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Transport rockets would cost a lot, and we would have nothing to start out with. All the everyday facts would be gone , lIke the time in a day, clean water or dirty, on so on. Only if teleportation devices were here.
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We would probably keep the normal day/night cycle until we get close enough to measure the planets rotation (or we find out from a probe beforehand).
As for nothing to start with, either bring the neccesary materials to build or at least the equipment to use the planets resources.
True, standard chemical transport rockets would cost alot and even if you could pack enough fuel, it would take a HELL of a long time, we're talking about multigenerational slowboats here.
While we certainly have technologies that would let us make a colony ship, it would still be a multigenerational ship.
As far as clean water or dirty, we have the technology NOW to filter clean water, I don't think that will be a problem.
The whole colonization of distant planets is covered TONS of times in Sci Fiction and there is plenty of discussion about it. However, we don't even have a permanent offworld colony in our solar system yet, so we should gain experience by colonizing mars and luna first.
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We would probably keep the normal day/night cycle until we get close enough to measure the planets rotation (or we find out from a probe beforehand).
As for nothing to start with, either bring the neccesary materials to build or at least the equipment to use the planets resources.
True, standard chemical transport rockets would cost alot and even if you could pack enough fuel, it would take a HELL of a long time, we're talking about multigenerational slowboats here.
While we certainly have technologies that would let us make a colony ship, it would still be a multigenerational ship.
As far as clean water or dirty, we have the technology NOW to filter clean water, I don't think that will be a problem.
The whole colonization of distant planets is covered TONS of times in Sci Fiction and there is plenty of discussion about it. However, we don't even have a permanent offworld colony in our solar system yet, so we should gain experience by colonizing mars and luna first.
i doubt measuring rotation would be hard. We already know rotational periods of most bodies in the solar system.
The ship would either have to be self-sustaining or have a lot of supplies. The ship would be built and launched in from an orbital space station. mars and the moon you'd have to terraform. However all the water required to create oceans like the Earth on mars would have to be extracted from pluto. There aren't enough on asteroids that are easily obtainable.
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Except Pluto* won't be in an extrasolar system, which is what bong is talking about.
There could be other Oort cloud derived dwarf planets though.
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Except Pluto* won't be in an extrasolar system, which is what bong is talking about.
There could be other Oort cloud derived dwarf planets though.
he was talking about an extrasolar habitable planet, which would, by definition, have wate.r
you were saying something about colonization of mars which would require terraforming, which would require water
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I didn't actually say anything about terraforming, but yes there are plans to terraform Mars. Other than the water from the north pole (the south one is mainly dry ice), I'm not sure what the various plans are about getting water to Mars, and BTW, there are plenty of sources alot closer than Pluto, short period comets for example, icy asteroids, heck, even the moons of Jupiter and Saturn could provide ice.
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I didn't actually say anything about terraforming, but yes there are plans to terraform Mars. Other than the water from the north pole (the south one is mainly dry ice), I'm not sure what the various plans are about getting water to Mars, and BTW, there are plenty of sources alot closer than Pluto, short period comets for example, icy asteroids, heck, even the moons of Jupiter and Saturn could provide ice.
asteroids couldn't work and neither could comets.
I did the calculations. If you wanted to make the oceans on mars as large as those on earth, proportionally, you'd need to capture and collide mars with practically every comet and asteroid in the oort cloud.
And the moons and jupiter and saturn might be potential colonization targets in the future, but they'd work.
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would a moon work?( to be habitable) the definitions arn't very clear to me.
"the earth's natural satellite, orbiting the earth at a mean distance of 238,857 miles (384,393 km) and having a diameter of 2160 miles (3476 km)." or "any planetary satellite: the moons of Jupiter."said dictionary.com. it might be habitable, like Titan orbitiong Saturn. Just has to be big enough
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can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P
no
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can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P
no
If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there.
@bong: You're probably misunderstanding the fact that having a moon stabilizes the wobble of the Earths axis. Without one, it would go all over the place. Not having a moon won't neccesarily make it uninhabitable, just really tough to survive on due to the extreme seasons.
