If you could travel to another livable planet, would you?

[Ignacio Upton]

After reading this article on the discovery of a potential Earth-like planet:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/24/exoplanet.reut/index.html

...I was wondering whether or not anyone here would be willing to travel to another Earth-like planet, even if it meant spending several YEARS on a spaceship (even if we could get ships to travel close to the speed of light, this planet is still 20.5 light years away) and with limited resources.

Personally, I would only do it if something chaotic were going on. I would love to go to the "wild west" and get away from all sorts of BS laws that we currently have to follow. Of course, I wouldn't travel to such a planet expecting total anarchy (ie. prevent murder and robbery and rape), but there are some laws on the books in this country that are frivolous. If the whole world were ever placed under the control of a single dictatorial government (or even the U.S., assuming that we still have nation-states by the time such technology is developed) then I would flee to another planet as quickly as possible.

[Redstone]

1. How about just out of a sense of adventure, rather than desperation? I'd do that.

Just to go somewhere I'd never been to before.

Redstone

[Neoma]

2. Sure.

After more than a few spaceships have successfully gotten there, and if we had a internet connection...

[ncabot22]

3. I definitely would

I'm pretty curious what another planet would be like. I definitely would check out this "earth-like" planet. It could be a fresh start and a chance not to screw up like we've done here.

[Bullwinkle925]

4. Only if I could be persuaded that there were no Republican-like

life forms on that planet.

[Neoma]

5. I bet there would be a fight over the planet.

[uppityperson]

6. Ever thought of moving to Alaska?

Yeah, the weather can be a bit extreme, but you can be a lot more free up there.

[RedCappedBandit]

7. 20 years of my life is too long

regardless, moving at the speed of light is impossible, is it not?

[Ignacio Upton]

10. Emphasis on "close to"

n/t.

[RedCappedBandit]

16. Oops

:hi:

[Ignacio Upton]

17. Right back at'cha

:hi:

[Selatius]

18. I think quantum physics provides theoretical ways around the cosmic speed limit.

Of course, it's all theory at this point, and even if it were possible, the technology is not there. Still, it's fun to fantasize gravity drive engines and wormhole generators used to jump the stars, all powered by things like matter/anti-matter reactors. With technology like that, you could probably reach that planet in several days after several "jumps."

[Ignacio Upton]

19. If that ever become possible...

Then I will bestow Carl Sagan with the honorary title of "Governor Emeritus Posthumous" of Gliese 581c

[maine_raptor]

20. Faster than Light is possible.

Experiments have proven that.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/07/20/speed.of.light.ap/

"Scientists have apparently broken the universe's speed limit.

For generations, physicists believed there is nothing faster than light moving through a vacuum -- a speed of 186,000 miles per second.

But in an experiment in Princeton, New Jersey, physicists sent a pulse of laser light through cesium vapor so quickly that it left the chamber before it had even finished entering.

The pulse traveled 310 times the distance it would have covered if the chamber had contained a vacuum.

Researchers say it is the most convincing demonstration yet that the speed of light -- supposedly an ironclad rule of nature -- can be pushed beyond known boundaries, at least under certain laboratory circumstances. "

Don't forget, what is the laboratory experiment of today, can be the technology of tomorrow.

[gravity]

8. And be attack by an 8 headed alien?

No thanks, I'll take my chances on earth. Avoiding the problem is not going to make anything better.

[Selatius]

9. Watch, if we could do it now than in several centuries, we're going to fuck up that planet too.

As long as we continue to envision our current order of things as "civilization," nothing will change until we change and decide this way of living is not sustainable, that it will ultimately kill us no matter how many planets we deplete and colonize.

[Ignacio Upton]

11. I think that the first colonizers would be pretty radical types of people

Imagine, say, the Scientologists founding a colony on this planet in the same way the Puritans came to New England. Or what about a Marxist colony of the planet?

[Selatius]

13. Yeah, but the second and third and fourth wave of colonizers aren't that radical.

At least, that's what history books indicate. They will simply bring to this new planet the same old behaviors and the same old attitudes that destroyed the previous planet. That's assuming people don't change, and I can tell you people can change, but I would qualify that by saying they usually change after the damage has been done, and if that isn't the case, then they change very slowly.

[Ignacio Upton]

14. Well, if Earth practices a "salutary neglect" policy with the colonists

Than they might change, and believe that they are entitled to certain rights and liberties that they technically don't have under the laws of the mother planet. And then they will protest, declare independence, and fight a war for it. Sound familiar?

[BlooInBloo]

12. Maybe to visit, but not as a wussy escapist thing.

[Ignacio Upton]

15. Well, America's history is full of escapist thinking

From The Puritans, to whiskey distillers fleeing to Kentucky after the Whiskey Rebellion was crush, to the Mormons fleeing to Utah when it was still part of Mexico, to the early movie industry fleeing to California to avoid patent law and having to abide by restrictions of filming technology that Thomas Edison demanded.

[seemunkee]

21. In a heartbeat

Although 20 years would mean I would be 70 when I get there. I doubt if I would be chosen for such a trip.