I ponder things like that from time to time when I think of space travel, usually when I'm watching some sci-fi or documentaries on the Science Channel.

I think about if we could achieve light speed, laws of physics aside (mass increases the faster you go, and more fuel is needed to push that mass faster and faster, yet how do you carry it with you? is a catch-22), going from point A to point B how long would it take to get to light speed, and then how far out and how long would it take to decelerate to arrive at point B safely?

Naturally, there are many variables included in such a question and more details would be needed to work out a practical plan and equation for such a question. But, I still like to think of the possibilities in my mind.
 
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I think the current type of technology will never evolve enough to get us at such speeds and times required for such travels. The technology we currently use is tailored and bound to earth's practical uses, and can only be extended and evolved under these bounds. The solution will never come by just evolving to build a much faster rocket, a bigger spaceship or much stronger thrusters. Heck, even math have come to a dead-end when they face interstellar concepts. We need a real technological revolution that should be developed from scratch, based on a more analogue model, on a totally different philosophy, liberated from quantity numbers (how big is the spaceship, how much fuel can we carry, how fast will it travel).

This might come, or not. For sure, though, our evolution so far does not guarantee such thing.
 
Sadly though, I fear, that we may never achieve the technology to travel those distances. But there are theory's and ideas of sending robots...

You don't actually have to go there to find out more about the planet. What's needed is a family large telescope in space with a chronograph and spectrometer. A spectra of the atmosphere would tell you a LOT.

Almost certainly humans would not be able to live on it. Even here on Earth, for most of Earth's existence humans would not have been able to live on Earth. At first there was no oxygen. It took billions of years for photosynthesis to evolve

I would expect very simple microscopic life at most,
 
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I think the current type of technology will never evolve enough to get us at such speeds and times required for such travels.

Humans will never travel such distances. However one day will will have truly intelligent machines and THEY might travel great distances. They can simply switch themselves off for 10,000 years and go into a deep sleep.

We will see these machines as peers, as "people". it will be a one way trip. No reason to send humans to a place they could never live.
 
You don't actually have to go there to find out more about the planet. What's needed is a family large telescope in space with a chronograph and spectrometer. A spectra of the atmosphere would tell you a LOT.

Almost certainly humans would not be able to live on it. Even here on Earth, for most of Earth's existence humans would not have been able to live on Earth. At first there was no oxygen. It took billions of years for photosynthesis to evolve

I would expect very simple microscopic life at most,

Good post and fair comment.

Well, something that may be termed 'life' could well have evolved there, but not an understanding of 'life' that would be compatible to our quite specific - and evolved - needs.
 
Humans will never travel such distances. However one day will will have truly intelligent machines and THEY might travel great distances. They can simply switch themselves off for 10,000 years and go into a deep sleep.

We will see these machines as peers, as "people". it will be a one way trip. No reason to send humans to a place they could never live.

But what would be the point of such thing ? After 10k years who is going to actually evaluate the info from such a travel and who would actually start such a project that might return some results 10k years later ?

That is actually my whole point; These values are huge for us to make any use of them, either it is a human that will make the travels or not. A few posts above there's another excellent argument that points towards the same direction; What will happen if the destination is long gone just because our technology does not allow us to be aware of that beforehand ?

I strongly believe that when discussion concerns interstellar travels, we should develop a technology starting from the total zero. Something that will target to light-speed travels, or something that will allow us to experiment and implement theories like wormholes (at least inside the boundaries described by Stephen Hawking and others).
 
Linear travel will never be a realistic approach to interstellar travel. You'll have to think wormhole kind of technology to get somewhere. Phasing in and out of dimensions, teleporting, that kind of stuff. We know that stuff is possible on a quantum scale, we just have to make it work on a larger scale.
 
Does anyone with a Twitter account follow astronaut Scott Kelly? He's the man who is living on the ISS for a full year as part of the trip to Mars project.

Anyway, I follow his account and he posts some of the most amazing photos of the Earth, and space all the time.

https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly

Even if you don't have Twitter, you can click and bookmark the link above to view his feed.

Screen Shot 2015-08-30 at 7.49.48 AM.png
Screen Shot 2015-08-30 at 7.49.14 AM.png
 
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Linear travel will never be a realistic approach to interstellar travel. You'll have to think wormhole kind of technology to get somewhere. Phasing in and out of dimensions, teleporting, that kind of stuff. We know that stuff is possible on a quantum scale, we just have to make it work on a larger scale.

I know this is going to sound a bit off the wall .... but I have had two experiences of 'possible' phasing in and out of dimensions, in a small way this year ..... either that or dementia is setting in rapidly!
Let me explain.
In March I was going out to work and reached for my hat and gloves on the peg I usually keep them .... they weren't there ..... so I looked around the house and all the places they could be - no sign .... I live alone and nobody had been in the house(no sign of break-in) ..... I went to work, searched there and asked around ..... no luck ..... returned home ..... opened locked door .... hat and gloves sitting on very same peg! Weird .... I had touched the peg earlier so figured either my consciousness didn't register their presence (dementia?) or ..... something made them temporarily drop into another dimension?

Last week, similar .... I deliver lab work to dentists, multi-drop ..... I log on a sheet and check what I deliver .... about to do a drop ..... noticed one sample missing in the log ..... looked all round basket, car, under seat etc .... double checked numbers to determine which was missing ..... resigned to fact I had left it back at lab ..... made delivery of remainder ..... got back to car to find missing sample was in basket on the top ..... in clear view. Mmmm ..... double weird .... either I need to see a Doctor pronto (I have a good memory apart from these incidents by the way! and no other health issues of note) ..... or something is trying to delay me on my journey?

Could little incidents like this show there is a multi-dimensional existence out there that Quantum Physicists talk about? ....... that may be exploited in the future for possible long distance, wormhole space travel?
 
I know this is going to sound a bit off the wall .... but I have had two experiences of 'possible' phasing in and out of dimensions, in a small way this year ..... either that or dementia is setting in rapidly!
Let me explain.
In March I was going out to work and reached for my hat and gloves on the peg I usually keep them .... they weren't there ..... so I looked around the house and all the places they could be - no sign .... I live alone and nobody had been in the house(no sign of break-in) ..... I went to work, searched there and asked around ..... no luck ..... returned home ..... opened locked door .... hat and gloves sitting on very same peg! Weird .... I had touched the peg earlier so figured either my consciousness didn't register their presence (dementia?) or ..... something made them temporarily drop into another dimension?

Last week, similar .... I deliver lab work to dentists, multi-drop ..... I log on a sheet and check what I deliver .... about to do a drop ..... noticed one sample missing in the log ..... looked all round basket, car, under seat etc .... double checked numbers to determine which was missing ..... resigned to fact I had left it back at lab ..... made delivery of remainder ..... got back to car to find missing sample was in basket on the top ..... in clear view. Mmmm ..... double weird .... either I need to see a Doctor pronto (I have a good memory apart from these incidents by the way! and no other health issues of note) ..... or something is trying to delay me on my journey?

Could little incidents like this show there is a multi-dimensional existence out there that Quantum Physicists talk about? ....... that may be exploited in the future for possible long distance, wormhole space travel?

Interesting story. Personally I do believe in multiple dimensions and as I said before, this has been observed on a quantum scale many times.

One thing is for sure, rockets and radio waves are not the future ;)
 
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