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Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

nature.com

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Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#111

Post by moffkalast »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #64
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Going to Mars seems pretty useless to me at this time. It’s a super hostile environment and we don’t have the technology yet to have a self sustaining base there. Give it a few decades and progress in robotics will make a Mars base much easier. There is plenty of work to be done on Earth. We have to solve clean energy production and in general reduce pollution. These are massive technological challenges that deserve…

Tbf, it'll also take us a few decades to get human Mars transit figured out so sounds like we're on schedule.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#112

Post by _Microft »

jsjohnst wrote: post #95
rbanffy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even at the speed of light If you get really close to the speed of light (which is not really practical from a materials engineering standpoint) your time of transit is significantly shorter. Once these (extremely hard) engineering problems are solved, a trip to the next star can be a week-long affair from your point of view, but your friends back on Earth won't see you for about a decade.

> a trip to the next star can be a week-long affair from your point of view You’d need to travel at around 233x the speed of light to make getting to the nearest star be a week trip, no?

The effect is called time dilation. The section of interest here is „Time dilation caused by a relative velocity“:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#113

Post by rbanffy »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #109
rbanffy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venus is also classified as Earth like, but it's rocky surface looks more like hell than the mythological descriptions of it. ;-)

Since we're being a bit pedantic in this thread, the biblical descriptions of hell are limited to darkness and gnashing of teeth.

I think that the fire and sulphur part is mostly from Muslim tradition. They kind of got close to what Venus is.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#114

Post by oceanplexian »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #64
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Going to Mars seems pretty useless to me at this time. It’s a super hostile environment and we don’t have the technology yet to have a self sustaining base there. Give it a few decades and progress in robotics will make a Mars base much easier. There is plenty of work to be done on Earth. We have to solve clean energy production and in general reduce pollution. These are massive technological challenges that deserve…

It sounds like a very chicken or egg problem to me, who's to say that progress in robotics doesn't come from trying to establish a base on Mars? Progress is often times non-linear, I mean here we using computers and communication technology based on Integrated Circuits technology furthered by the Apollo program; say we never went to the moon, computing technology and Moore's law might have been set back a decade or two.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#115

Post by moffkalast »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #60
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but Musk is just plain wrong when he thinks there is any urgency to Mars exploration (or it's just vicarious arguments because rockets are cool). Basically, the tech you need to make a Mars colony truly self sufficient is something like a compact fusion powerplant. Before we have that, no point in worrying about using Mars as a "backup plan", because if Earth was screwed, Mars would have a…

There is an inherent urgency in all of his plans, mainly because he wants to see it done within his lifetime. He's got 40 years left tops, but more like 20 during which he could still theoretically do anything significant in. Rockets take decades to develop.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#116

Post by jsjohnst »

_Microft wrote: post #112
jsjohnst wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a trip to the next star can be a week-long affair from your point of view You’d need to travel at around 233x the speed of light to make getting to the nearest star be a week trip, no?

The effect is called time dilation. The section of interest here is „Time dilation caused by a relative velocity“: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

I’m aware of time dilation, my point was that a “week vacation” to something “over 4 light years” away is just hyperbolic.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#117

Post by psd1 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #88
grishka wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I believe that any form of mind upload or consciousness transfer is a much harder problem than both rejuvenation and interstellar spaceflight. Looking at current aging research, there's a good possibility we'll see rejuvenation in the next decade or two and it'll profoundly change our society. In 20 years, everyone will be looking 25 years old and pointing at frail people with wrinkly faces and laughing, sam…

> pointing at frail people with wrinkly faces and laughing, same way we do today with antivaxxers. Except those people are more likely to be too poor to afford it instead of unwilling to take it.

Or, worse, the young will never get any power because the old will not relinquish control.

Then you have the "surfeit of princes" problem.

This isn't just grand political power: imagine being unable to progress in your career because geriatrics above you aren't retiring.

That's just one possible secondary effect. We could enumerate many others.

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#118

Post by [deleted] »

iam-TJ wrote: post #108
Udo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it enjoyable to think about the technologies that might just be in the cards further into the future. If we ever figure out light-weight fusion drives, we could build light hugger space ships that accelerate to a decent fraction of the speed of light. At 1g acceleration it takes about one year to get to 0.9c, which would make the Proxima system accessible with a travel time of about 6 years. Or 8 years at 0.5g…

Whenever I read discussions about space travel and trying to approach the speed of light for human travel I have the feeling there's a lot of tunnel vision (excuse the pun). It always seems to assume travelling along a linear path through space. In my mind, using the admittedly poor analogy of space-time as a membrane that is distorted by gravity, my thinking is we'll find some way to effectively bring two points in…

[deleted]

Re: Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star

#120

Post by cduzz »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #64
uwuemu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A probe based on nuclear pulse propulsion could do it in around 50 years, with today's technology. It's not that we can't do it fast (within one average human lifespan), it's that the project would be very expensive and something like Nasa has a relatively tight budget. I mean we, as humanity, have to have an eccentric billionaire start a Martian fire (SpaceX Starship) under our lazy asses to even start to think abou…

Going to Mars seems pretty useless to me at this time. It’s a super hostile environment and we don’t have the technology yet to have a self sustaining base there. Give it a few decades and progress in robotics will make a Mars base much easier. There is plenty of work to be done on Earth. We have to solve clean energy production and in general reduce pollution. These are massive technological challenges that deserve…

Totally agree!

However, it's likely that one task (going to Mars, even sending a couple rich bozos there) is small enough that you can probably do that and work on fixing things "at home".

In fact, one could argue that one set of big companies that exist this decade that didn't exist last decade is just a shopping list of "Crap I'll need for my martian condo"

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