@mudkipz: Who said anything about making oceans equivalent to Earths? They could be used to help supply the colonies and to supplement the water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars. Mars likely had oceans once and theres probably enough ice to make shallow oceans.
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can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time? :P
no
If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there.
@bong: You're probably misunderstanding the fact that having a moon stabilizes the wobble of the Earths axis. Without one, it would go all over the place. Not having a moon won't neccesarily make it uninhabitable, just really tough to survive on due to the extreme seasons.
@mudkipz: Who said anything about making oceans equivalent to Earths? They could be used to help supply the colonies and to supplement the water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars. Mars likely had oceans once and theres probably enough ice to make shallow oceans.
Shallow.
"If you mean the gas giants themselves, nope. Although dealing with the gas giants fierce magnetic fields is another issue alltogether when going there."
"can you send an astronaut on it and will he survive for extended periods of time?
no"
was a response to "would a moon work?( to be habitable)"
*ships a couple billion tons of co2 to mars along with some rigged electromagnet.
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So far nothing is capable of reaching an extrasolar planet in an appropriate amount of time. I think it's best for us to focus on our current home for now.
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So giant particle accelerators. Can anyone come up with a sci-fi ish way to create antimatter easily?
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So far nothing is capable of reaching an extrasolar planet in an appropriate amount of time. I think it's best for us to focus on our current home for now.
What if some aliens have high-tech stuff and can shield their view, planet, and somehow pretend to be just space.
It would be rare, but its possible. Anything is.
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what if we saw the star do a wobble. and then plotted the exact position of the planet.
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The star is a projection, and they have invented an artificial one to create the heat, brightness, flares, ect.
(This is when my ideas start to go a bit crazy)
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why would they hide.
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Some very good reason we can think of
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Like the theoretical equivalent of the Borg?
If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves. Of course though, they could just be really xenophobic and simply don't want to be found.
We are getting away from the origional topic here.
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Like the theoretical equivalent of the Borg?
If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves. Of course though, they could just be really xenophobic and simply don't want to be found.
We are getting away from the origional topic here.
"If they are advanced enough to hide an entire planet or even an entire solar system, then I'm sure they are advanced enough to defend themselves"
yes.
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hey, i said "good"reason. like really really really really good reason.
maybet their planet is peaceful and they dont want to war with us.
or maybe they just have so much projection they cant sense us
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.....if they could hide themselves, they could also probably destroy our entire civilization with a skirt cannon...
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Terraforming: High initial cost, no cost over time (assuming it's finished).
Importing stuff to make up for a bad environment: No initial cost, high cost over time.
The terraforming cost should stay constant, but importing should become more expensive the more people who live on the habitable planet. And the further away it is, the more expensive it becomes as well. Technological advancements would probably decrease the cost over time, but it would still be expensive.
I think it's unlikely that the import cost will intersect the terraforming cost when there are less than some thousands of people living on the planet. It also depends on how close the planet is to what we would need to survive normally... What we should do depends on so many things which could be different on different habitable planets.
But if we're going to make it a permanent colony with naturally living people, terraforming should be one of the earliest things to focus on, to finish it as fast as possible.
I don't think we will ever live on planets just for mining their ores. By that time I think we will have plenty of advanced robots which can do it for us (assuming we don't destroy ourselves).
But what if there is already life on the planet? It would probably not be wheat and trees like on Earth, but very different, and probably not anything we can eat. If there were life forms on our size, it might be hard to get it to coexist with our huge forests of wheat or nuemelons, etc.
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Sentient
Assume they're hostile
Non-Sentient
Kill them all
according to the government.
(some-syfy book i read).
kol.
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Sentient
Assume they're hostile
Non-Sentient
Kill them all
according to the government.
(some-syfy book i read).
kol.
And is the theme for many movies (except the non-sentient= kill all part) (especially some of the older ones, but recent ones too) and is common in Sci Fi. However, there are plenty of non-hostile aliens in science fiction as well.
Of course though, any planet with life forms is going to have it's share of predators. Carbon based or not, teeth analogues and sclicing appendages are still sharp.
