Earth's Big Cousin

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Once our technology is sufficiently advanced we can freeze zygotes and ship them off with our ships.  When they are within 20-30 years of the planet we defrost those suckers, incubate them with artificial wombs, and have humanoid robots take care of them and raise them.  Educate them with holograms and whatnot.  Imagination is the limit.

Still, we should give up on worrying about planets to colonize and build our own version of the death star.  Without the death though.  Maybe life star, Eh?  No worries about traveling far distances, no weather patterns to worry about, no tectonic plates rumbling all over the place messing everything up, wayward meteors/comets zinging us, etc.

What a terrific plan.  With current technology, it would take just short of 50 million years to reach this particular planet.  But I want to be fair, so let's assume there's a tremendous technological breakthrough, and we can shave 90% of that travel time.  I can't even begin to imagine a technology that would keep zygotes viable for 2 million years (if I could, I could also imagine a technology that would get us 1400 light years by next Wednesday).

Your notion of building an artificial world has a touch more merit, but - aside from the mind-boggling cost - you'd still have most of the problems associated with a terrestrial planet.

I'm afraid that, after all, imagination is not the limit.

Boru

[Exian]

Ok, lets bypass the zygote approach and do this thing biblically. Send a few couples up, have them bang, raise their kids, they have kids, and so on.

At the mid-way point, have a shuttle shoot back this way to see how much of an evolutionary difference has occurred as a side project.

[Rahul]

What a terrific plan.  With current technology, it would take just short of 50 million years to reach this particular planet.  But I want to be fair, so let's assume there's a tremendous technological breakthrough, and we can shave 90% of that travel time.  I can't even begin to imagine a technology that would keep zygotes viable for 2 million years (if I could, I could also imagine a technology that would get us 1400 light years by next Wednesday).

Your notion of building an artificial world has a touch more merit, but - aside from the mind-boggling cost - you'd still have most of the problems associated with a terrestrial planet.

I'm afraid that, after all, imagination is not the limit.

Boru

Pbhtt. People that lived 150 years ago wouldn't even begin to imagine half the things we take for granted today. In a thousand years, if humanity is still around and civilization hasn't collapsed, my premise would not only be technically feasible but probably antiquated and superseded by much better options.

Besides the faster things move the slower time goes. For those that stay behind it may be millions of years. For those traveling close to the speed of light it would be of a much shorter time duration.

[abaris]

Pbhtt.  People that lived 150 years ago wouldn't even begin to imagine half the things we take for granted today.

Don't underestimate our forefathers. There would be quite a lot who would adapt pretty quickly being entirely fascinated by the new possibilities. Science made the great jump in the 19th century and many of it's proponents gave curiosity a new name.

[Rahul]

Don't underestimate our forefathers. There would be quite a lot who would adapt pretty quickly being entirely fascinated by the new possibilities. Science made the great jump in the 19th century and many of it's proponents gave curiosity a new name.

Of course they could adapt. They were in no way stupid. They just lived in a much more primitive time with technology. But back then they would never imagine we could carry around a device in our pocket that we could use to access almost the whole of human knowledge, watch things happening on the other side of the world, and talk to anyone anywhere.

[Alex K]

I know, it's the way they always say it just 1000 light years away, as if anyone alive in the next 1000 years at least is going to live to see it.

That depends entirely on what fraction of c one is traveling and what reference frame you're using.

Counterintuitively, travelling 1000ly at 0.99c won't take anywhere near 1000 years for the passengers

141 years, actually

[Jackalope]

That depends entirely on what fraction of c one is traveling and what reference frame you're using.

Counterintuitively, travelling 1000ly at 0.99c won't take anywhere near 1000 years for the passengers

141 years, actually

I got 142, but who's counting?

[Pyrrho]

That depends entirely on what fraction of c one is traveling and what reference frame you're using.

Counterintuitively, travelling 1000ly at 0.99c won't take anywhere near 1000 years for the passengers

141 years, actually

The thing is, you are not going to be able to start out that fast, and you will need to slow down at the other end.  And if you accelerate or decelerate at a rate greater than 1 g, what will be the long-term affects on the passengers?  And think of the energy necessary to bring a ship to such speeds, a ship that is going to be big enough for people and their provisions for a 141 year trip (which is assuming that you are going to be averaging 0.99c, correct?).

I don't think anyone is ever going to make such a trip.  It seems too fantastical, even forgetting about BrianSoddingBoru4's list of issues, and forgetting about what is going to happen to your ship when you hit even a spec of dust at 0.99c.

[AFTT47]

Yeah, it's hard to see near-c travel as anything but an intellectual exercise.

[Jackalope]

Quite possibly - but it's quite certain that it will never happen if the problem isn't worked on.