Probably the most reasonable way to get there is to use a huge ship where a family goes through several generations. I suppose it might be reasonable at that point for us to be able to break down matter into energy, and use that for heat, light, electricity, and even food, replicator style.

 

Black holes do exist, but what actually happens in them can only be speculation, what with the whole 'event horizon' thing where time itself can't escape the gravitational field.

Probably the most reasonable way to get there is to use a huge ship where a family goes through several generations. I suppose it might be reasonable at that point for us to be able to break down matter into energy, and use that for heat, light, electricity, and even food, replicator style.

 

Black holes do exist, but what actually happens in them can only be speculation, what with the whole 'event horizon' thing where time itself can't escape the gravitational field.

 

Sadly cost is still an issue I think. I mean look at how much it costs for a small shuttle that holds a few astronauts with very tiny living compartments (think a submarine). Now imagine having to make something that would not only have a simulated gravity inside (can't really have childbirth with no gravity) but also be large enough for multiple families and be large enough to create a constant food supply... yeah.

Sadly cost is still an issue I think. I mean look at how much it costs for a small shuttle that holds a few astronauts with very tiny living compartments (think a submarine). Now imagine having to make something that would not only have a simulated gravity inside (can't really have childbirth with no gravity) but also be large enough for multiple families and be large enough to create a constant food supply... yeah.

Plus, if the ship breaks down, they'd have to do the repairs themselves, and with radio waves moving at light speed, it would become nearly impossible to communicate after a certain point. Think about it, the ship breaks down or something goes wrong, they'll be stranded light years away from the rest of humanity with no hope for a quick rescue at best.

 

Teaching and life may also be an issue. The children would effectively be stuck in a small environment for their entire lives, which has its own set of problems, and would be forced to learn whatever it is that the parents had to know to sign up for this. There are also whatever issues are associated with life entirely in zero/simulated gravity to deal with... And whatever background radiation there will be to do whatever the radiation does to our weak, unprotected bodies. Like skin cancer.

Probably the most reasonable way to get there is to use a huge ship where a family goes through several generations. I suppose it might be reasonable at that point for us to be able to break down matter into energy, and use that for heat, light, electricity, and even food, replicator style.

 

Black holes do exist, but what actually happens in them can only be speculation, what with the whole 'event horizon' thing where time itself can't escape the gravitational field.

 

Sadly cost is still an issue I think. I mean look at how much it costs for a small shuttle that holds a few astronauts with very tiny living compartments (think a submarine). Now imagine having to make something that would not only have a simulated gravity inside (can't really have childbirth with no gravity) but also be large enough for multiple families and be large enough to create a constant food supply... yeah.

So, we need a MoonRaker-like spacestation?

:ohnoes:

Or we can hope that if there is intelligent life on this planet, they might be coming to see us. And then we hope they don't kill us.

For space colonization I had thoughts of something like this-

 

We slowly head outwards; with Mars/Moon as a "distance base" at the beggining, slowly moving out farther and farther. Eventually we go past the outer planets to the Kuiper Belt, eventually reaching the Oort Cloud. I heard the Oort Cloud stretched to about a light year away from the sun, just shows how strong the sun's gravity is. Not including all the things spaced out in between.

I don't think anybody (with reasonable science expertise) expects to suddenly travel to a world hundreds of light years away. Did Columbus suddenly traveled to California? Or did he land on the Caribbean and the Spanish Empire slowly moved across the continent. I predict the same for space travel.

 

And as for the multi-generation family space trip, that is just inhumane. A person born solely to conduct one operation...an operation he/she will never see, too. It's like slavery, I'll say.

And as for the multi-generation family space trip, that is just inhumane. A person born solely to conduct one operation...an operation he/she will never see, too. It's like slavery, I'll say.

And yet if we ever get into space travel without FTL, it may be the only way. Might end up with entire nomadic spacefaring communities though... Which might be an interesting concept for a Sci-Fi story.

And as for the multi-generation family space trip, that is just inhumane. A person born solely to conduct one operation...an operation he/she will never see, too. It's like slavery, I'll say.