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hey, i said "good"reason. like really really really really good reason.
maybet their planet is peaceful and they dont want to war with us.
or maybe they just have so much projection they cant sense us
if they are so smart, they might want us to try to survive first and if there is a major problem, they could help.
global warming, pollution, over population ect. also, they may or not be a same species
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...yeah if we found humans on an extrasolar planet, that would be....
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Anything is possible
LOOK! A robot civilization :o
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Look! A god! Omgwtfbbq!
jk.
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...what , the god of big brown queues?
.....
and no. the possibility of something random happening, like discovering humans on an axtrasolar planet is too remote to be worth considering.
yes. i said axtrasolar
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Given the likelyhood of finding humans on an extrasolar planet (lost/forgotten colonies and transplanted humans, such as in the Stargate universe don't count) and the vastness of the universe, something that looks exactly like us on the outside could exist somewhere, maybe not in our galaxy. Even THEN, the odds are incredibly low
I don't mean just humanoid to the point of having the same or similar body structure, two arms, two legs, a head and walking upright, I mean exactly like us, like the Star Trek aliens minus the prothsetics and makeup. Having the exact same organs in the same place though, those odds are so incredibly low that it's pratically zero that they could evolve naturally. Not having the same internal organs ups the odds slightly to where it's probable, but remote.
However, when we are talking about humanoids, four limbs, a body and a head, those are definetly possible. Even if they evolved using something other than DNA or are based on something other than carbon, evolution still folows basic rules and something that works well, will get reused over and over again in evolution.
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not necessarily. if the most basic lifeforms were just a bit off from what earth's were, then evolution might make the sentient beings completely different from humans. They had/have a completely different environment.
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Yea, I think there is an Edicarian fossil with trilateral symmetry and theres the Echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, etc), which have five sided symmetry as adults.
You can also do the what if scenario on Earth, if events had happened differently or something else became successful or if something evolved in a different way, or if something became extinct or even didn't go extinct, the life forms on Earth would be totally different.
So even if the planet was literally a twin of Earth, it's history would be different and so the life forms could end up being greatly different.
My point was that evolution reuses successful features/traits, so we will probably see some familiar forms. Look at convergent evolution. Sharks, Ichthyosaurs, and Dolphins all look very similar, why? Because it's an efficient body shape that works.
As alien as the life forms would be, they still have to deal with the same physics.
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ah-ha!
"As alien as the life forms would be, they still have to deal with the same physics."
what about planets with dense atmosphere? less gravity? more gravity? etc.
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not necessarily. if the most basic lifeforms were just a bit off from what earth's were, then evolution might make the sentient beings completely different from humans. They had/have a completely different environment.
So, before the humans existence, there was a super smart thing, and it created everything from us to flat planets with live chess stuff in games(that went on for years), wizards, stuff that wont come out of a super protective box until it is the correct time, and more stuff like that.
Putting aside fictional stuff, what if a planet hide behind the sun all the time? Very unlikely, but it might be. Or, there is life in or in an space, just floating by. The thing would have high resistance, and might land on a habitable planet(for it) and start going.
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ah-ha!
"As alien as the life forms would be, they still have to deal with the same physics."
what about planets with dense atmosphere? less gravity? more gravity? etc.
I'm talking about the same laws of physics. Of course things would be different with different gravity or atmospheric density, but a wing still has to follow the same physics.
not necessarily. if the most basic lifeforms were just a bit off from what earth's were, then evolution might make the sentient beings completely different from humans. They had/have a completely different environment.
So, before the humans existence, there was a super smart thing, and it created everything from us to flat planets with live chess stuff in games(that went on for years), wizards, stuff that wont come out of a super protective box until it is the correct time, and more stuff like that.
Putting aside fictional stuff, what if a planet hide behind the sun all the time? Very unlikely, but it might be. Or, there is life in or in an space, just floating by. The thing would have high resistance, and might land on a habitable planet(for it) and start going.
You took that from Homestuck didn't you? And what do you mean hide behind the sun all the time? It would have to not be orbiting to do that. The bit after that is the basic idea behind the Panspermia hypothesis.
