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A comment on Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet. Parent comment

Re:Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet by tachyonbeam on Thursday September 12, 2019 @01:04AM (#20948180)
No, and traveling near lightspeed is likely hardly possible. However, fusion will likely become a reality within our lifetimes, and if we can build fusion powered spaceships, we could likely reach a fraction of the speed of light, say, 0.2c. I don't think it's that crazy to think we could do that a few centuries from now. That still means it would take over 1000 years to reach that planet.

Personally, I think that if humanity progresses that far technologically, without destroying itself, we probably won't care that much about habitable planets or planets with water. We'll just live in space and harvest the energy and resources that are available nearby. There are a lot of other planets much closer to us than K2-18b. We could just build bases in orbit around those stars, harvest asteroids for minerals and hydrogen for fusion power.

Alpha Centauri would "only" take 22 years to reach at 0.2c (plus some time for acceleration and deceleration). You could leave earth and live to see that solar system, and you could travel there on a ship that is basically a large city that will just park itself in orbit around the star on arrival, acquire resources, and start building something bigger.

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Re:Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet by sireat on Thursday September 12, 2019 @07:23AM (#20950208)
Besides fusion I think hibernation will also become a reality within this century.

This will make the 22 year trip to Alpha Centauri more palatable.

1000 year trip in a single lifetime will require some life extension as well

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Re:Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet by sgt on Thursday September 12, 2019 @09:35AM (#20951245)
Although it seems unlikely now, imagine if we could ever reach 0.9c or maybe even 99.9% of the speed of light.

Perhaps not ships containing humans, but some kind of other tiny ship containing a replicator machine and DNA for humans.

For 0.999c, it would only take around 71 days to reach Alpha Centauri from Earth (as seen from the ship). That's pretty mind boggling.

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Re:Water found on a potentially life-friendly alien planet by tachyonbeam on Thursday September 12, 2019 @10:29AM (#20951839)
Besides the incredible amount of energy you would need for 0.999c, which is physically difficult (impossible?) to bring on a ship, there's other physical constraints that make this difficult, such as the fact that the vacuum is actually not that empty. The faster you go, the more you have small particles hitting your ship at near lightspeed, micrometeorites, etc.
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