And yet if we ever get into space travel without FTL, it may be the only way. Might end up with entire nomadic spacefaring communities though... Which might be an interesting concept for a Sci-Fi story.

 

Actually, that's not an uncommon theme in sci-fi. This story in particular deals with it very well, I think.

We need to make a ship, that has a crapload of families on it, to ensure greatest chance of survival for at least one family. Now, we send this to the new system and they live their lives for 127 years. Now this ship is going to be one huge son of a [bleep], to allow us to have supplies on it. I say we make some way to farm our own food on this ship, cook and basically make a flying house and farm. Seeing as we're going for 127 years, we're going to need a crapload of fuel, too. This is where the problem appears. I say we make smaller rockets and fly 'em up to meet with the flying house. We could also send extra supplies too, I assume. Now, we're gonna need Oxygen, too, so we're going to need a tree plantation, further enlarging our ship. We're gonna need sunlight, as well, which could also pose a problem. So, I think we may have to extend the ship further and put an Oxygen storage thing in too, so we get this going and we're at the new solar system within 127 years. Easy.

 

In zero G your bones start to weaken every second, astronauts that have been in space for as little as a few months might need some time to recover after their missions, imagene what it would do to you should you spend your while life in space.

We'd become worms and as will our children if we are still able to produce them which i highly doubt due to many factors causing ... eh issues :P

If it would be possible to replace every single bone in the human body with something alike that doesn't weakens in a lifetime then it would be possible to travel to another planet 1 lifetime away as newborn children will still become worms as replacing their bones wouldn't work as they would have to grow with their body.

Unless evolution puts some space dust in our genes making us immune to zero G side effects.

or they'd had to freeze in a couple of people then release them when the first generation is going to die and so on and so on.

Another solution would be using centrifugal force to simulate gravity. For all the non-egg heads reading this, this means using the force that keeps water in a bucket from falling out when you swing it around hard enough to mimic the pull of gravity. Considering that friction in space is basically zero, as long as you can get this started up proper (and stop, of course), there shouldn't be any problems with using this little loophole.

 

Personally, if we want to do any sort of space exploration at all, we need to start working on getting to and from the moon in large scale. I'm not talking about the ISS, I'm thinking full-on colonization. This would also be a perfect chance to test out all the simulated-gravity ideas without having to worry about it sending the poor SOBs in there off into the void. Also, as we learn how to get better at sending things in and out of our atmosphere, that lends itself to improving things such as fuel economy, shielding, and space inside the ship. ALL of these will help make space travel a lot less of a painful experience. It'd also be good practice for when we get to a different planet that actually has an atmosphere we can live in.

Another solution would be using centrifugal force to simulate gravity. For all the non-egg heads reading this, this means using the force that keeps water in a bucket from falling out when you swing it around hard enough to mimic the pull of gravity. Considering that friction in space is basically zero, as long as you can get this started up proper (and stop, of course), there shouldn't be any problems with using this little loophole.

 

I've seen a model of a space ship like that. In practical terms it works, but in looks...it was fugglin' ugly.

It's not by trying to figure out how you'll live through those 127 years that you'll get to that planet (and this assuming you can travel at light speed when you can't...). It's by figuring out how to cheat your way there with a shortcut. You obviously can't expect a second generation family (or even third generation, which would require incest if you haven't noticed...) to colonise the planet properly, they would not know enough about our home planet and would create their own world there or something. The solution is in wormholes... if they do exist. If not, well we still have Mars a few million miles away. Perhaps even Titan, the giant moon with an atmosphere that orbits Saturn.. would be more complicated than Mars but probably easier than this new exo-planet.

At this stage just establishing communication would be an amazing thing.

Would be awesome if it was a planet full of Amazonian women :shades:

Would be awesome if it was a planet full of Amazonian women :shades:

 

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Back to the topic,

 

It would be nice if a Space organization focused on a multiple star system to see if they could detect any planets, like the Centauri System. It wouldn't be impossible for them to exist, but little chances of life would be a good probability.