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If the universe is a part of a multiverse with infinite universes, there would be an infinite number of planets exactly like Earth, with me typing this to people like you. The probabilities are 0.00000... and so on, but as long as they're not 0, they will happen infinitely when you multiply them with infinity.
But the probability of finding the humans in our region of the universes would probably be 0%. But still an interesting thought. :P
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so do we kill more stars and live?
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If the universe is a part of a multiverse with infinite universes, there would be an infinite number of planets exactly like Earth, with me typing this to people like you. The probabilities are 0.00000... and so on, but as long as they're not 0, they will happen infinitely when you multiply them with infinity.
But the probability of finding the humans in our region of the universes would probably be 0%. But still an interesting thought. :P
Which proves, fillies and gentlecolts, that Equestria IS real.
* atomic7732 hides
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Well we'll have to prove that an infinite multiverse is real first, but if it is, and Equestria is possible, yes. :P
* An infinite number of Blas kolkolkol.
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But that also means that a 20 dimensional gory, communist, dark, toxic, radioactive wasteland also exists.
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But that also means that a 20 dimensional gory, communist, dark, toxic, radioactive wasteland also exists.
Except that it makes no sense, since Communism is an ideology which you can base a society on, and a wasteland is not a society. And I don't see any reason to think that there are exactly 20 dimensions. :P
2-dimensional cubes won't exist either.
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2-dimensional cubes don't exist in this universe, but 2-dimension cubes can exist in a 2-dimensional universe.
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2-dimensional cubes don't exist in this universe, but 2-dimension cubes can exist in a 2-dimensional universe.
No, because the definition of a 2-dimensional cube is a self-contradiction. In the two-dimensional universe, it would be a square, because a cube is pr. definition 3-dimensional.
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But the third dimension in the cube is not time, and the second dimension in the square is not time either. They're independent of time, I think.
And I can split this topic if you people think we're going too far away from the topic. :P
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If the universe is a part of a multiverse with infinite universes, there would be an infinite number of planets exactly like Earth, with me typing this to people like you. The probabilities are 0.00000... and so on, but as long as they're not 0, they will happen infinitely when you multiply them with infinity.
But the probability of finding the humans in our region of the universes would probably be 0%. But still an interesting thought. :P
Which proves, fillies and gentlecolts, that Equestria IS real.
* atomic7732 hides
So, in some universe, there is a planet with some kind of life forms.
Sadly, its distance is "infinity and beyond!" and unless we adapt to space and grow wings, we are doomed.
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But that also means that a 20 dimensional gory, communist, dark, toxic, radioactive wasteland also exists.
The universe, as far as we can tell is only 11 dimensions. :P
So, in some universe, there is a planet with some kind of life forms.
Sadly, its distance is "infinity and beyond!" and unless we adapt to space and grow wings, we are doomed.
I've got wings covered, but adapting to space... And wings wouldn't help in space anyway, don't rockets work well enough?
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One flap will do, but it might take a few trillion years. no gravity.
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one flap? of what, a chicken? that wouldn't do anything. You'd just get collided up to the nearest/largest grav effect star.
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One flap will do, but it might take a few trillion years. no gravity.
That's hoping you dont encounter anything like that
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then you won't move. at all.
unless you move your wings from front to back and keep them there for trillions of years.
and thats not flapping
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One flap will do, but it might take a few trillion years. no gravity.
That's hoping you dont encounter anything like that
Impossible, you can't escape gravity, it just gets ever more feeble as distance increases, but it's there, and no, flapping won't do you any good in space without an atmosphere, not even a dense nebula (Earths atmosphere is far denser than that).
Unless by flap, you mean extend/adjust solar sail wings, but even then, flapping won't help.
@Bla: I think this thread has derailed into sillyness already, but eh whatever, I'm not complaining and nobody else is.
@NeutronStar: Well, if they evolved in a near vacuum environment that may as well be outer space. Rockets work well as long as you have propellant. Otherwise, for anything to survive in space for any extended period of time without a spacesuit, an advanced civilization would either have to use extremely advanced genetic engineering or use nanites/nanotechnology to adapt their bodies to the environment (used in at least one Science Fiction book I've read).
