Current Events > Why don't we send a ship of people to a habitable planet?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is it because generations would have to live their entire lives on a ship, and it would be depressing, and they would run out of food?

We haven't found one yet. Nor do we have the capability of making such a trip. Maybe in a few centuries

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

So we're living in a simulation?

Well, first we'd have to find a habitable planet lol

Zikten posted...

We haven't found one yet. Nor do we have the capability of making such a trip. Maybe in a few centuries

This. We've discovered some planets that "might" be able to sustain life, but they're really far away. For example, take this estimate to travel to the nearest star system:

With current propulsion technology only able to move spacecraft at 0.005% of the speed of light, a one-way trip to the star system nearest our Sun, Alpha Centauri, would take 80,000 years to travel the four light-years to our nearest stellar neighbors

Don't have the tech, space travel is way too slow to get anywhere

MC_BatCommander posted...

Don't have the tech, space travel is way too slow to get anywhere

Do you believe we'll ever have the tech?

First of all you'd have to find a habitable planet. You'd then have to perform various tests to make sure we could even survive on said planet. Can we breathe the air? What kinds of germs, bacteria, etc are on said planet? Can we drink the water? Can we eat any of the plant/animal life? What's the gravity like and couod it have any adverse effects on us?

Second, you'd have to have a method of transportation that could get us to said planet within our lifetime. Cryogenic stasis isn't exactly a feasible method to ensure survival. Plus you'd have to account for how unpredictable space is. You'd have to scout out a huge portion of space to account for variables like meteoroids/asteroids, solar winds/flares and other various cosmic events.

Last, we have a habitable planet here. A planet we know we can survive and thrive on. How about we focus our efforts on keeping this planet safe and ensuring that this planet remains habitable until the sun goes Red Giant on us.

Strider102 posted...

Last, we have a habitable planet here. A planet we know we can survive and thrive on. How about we focus our efforts on keeping this planet safe and ensuring that this planet remains habitable until the sun goes Red Giant on us.

Humans are going to kill this planet. It's inevitable.

Pepys Monster posted...

Humans are going to kill this planet. It's inevitable.

nail's already in the coffin bud

Pepys Monster posted...

Humans are going to kill this planet. It's inevitable.

Which is exactly why we shouldn't inhabit other planets. We're already a cancer to this planet. We shouldn't infect other planets.

Don't have the technology to create a self-sustainable space colony yet. If we did send a live ship, they'd have to be able to get to their destination before inbreeding issues set in. We don't have cryo technology yet. We don't have science or AI advanced enough to gestate children outside of a womb yet. Finding such a planet is theoretical at this point. All we can do is use math to determine that a planet may be in a zone in which conditions for life may be present. We lack terraforming technology.

Strider102 posted...

Which is exactly why we shouldn't inhabit other planets. We're already a cancer to this planet. We shouldn't infect other planets.

I think we'll have a better understanding of sustainable living and taking care of the planet when we get to our second one.

Pepys Monster posted...

I think we'll have a better understanding of sustainable living and taking care of the planet when we get to our second one.

lol why

at our current level of ability, it is slightly less unlikely that something is found to save this planet, than it is that something would be found to make it so we can get to other planets and live there

One thing history teaches us is humans never learn from our mistakes

there were already people that had a much better understanding of living and taking care of the planet but europeans crushed them all.

Omnislasher posted...

lol why

People who don't trust science wouldn't get on a space ship.

Strider102 posted...

Which is exactly why we shouldn't inhabit other planets. We're already a cancer to this planet. We shouldn't infect other planets.

So you'd rather we become extinct than to take a chance at a new planet? I mean if you think about it, any civilization that lives on its surroundings needs resources to sustain it self, and has to use more resources the bigger and more technologically advanced it becomes. I think that is universal anywhere you find life.

But that also asks the question: How is this planet going to end? From global warming? Global warming isn't going to kill the planet. It may kill some flora and fauna, but the Earth has withstood several global warming periods in its 3 billion year life.

The thing that will end the planet will be something like Nuclear war or a giant asteroid.

ellis123 posted...

People who don't trust science wouldn't get on a space ship.

there's a strong case to be made that modern science and our pursuit of technology has been a major contributor to our current predicament

Crescente posted...

So you'd rather we become extinct than to take a chance at a new planet? I mean if you think about it, any civilization that lives on its surroundings needs resources to sustain it self, and has to use more resources the bigger and more technologically advanced it becomes. I think that is universal anywhere you find life.

and when that civilization uses its resources at a greater rate than the rate that its environment is able to replenish those resources and assimilate its byproducts/waste, it collapses.
unless you send only people that understand and have a plan for living in accordance with that fact, they're as doomed as we are today.

Omnislasher posted...

there's a strong case to be made that modern science and our pursuit of technology has been a major contributor to our current predicament

Not exactly. It's the act of constantly ignoring our modern science that has put us in this predicament. Hence why socialists blame capitalism and why conservatives blame other conservatives for the state that we are in. It's the same as how Canada destroyed a large part of their fishing industry ages ago: the science was ignored in favor of acting like it couldn't be true.

Crescente posted...

Well, first we'd have to find a habitable planet lol

Earth is a habitable planet.

Pepys Monster posted...

I think we'll have a better understanding of sustainable living and taking care of the planet when we get to our second one.

We have an understanding of taking care of this planet. Our race just gives zero fucks because money.

Crescente posted...

So you'd rather we become extinct than to take a chance at a new planet? I mean if you think about it, any civilization that lives on its surroundings needs resources to sustain it self, and has to use more resources the bigger and more technologically advanced it becomes. I think that is universal anywhere you find life.

But that also asks the question: How is this planet going to end? From global warming? Global warming isn't going to kill the planet. It may kill some flora and fauna, but the Earth has withstood several global warming periods in its 3 billion year life.

The thing that will end the planet will be something like Nuclear war or a giant asteroid.

I'm not saying I want our race to become extinct, but we learn absolutely nothing except how to harm, destroy, and pollute our ecosystem. We have a planet right here we know definitively that we can survive on. Outside of some cosmic event we can do nothing to avert we need to focus our efforts on ensuring that this planet remains habitable above everything else.

i'm fine with colonizing mars
if new generations can develop healthfully in low gravity, ppl manage to create a sustainable colony, and maybe for some reason earth ppl lose the tech to travel in space or suffer a great cataclysm, after a while, intense selection pressures could lead to the formation of new peoples on both planets
i also favor an antarctic colony