An " Earth " like planet has just been found ! Ok , now what ?

reply to post by pjslug


You can be very intelligent - however you can only question those things you actually have a basis for data on.

You can infer from data. You can reach models and conclusions on data. You can get wrong answers, right answers, or even partially correct answers.

But in the absences of ANY data, there is no context upon which to surmise from.

You and the person crossing the plateau in a hunter gatherer tribe can be equally intelligent. Cultural context defines you differently. The collaboration of knowledge you both have access to is very different. And the results of it vastly influence your outcomes

Realistically though , what could we or would we be able to do about such a discovery ?

If we ever did discover such a planet how would we investigate further ?

Extra-Solar orbiters first with measurement instruments.

Steps after that would be a series of probes. With a unique problem.

Shielding the technology to travel at just barely sub-luminal speeds.

You'd have to plan your probes in reverse.

The first launches would not arrive first. They'd have to be good enough to get there and not be anything that could be compromising in cosmological political ways. Subtle, assume that you already have data on basic information.

The reason that the first launches would not arrive first is that improving tech here, and the successive launches will build on original tech. There will be advances in propulsion, or advances in understanding of matter itself and its entwined nature.

I'd suggest original probes focus on getting outside this stars influence for further measurement opportunities and focusing on gathering data about how to get a successive probe out of our solar system.

We need to understand "up up and AWAY!" before we get to launching something that'll actually get away.

Further study would need to get into the target system, and then the target planet. The target planet should be probed for things that long distance probing could never tell you. Rare mining opportunities. Habitation. Solar interaction with the planet. Geo-magnetics. Languages. Cultural memes. Bio-medical plant components. Virii. Fungus. Bacteria. Lichen. Bio-hazards.

I'll keep thinking about it. My brain is itching that I am not listing something important that I know, but haven't brought into consciousness yet.


What will we do with such a discovery - well if most people get their way absolutely nothing until we go extinct, which they are hoping happens soon.

What I think we should do with such a discovery. Learn. And if no one is there - go and live there.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Just because *I* might not get there myself doesn't mean anything at all.

[edit on 2010/8/1 by Aeons]

There really isn't anything you can do!

If said planet is fairly close, then you can send a signal in their direction & hope there is someone waiting to intercept it. At the absolute least, your still talking years to decades for your signal to arrive, then the same amount of time to receive the response.

If it were me in charge of a country's space program. I'd scrap all planned projects & divert every penny into next generation propulsion systems that would actually allow you to travel to these far flung places.

You need resources to do that. You need a REASON, an accessible reason to develop those systems.

If you can develop something that works well in system, to get at resources here, and then improve technology for transportation to make it cheaper you'll have a driving reason to create better transport systems that can be adapted to further flung resources.

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

One asteroid can have more resources on it than every mining operation on this planet.

Mining asteroids in place is a problem, and habitable stations nearby may take a while.

But if you could put a simple propulsion drive onto an asteroid and aim it at something fairly large - like a planet (say....Mars for example), you could have a stable ground base with decent consistent gravity to mine that asteroid.

Smashing asteroids into Mars has some other benefits - it could drive a greenhouse effect for the Martian atmosphere which would be beneficial for human habitation. It could bring water to the surface by warming the atmosphere, but also by using ice-asteroids for practice.

Getting a propulsion drive that would quickly route resources back and forth from Mars in tighter time spans, combined with the knowledge gained from playing "Asteroids" with real missile propulsion systems in space, and a nano-wire transport from orbit to Earth - well you have the beginnings of resource accumulation into the planet which will then drive more reasons to get quicker turn around time.

A stable mid-system point will also drive consumer reasons to look at odder fare further out in the system. Such as the lakes of hydrocarbons on some of the moons. Or rare elements.

You don't go straight from arrowheads to cell phones. You need an immediate reason to take the next opportunity for improvement. And those opportunities are closer by than another Super-Earth.

Originally posted by Aeons

Smashing asteroids into Mars has some other benefits - it could drive a greenhouse effect for the Martian atmosphere which would be beneficial for human habitation. It could bring water to the surface by warming the atmosphere, but also by using ice-asteroids for practice.

Benefits? Mars' atmosphere was practically stripped away by asteroid impacts. Far be it from human technology to reverse that, not even in a thousand years could we change that. Mars is too small and it's source of water far too little to ever sustain a substantial atmosphere again.

It doesn't need a "substantial" atmosphere.

Asteroids probably didn't strip its atmosphere - the slowing core not generating a shield to protect the atmosphere from the Sun did.

Mars never needs to be a substantial place with lots of water. It needs to be a USEFUL place, that has enough to allow miners, astronauts, scientists and technicians to live there for periods of time before being rotated out again.

No environment means - no restrictions on what you can do to strip out the resources.