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One flap will do, but it might take a few trillion years. no gravity.
A solar wind would do more good!
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It will happen, in an alternate universe.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUN
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the chances of a habitable planet in an alternate universe might be higher, but i think we'd find one in this universe first.
and fiah, no one is going to bother to read your miniature text.
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the chances of a habitable planet in an alternate universe might be higher, but i think we'd find one in this universe first.
and fiah, no one is going to bother to read your miniature text.
We found one already.
Theres also alot of gas giants in the habitable zone of their suns (and so, have habitable moons) and some systems with known planets could have rocky, terrestrial planets in the habitable zone that we just haven't been able to detetct just yet.
Anybody know how far away from a gas giant a moon has to be in order to get to earth size and be stable? It's entirely possible for a gas giant to capture an earth sized protoplanet, but having it stay in a stable orbit for billions of years is another matter entirely. Theres plenty of hypothetical and fictional moons out there which are earth sized or pretty close to it, Endor was probably at least as big as mars, dunno.
Of course though, it doesn't neccesarily have to be earth sized to be habitable, Titan is probably at the lower range for a body to hold a thick, earthlike, atmosphere. I know Triton is bigger, but it's so far away that it's atmosphere would be frozen anyhow.
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What if we just missed a planet? Space is so big that you probably can not imagine its vastness.
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We've discovered less than one percent of space, so there's definitely trillions, if not quadrillions, of planets we haven't discovered.
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At our current level of technology detection methods, it's possible, plus we've only been at it for a few decades. Most of the planets we've found so far are gas giants and super earths, we haven't really found earth sized and smaller objects as we can't detect them yet, although I think theres a couple of candidates out there.
Really though, we've only just begun surveying our corner of the galaxy, there will be plenty for future explorers and planet hunters.
Edit: Like Darvince said, we've only covered a tiny fraction of planets, and some systems we are still finding them.
Although, if you want to count rogue planets (anything shot out of the system and are wandering), it's estimated that there are lots of them out there.
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yeah.
Some planets might be to small to be detected, and lift might even be in them.
If we found one, the weight of the space ship would matter a lot. Probes would have to orbit around and then land on it to gather enough information to send to earth.
Too much work. But it might be worth it.
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Some planets might be to small to be detected, and lift might even be in them.
Thats with our current available instruments, and methods. Heck, we're already finding super earths, so we're getting to the point of being able to find earth sized planets. I could say that it's the technology, but we definetly have the technology capable of finding super earths, so it's a matter of refining the tools and methods.
Theres the terrestrial planet finder sattelite thats slated for launch sometime and a couple other planet hunting probes.
Again, we've only JUST started, I don't think we've gotten to a thousand confirmed planets yet, and as someone said earlier, there are likely trillions of planets. What we've found so far is a water molecule in a bucket full of water.
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Theres the terrestrial planet finder sattelite thats slated for launch sometime and a couple other planet hunting probes.
Again, we've only JUST started, I don't think we've gotten to a thousand confirmed planets yet
The TPF was cancelled last year or 2009. We really only have CoRoT, Kepler, and a few ground-based surveys. Although, Kepler should be able to detect Earth-sized planets.
And at last count we're at 704, per Exoplanet.eu (http://exoplanet.eu/)
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Oh, forgot about that, anyways, with the Kelper Objects of Interest, we probably are over a thousand. Really though, it's only a matter of time before we find an Earth sized object.
Only thing though is that Kelper is looking at a wedge of sky, so any earth sized planet it finds is likely to be hundreds if not thousands of light years away, too far for a realistic colony ship with current technology.
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Joke: I want to go fish some KOI. :P
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Joke: I want to go fish some KOI. :P
Kepler is already fishing for KOI for you.
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Theres the terrestrial planet finder sattelite thats slated for launch sometime and a couple other planet hunting probes.
Again, we've only JUST started, I don't think we've gotten to a thousand confirmed planets yet
The TPF was cancelled last year or 2009. We really only have CoRoT, Kepler, and a few ground-based surveys. Although, Kepler should be able to detect Earth-sized planets.
