If an Earth type world were discovered orbiting a nearby star, would we go?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Lancer


You mean load a bunch of today's uneducated youth on the huge, highly explosive space ship and try to smarten them up on the trip?

That's not a bad idea. How many Texans do you think you could fit on such a ship?

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Kontiki


That's not a bad idea. How many Texans do you think you could fit on such a ship?

[Zkribbler]

One Texan.

The rest -- worshipers.

[Darius871]

Re: Re: Re: If an Earth type world were discovered orbiting a nearby star, would we go?

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Are you speaking of the bio-sphere experiments? IIRC, the experiments were corrupted by stuff being smuggled in. Even if not, a system like that would be the size of a few city blocks -- and that's without the re-entry capsule.

The biospheres were more about environmentalist mumbo-jumbo than practical utility for surviving a space voyage (e.g. using only plants for O2 when a combination of electrolysis and CO2 scrubbers is readily available). The only non-recyclable supply a real generation ship would need is food, which only requires UV lights. Their soil could be fertilized by the crew's feces, along with small amounts of non-recyclable nutrients which could be sufficiently stored in bulk (depending on what's meant by a "nearby" star).

The size also wouldn't be a problem if it's built in orbit, which doesn't require anything more advanced than the rockets and spacesuits we've had for decades.

Again, it's not that we can't, it's that there'd be no political will for the kind of tax rates this project would entail. Even if we knew for certain that an asteroid was going to hit us in 300 years, it'd be cheaper to just invest in a project to divert the thing and still have money left over for universal health care, etc.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV
Serious answer:

How do you colonize another earth like planet that has it's own ecosystem and biological diversity? I mean what would happen if two different earth like bio-systems that formed separately came into contact?

We have absolutely no idea because we have no basis to conceive a "typical" alien ecosystem.