There is third obstacle we would have to surmount if humans like us were to colonize another planet even after we’d found it. That’s the problem of getting there in the first place. To put this in perspective, it was a mere four centuries ago that Europeans began sailing across the Atlantic to what we now call the Americas. It was a perilous journey that thousands did not survive. Many ships were lost at sea, and illness killed many more on the journey. Nor was survival assured once they hit land. Even though it was already inhabited by earlier arrivals, many newly founded colonies died out, killed by starvation and disease.
How much more challenging would be a trek to another planet? How much more treacherous surviving once the space ship touched down?
First of all the trip itself. We don’t know how far the nearest habitable planet we might find is, but the best candidate so far is more than 20 light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year which is 186,282 miles a second. Multiplied by 60 is the distance in a minute, multiplied by 60 again is the distance in an hour; multiplied by 24 is the distance in a day; and multiplying that by 365 is the distance in miles light travels in a year. That’s 5,874,589,152,000 miles.
The fastest astronauts have ever travelled so far is 7 miles a second. That means it would take more than 26 thousand years for us to travel the distance of a light year. The good news is that optimistic scientists think we could eventually multiply the speed of human space travel by 100, so that it would take only 260 years to travel the distance of a light year.
The bad news is that the nearest scientists think an inhabitable planet might be is 10 light years away, and the nearest planet scientists have at this point actually found that might be potentially inhabitable is 20 light years away. So optimistically, we would have to assume that it would take between 2,600 and 5,000 years for us to reach the nearest inhabitable planet.
So the trip itself poses gigantic obstacles.
First, we would need volunteers to go into space where they would spend the rest of their lives, with no expectation that they or any of their offspring for thousands of years would reach land. Space stations that we set up along the way might help break up the journey, but it would also slow it down. And space stations themselves as permanent support stops are not yet feasible.
Second, we would have to solve the problems associated with the fact that humans have evolved to live in a world with certain levels of gravity and pressure. Without it, our bones tend to disintegrate. So far, we haven’t any idea of how the human body would cope with living from birth to death in an atmosphere without gravity. The question of whether new human life could be conceived and nurtured successfully in a space ship is an obvious one that would need to be solved. So would questions of disease, and the inevitable friction that would develop when a small group of people are living permanently in a cramped space – not even able to get out for a walk.
Of greatest concern would be one of genetic diversity. Would the original humans take along a large gene pool so that the pioneers would not eventually become a small incestuous group highly vulnerable to disease?
Then, of course, we would have to build a space ship that could fuel itself for 5,000 years and provide food for its passengers.
When I think about it, I think it might be easier to save this planet. Because the problems don’t stop with getting to a new planet. More thoughts about that in the next post.
5,874,589,152,000 miles is one light year. You would still have to multiply that by 10 or 20 or even more! 5,200 years with lesser gravity, the human body structure would most defiantly evolve into something much thinner because there would be no need for extra weight or bone structure, maybe making them appear flaccid. And with lesser food and sunlight it would effect growth significantly. It makes me think if they where to come back after our time, would the be regarded as aliens?
I agreed with you
UHMMMM>>>
UHHNNMMMM…
This is quite interesting.
In your language, I am Leslatinkas, the decendant of Noforikanlapf. My name is common on our planet. We only have one name and no middle or last like here on your planet where you may have three names or more. And we do not have differant genders as humans do. We diferancilactenact or in your language, conceive, at a certain age. usually between 760 and 960 mellanompis years. mellanompis is camparable to 906,593,020,456 of your average years. A halinskis, or as you might say “alien” does not age the way that humans do. On our planet we do not have pollutants or diseases. In addition our atmospehic stucture and molecular make up is differant in many ways than yours here. In addition we are too far for you, the humans, to travel. It is a good thing in that as well. If ONE single human being touched foot on our planet our grounds would become contaminated and we would all die. As would the human that landed here for our world is too pure. No, we can NOT visit your planet, Earth, for it is a very dirty planet. my ancestor Noforikanlapf visited this planet in your average year 1796 and died almost immediatly once there. Soon after the remains of the body were set on fire and left no remains for any human to find. The details of this are highly confidential and that i may not disclose. Now, in presant day, your planet is even more dirty than it was in 1796. We will not blow up your dirty planet unless you threaten ours in any way. This cannot happen for 48,590 more of your average years because the human race is still immature and young. With the way you human beings dont take care of your planet you will run out of all your necessities long before that time with no reversal. Take care of your planet now before it is too late. You are aging your planet very fast and time may be limited for all if EVERYONE does not help. now. I am not allowed to communiacate with you, but i had to warn you that what you do to your world is getting to the point of no repair. but there is still time.
folikknas or goodbye
Leslatinkas the “alien”
[so its just a joke.. dont take it seriously lol]
Well, yes, your comment is a joke from one point of view. But it does suggest an underlying truth, doesn’t it? It’s a poetic way of saying that we should be worried about what we are doing to the only planet we have, and thinking about what a planet might be like that was respected by those living there.