And at last count we're at 704, per Exoplanet.eu (http://exoplanet.eu/)
some things are seriously out of date in that link (2004)
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No idea why they still have some of that, but that's not what I'm using to source the 704. ;)
And it doesn't make the source any less valid.
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There could be various reasons for not being updated for a long while.
The exoplanet app I have on my iPad says there are 706, although that one probably updates a little faster than the site. The numbers may vary a little from source to source, but the point has been made.
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There could be various reasons for not being updated for a long while.
The exoplanet app I have on my iPad says there are 706, although that one probably updates a little faster than the site. The numbers may vary a little from source to source, but the point has been made.
It would seem to me that the site would be updated quicker. Is that app created by Hanno Rein, by any chance? I've got that one. :P
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There could be various reasons for not being updated for a long while.
The exoplanet app I have on my iPad says there are 706, although that one probably updates a little faster than the site. The numbers may vary a little from source to source, but the point has been made.
It would seem to me that the site would be updated quicker. Is that app created by Hanno Rein, by any chance? I've got that one. :P
Yep, thats the one I have. I also have the Kepler Candidates one by the same person.
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For some reason, I feel guilty.
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wtf ^^^^
which alien did you extinctify
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mmmm..............no...i.. didint do anyting dont worru
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Replies to some earlier Ideas.
In my "Krissyverse" - which is a kind of variation on the Real Universe.
An unbelievably Ancient species which calls itself The Primes - were in this Universe BEFORE when we believe the Big Bang happened.
They were so old then that the figures do not really mean anything.
They had lived on several successive Planets, orbiting Red Dwarf Stars, and breathing a Fluorine mixture Atmosphere, "engineering" the Planets, and moving their Stars around - in a Universe which was incredibly lacking in Galaxies - only dist and a few Stars.
Then suddenly the Galaxies started to coalesce - Stars and eventually PLanets started to form. The Primes CREATED new forms of Life - for Carbon-Hydrogen, Nitrogen-Hydrogen and Chlorine-Hydrogen Planets in Andromeda - then moved to this Galaxy.
They started doing the same here - so that life was Created or "Engineered" in this Galaxy as well.
Then they fell-out very badly - and split into two Factions which eventually went to WAR with each other. The "Peacemakers" Faction fled back to andromeda eventually
While the other group, now calling itself The Imperator stayed - and using a geneteically engineered Ammonia Breathing Species, they set out to Conquer this Galaxy.r
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sometimes, i wonder how the evolution started to change us. i mean, our brain power led us this far, but we know almost nothing that is 100% correct about our past. or when we started acting like people.
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Actually there is a way to easily get to another solar system well within a lifetime!
A solar sail, of cource!
http://science.howstuffworks.com/solarsail.htm (http://science.howstuffworks.com/solarsail.htm)
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/24jan_solarsail/ (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/24jan_solarsail/)
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we wouldn't do anything for 1000 years until we somehow developed efficient interstellar travel means. To get to the nearest star would take more than 100x all the output of energy used by the earth.
Also at any speeds to get to the planet in a reasonable time means even tiny bits of dust inflict massive damage on the spacecraft so we would need a forcefield :P
also time dilation etc. and anything over 50 years, by the time they're halfway there they could of developed better technology.
so with current tech I doubt we would ever visit one.
Maybe see if there is intelligent life and communicate somehow
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Yea that's kind of the problem with sleeper ships and multigenerational ships, the longer the journey, the more likely that faster technology will have been developed and people will arrive there before you or perhaps the colony ship will have been lost to the mists of time.
The Star Trek series deals with this a number of times and a novel that I have called Coyote (might not be the full name of it and I forget the author atm), which is a sci-fi book, does deal with a similar scenario in that a while later, faster ships contact the 'lost' colony.
It may take many hundreds of years for a significantly faster technology to catch up with the slowboat colony ships, but we just never know.
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we wouldn't do anything for 1000 years until we somehow developed efficient interstellar travel means. To get to the nearest star would take more than 100x all the output of energy used by the earth.
Hmm, but with what mass? And the output from how long time? :P