Habitable Planet Found Only 22 Light Years From Earth!

[OttoVonBismarck]

In The Coldfire Trilogy humanity expanded to distant stars in a big batch of "colony ships" launched from Earth with the goal of perpetuating humanity's existence. The author, in one of the few works of sci-fi/fantasy to observe the laws of physics as relates to space travel, describes the ships as not being able to move faster than the speed of light. So the hook is all the colonists were essentially in permanent "cryosleep" and the automated ship basically traveled from planet to planet performing analysis on its habitability for human life before landing and waking the colonists up.

Because of this the descendants of the original colonists know that in their case it took tens of thousands of years for the original ship to make its journey. Further, because the ships had no idea where they were going when they left, and because of the reality of how long it takes for communication to travel that distance, there is not ever any communication with Earth. There was no goal of establishing a linked human empire because it was just impossible, but instead creating new worlds where humans could be self-sufficient. Fulfilling some vague species goal of creating many different worlds of habitation to insure the species perpetuates (I guess until the heat death of the universe.)

So while even that fiction involves massive increases in technological sophistication in regards to space travel, I think the key really will be biological changes to humanity itself. Even then, if we ever do send people to other stars it'll be much more in this vein of establishing new, but not connected, human societies. There's just no realistic way to maintain significant ties to planets on other stars.

[OttoVonBismarck]

And something I've always thought, if you follow such a goal of just "creating new places for the species to exist" it actually doesn't make sense to even bother sending live humans.

Instead you send a ship with preserved human embryos that has the technological capacity to "grow" the humans using resources on the destination planet. That tremendously reduces your payload requirements, since you no longer require food, water, or any creature comforts to sustain an entire human crew for years. Since you're sending embryos you're also sending many potential humans at far less weight than real bodies.

Once the ship lands I'm positing some sort of robotic "parent" will be able to feed and raise the babies. Or, perhaps you grow an adult human with programmed human memory [spoiler](akin to how they did in the movie Moon)[/spoiler], so the first generation of humans will basically have manufactured memories/chidlhoods and then raise normal humans after that.

[Ideologue]

I had an idea once that potentially interstellar colonization could be funded as conspicuous consumption.  That is, you send colonists out to prepare retirement estates/petty kingdoms for the richest people on Earth, who can buy hundreds of thousands of acres at ten billion dollars a pop.  If you can load 100 billionaires onto a fission-fragment driven sleeper ship, you might could pay for it.

But you still need either changed people so that dimethyl sulfoxide or similar cryoprotectant isn't toxic, or a fictional cryoprotectant/vitrification agent that doesn't fuck you up, along with some other advances in cryonic techniques.

It would also help if life expectancy was in the hundreds of years or indefinite, but if you have working cryonics, that's probably the case.

[Siege]

And something I've always thought, if you follow such a goal of just "creating new places for the species to exist" it actually doesn't make sense to even bother sending live humans.

Instead you send a ship with preserved human embryos that has the technological capacity to "grow" the humans using resources on the destination planet. That tremendously reduces your payload requirements, since you no longer require food, water, or any creature comforts to sustain an entire human crew for years. Since you're sending embryos you're also sending many potential humans at far less weight than real bodies.

Once the ship lands I'm positing some sort of robotic "parent" will be able to feed and raise the babies. Or, perhaps you grow an adult human with programmed human memory [spoiler](akin to how they did in the movie Moon)[/spoiler], so the first generation of humans will basically have manufactured memories/chidlhoods and then raise normal humans after that.

Why not the embrions without the manufactured memories?
The new humans would have to start from zero, they would be essentially cavemen, without even a language.

Wait a minute. What if this already happened? Here on Earth?!! (dramatic music plays)

[The Brain]

I took a dump here on Earth earlier today. (porn music plays)

[Tonitrus]

I took a dump here on Earth earlier today. (porn music plays)

German porn. 

[Siege]

I took a dump here on Earth earlier today. (porn music plays)

A worthy contribution to our biological diversity.

[sbr]

Isn't today's army all volunteer and the WWII army almost completely draftees?

[The Brain]

Isn't today's army all volunteer and the WWII army almost completely draftees?

[Eddie Teach]

Wait a minute. What if this already happened? Here on Earth?!! (dramatic music plays)

Yep. Our distant ancestors flew to this planet and soon after started losing their body hair.

[sbr]

Isn't today's army all volunteer and the WWII army almost completely draftees?

  Not sure how this landed in the wrong thread.

[Josephus]

Too far to be any good. We're better off colonizing the moon, like Gingrich says.

[Ed Anger]

Tim should colonize the sun. Strap a Wil E Coyote rocket to his back NASA.

[CountDeMoney]

In The Coldfire Trilogy humanity expanded to distant stars in a big batch of "colony ships" launched from Earth with the goal of perpetuating humanity's existence. The author, in one of the few works of sci-fi/fantasy to observe the laws of physics as relates to space travel, describes the ships as not being able to move faster than the speed of light. So the hook is all the colonists were essentially in permanent "cryosleep" and the automated ship basically traveled from planet to planet performing analysis on its habitability for human life before landing and waking the colonists up.

Because of this the descendants of the original colonists know that in their case it took tens of thousands of years for the original ship to make its journey. Further, because the ships had no idea where they were going when they left, and because of the reality of how long it takes for communication to travel that distance, there is not ever any communication with Earth. There was no goal of establishing a linked human empire because it was just impossible, but instead creating new worlds where humans could be self-sufficient. Fulfilling some vague species goal of creating many different worlds of habitation to insure the species perpetuates (I guess until the heat death of the universe.)

So while even that fiction involves massive increases in technological sophistication in regards to space travel, I think the key really will be biological changes to humanity itself. Even then, if we ever do send people to other stars it'll be much more in this vein of establishing new, but not connected, human societies. There's just no realistic way to maintain significant ties to planets on other stars.

Did you happen to see Pandorum by chance?

[Razgovory]

In The Coldfire Trilogy humanity expanded to distant stars in a big batch of "colony ships" launched from Earth with the goal of perpetuating humanity's existence. The author, in one of the few works of sci-fi/fantasy to observe the laws of physics as relates to space travel, describes the ships as not being able to move faster than the speed of light. So the hook is all the colonists were essentially in permanent "cryosleep" and the automated ship basically traveled from planet to planet performing analysis on its habitability for human life before landing and waking the colonists up.

Because of this the descendants of the original colonists know that in their case it took tens of thousands of years for the original ship to make its journey. Further, because the ships had no idea where they were going when they left, and because of the reality of how long it takes for communication to travel that distance, there is not ever any communication with Earth. There was no goal of establishing a linked human empire because it was just impossible, but instead creating new worlds where humans could be self-sufficient. Fulfilling some vague species goal of creating many different worlds of habitation to insure the species perpetuates (I guess until the heat death of the universe.)

So while even that fiction involves massive increases in technological sophistication in regards to space travel, I think the key really will be biological changes to humanity itself. Even then, if we ever do send people to other stars it'll be much more in this vein of establishing new, but not connected, human societies. There's just no realistic way to maintain significant ties to planets on other stars.

Just out of curiosity, how did they power the ship?  I was thinking about something similar for an RPG, but ran into a major problem.  How do they get electricity in the depths of space after several hundred years?  Even the most efficient forms of energy ( like an anti-matter total conversion) would likely run out before you got there.  I thought perhaps they could send some robots in small craft with highly efficient solar panels that power up when they get near a star.  The robots then build the people and the animals and plants when they find planet where you can do so.  When not close to a star the machines stay powered down.