I wish you well!
Lo!
Terry
In the Earth there is
32% Iron
30% of oxygen
15% Silicon
14% Magnesium
3% Sulfur
2% Nickel
Plus there is smaller piles of calcuim & Alnium also other traces of Elements. If there is any planet were going to live on it would be the planet Mars because the planet marsis made of…
Basalt
17% Sulfur
& scientists think that Mars is made up from 1,480 km Radius
~Aliens~
You may think this ain’t true but the Goverment are Hidint what they have found they have found in deed an arm on mars now if you think bout it no one yet has actually been to mars because it would 2,400yrs to get there but now they have estimated it to go for about 500yrs so basically we would be dead no this arm could be no others except for an alien life form how ever it could be something the Goverment are hiding with the space ship we might be able to travel that far because after all they did find that we can do time travel within space they took a clock from exactly at the same hour same minute, same secon & and same mili-second they flew around the moon and got back to earth and it was 7 seconds out now if they thought of how to improve that then they could’ve indeed got mars and back by my calculation within 10yrs but who’s arm is it and how did it get there.
Thankyou for reading
Megan
Megan,
Thank you for your comment which I found extremely interesting. I am not familiar with the exact chemical content of our planet Earth, but I do know it is very special and there may not be another one like it anywhere in the universe. In any case, since we haven’t found it, I think we ought to be taking better care of the home we have, don’t you?
I also share your lack of complete trust in everything the government tells the public. Sometimes they hide things, sometimes they tell outright lies. A democratic country needs people who question and think before believing everything government says. It’s a lot better for us if politicians don’t find it’s too easy to deceive people.
Unfortunately governments are not the only ones who lie, who cover things up, or who just get things wrong. I suspect what you heard about finding an arm on Mars might be the result of a misunderstanding. I think the arm might not have been the arm of a living thing but the arm of the explorer Beagle that was sent to crawl around Mars to look for life but got lost during landing. On the other hand, it might be another kind of mistake or misunderstanding, somebody’s over-active imagination, or even possibly an outright lie, though I can’t see any reason for that. I would be most interested to know where you heard that an arm was found on Mars, and whether it was from a credible source. I’m not inclined to believe it without a lot more evidence than I’ve seen.
It does not, by the way, take 2,400 years to get to Mars. Depending on where Mars and Earth are in their respective orbits around the sun, it can take as little as 1 1/2 years — not as long as it took to sail around the earth 500 years ago. Right now, there are astronauts in training for a four-year round trip to Mars. As I’m sure you know, though, there are a lot of other problems to be dealt with before they actually set out.
For people who think about travelling to another solar system besides ours or beyond, they assume that entire generations would live and die while they were travelling in space for perhaps as long as hundreds of years. But then, it’s something that I doubt either of us will ever see happen.
That seven seconds you are wondering about, by the way, is the result of what Albert Einstein identified as the relativity of time. I had to think/read/study/struggle with this concept for almost a year before I finally understood it. So maybe I’d better not try to explain it quite yet.
Thank you again for your comment. And I mean it – I would be most interested in hearing about your source where you heard that an arm was found on Mars.
Terry Sissons
By the way sorry for the spelling mistakes did’nt go through it I can spell lol
Hey I think thats true because at certain points on Earth you set your watch exactly like you said and then you may look at it and its time has gone like a minute ahead I live in London & I set my time to the big ben and when I done it before and came back the next day the time was a minute out on my watch so yh I think it’s true deep within what you said lol
From Amy
Amy,
You are right that time can change, and scientists have evidence that it does. As I said to Megan, Einstein’s theory of relativity is a difficult concept to grasp but it does seem to be true.
I doubt, though, that your watch getting out of sync with Big Ben in 24 hours is due to time’s relativity. Your watch and Big Ben are just not perfectly accurate. Even atomic clocks, which are the most accurate clocks anybody has yet devised are inaccurate by at least a second every thousand years. Your watch and mine are a lot worse than that — though they are good enough for most of us living in London.
Terry Sissons
that is totally, totally, totally true!
Thank you for your comment. Yes! And the more I learn, the more “totally’s” I would add. I think it is very possible that we could eventually colonize Mars, and even some day find another earth-like planet and figure out how to get there.
But it isn’t going to happen soon, and we need to take care of where we are now or we won’t be around any more to even try to get some place else.
Terry Sissons
[...] addition to that deal with problems on their own planet, like we do. Here is a good link i found: Could we survive the trip to another planet? The Big Bang to Now [...]