ESO (European Southern Observatory) discovered an exoplanet

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What if it's already inhabited by an advanced civilization. Let the intergalactic wars begin.

>mfw scifi movies where actually training videos for war with the ayyy lmaos

Transposing my post from /news/

I studied physics in undergrad and i grew to become numb to these headlines. It seems like everyday we're finding the newest most earth-like planet yet. This however is pretty cool because Proxima centauria is our closest fucking star. So we've found a new home right? Not quite yet.

Just because a planet is in the 'habitable zone' doesn't mean the planet is habitable at all, it just means it's in the ring where liquid water COULD be found on the planet. It could have toxic gases and oceans, constant tectonic movement leading to unstable ground and/or volcano explosions or any number of completely unimaginable things that would make it hell-on-earth so to speak.


Well let's stop being pessimists for a second and think about what being our closest star actually means. Can we travel there soon?

First let's consider the speeds. The fastest humans have ever gone is 40,000km/h.

"The current human speed record is shared equally by the trio of astronauts who flew Nasa’s Apollo 10 mission. On their way back from a lap around the Moon in 1969, the astronauts’ capsule hit a peak of 39,897km/h" http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150809-how-fast-could-humans-travel-safely-through-space.

With this in mind, and to gain some perspective, let's imagine traveling to mars. In july 2018 we're apparently going to be pretty close to mars at only 57 million km. http://www.universetoday.com/14824/distance-from-earth-to-mars/

57,000,000km / (40,000 km/h) = 1425 h = 59 days which is about 2 months!

That's not very long at all... But keep in mind that 40,000 km/h was the fastest that Apollo 10 ever went. It obviously had to accelerate and decelerate.

Next let's talk about this planet.... (1/2)

So let's try and get a lower bound for how long it would take to visit this planet. The planet is 1.3 parsecs away.

1.3 parsec = 4*10^13 km

4*10^13 km / (40,000 km/h) = 1,000,000,000 h

So at the max speed appolo 10 hit, it would take 1,000,000,000 h = 114,000 years

Well... that's not very comforting.


What about an unmanned voyage? Like a satellite or some shit.

To my surprise, the fastest thing we've ever launched was voyager 1. Around 2013 it was clocked at 17030 m/s [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Exit_from_the_heliosphere]

17030m/s=61,000 km/h

so this time it would take about 650,000 h = 75,000 years

Not much better realistically. So what does /sci/ know about the future of propulsion technology? What are some realistic (read as: safe) predictions for speeds that rockets can go within the next decade or two?


(2/2)

spend so many years getting gravitional assist from the planets and our sun. fling ship to proxima centurai, when ship gets closer use gravitational assist to slow ship. control ship using ion thrusters.
Is this possible?

>>8295139

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAqkCdAfNm4
basically this

>1.3 earth masses
>11 day orbit
>tidally locked

>"earth like"

>>8295149
You should constantly accelerate half way there, then constantly decelerate the last half with nuclear powered ion thrusters.

>>8295193
so tidal locking means that one side of the sun is forever in sun and the other forever in shade?

>>8295212
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDz_VP3PE

>WOW GUYS LOOK THERE'S AN EARTH LIKE PLANET AROUND ANOTHER STAR ISN'T THAT AWESOME???
>by the time humans reach the planet everyone alive right now will have been dead for two centuries

Remind me why I should care?

>>8295450

IIRC we could get there in a few decades if we tried.

>>8295519
That would be lovely, but that would also require a shitload of funding.
NASA is already pretty underfunded. And as much as I would love to have faith in private space agencies... yeah, no.

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>world peace, all military funds go to unlock FTL travel
>we make a ship and send two guys to proxima
>when they arrive they can see brown land and green sea from space
>they land
>the mainland is brown and barren
>they go to the sea
>it's green and thick with algae
>and the beaches are black with inhabitants
>they are arranged in packs, outer layer protecting the inner from other packs
>members of the pack take turns to eat of the algae sea, the only food source
>except when someone dies, they get a new temporary food source
>also sex in the middle of each pack
>our two astronaut guys nope the fuck out of there

>>8295527
>And as much as I would love to have faith in private space agencies

You can get companies to pay your company to launch sateelites for TV/internet etc. but what business purpose is there to launch an interstellar probe?

I suppose they could work out the budget for such a mission, inflate the number and then start a gofundme or kickstarter and then maybe the could make a profit, but that sounds risky to board members and such.

>>8295149
>>8295199
If we want to get it there at a reasonable time I don't think we'd ever be able to slow it down, just look at how New Horizons had no option but to speed past Pluto.

The Beakthrough Starshot proposal suggests sending a whole swarm of little probes spread out so you can collate all the little bits of information they pick up as they speed by into more concise data.