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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate How long would it take us to colonize another planet?

Discussion in 'Community' started by beezel26, Feb 9, 2014.

  1. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    Minus the time for travel to the planet, How long do you think it would take the human population to build to a significant level that could be construed as a colony? Basically at least 50000 or more people that would be living on another planet and making a new life. If we discovered a planet that was say three years away and it was able to be colonized how long do you think it would take? Do you think we would colonize it before discovering some sort of valuable mineral wealth or just start sending people there to live and colonize the area to find out what is actually there on the planet later?
     
  2. Adrian the Cool

    Adrian the Cool Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 2012
    It depends on the situation. If the planet has to be terraformed up from zero ecosphere this can take many decades, maybe a century and without transluminal travel the journey will take as long too.

    50K isn't much, that's a regular city in today's world. With faster-than-light travel and the planet already habitable, I say they can fit into a few ships together with everything they need and set up a settlement in 1-2 years there.

    For a science fiction-universe I create I'm currently doing the math for planets, populations, military, economy etc. and in those I assume humanity to have the ability to establish 100-200 extra-solar planetary colonies with ~4-7 billion inhabitants in ~80-160 years.
     
  3. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2004
    Centuries. Millennia. If it's even possible at all. I mean right now, our physicists are saying that faster-than-light travel is impossible...so the first step is to do something that can't be done.
     
  4. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Faster than light travel isn't possible. And to get as close as you can would take years of acceleration to reach that speed.

    Sorry beezel, the chance of you finding a planet of giant women demanding pelvis-shattering snoo-snoo are very very slim.
     
  5. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    See? Flavour.
     
    EHT likes this.
  6. EHT

    EHT Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 13, 2007
    Five to ten minutes.
     
    Volderon likes this.
  7. heels1785

    heels1785 Skywalker Saga + JCC Manager / Finally Won A Draft star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 10, 2003
    38 years, 130 days
     
  8. Moviefan2k4

    Moviefan2k4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2009
    Maintaining a faster speed over the long term is a major hurdle for the space program. At present, our space shuttles average at 5 miles per second while in orbit, or 18,000 miles an hour. Assuming the speed of light is a constant, our best estimate is currently 186,000 miles per second, or about 671 million miles per hour. To reach Proxima Centauri - which is just 4.24 light-years from our Sun - we'd have to exponentially increase our current speed of travel, by a factor of more than 37,000!
     
  9. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Twenty-eight days... six hours... forty-two minutes... twelve seconds.
     
  10. CloneUncleOwen

    CloneUncleOwen Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2009
    Let's see...go to planet, build several hundred Walmarts that sell cheap microwaveable dinner plates, throw in several dozen or so Costcos
    that sell the alien version of cheap pizza, rotisserie chicken and toilet paper....

    About three weeks.
     
    Lazy Storm Trooper likes this.
  11. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
  12. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Didn't Stephan Hawking just come out and say there may not be such a thing as worm/black holes?
     
  13. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Not like the media is literally reporting, no.

    If I am not feeling lazy at some point I shalt address this thread topic in vast detail, especially since the OP is all over the place.
     
  14. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Please don't. I'm scared of the inevitable 5 pages of screaming that will ensue.
     
  15. Tornado Wrangler

    Tornado Wrangler Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2013
    I think you're asking - if we discovered the planet today, how long until we develop the technology needed to put a colony on it?

    By "3 years away" i'm going to assume you mean 3 light years. (No other stars are within three light years of us, but that's ok).

    I'd guess at least 200-300 years (not counting travel time to the planet, like you said). The technology we need to develop is the ship that takes them there. I'd have to assume all 50,000 on one ship, with most of them in some sort of suspended animation, because its going to take some time. When the first crew gets old and starts to die, you're gonna half to wake up the 2nd shift, and then the 3rd, and so on. it's gonna take a while.

    The ship would have to accelerate for half the journey, and decelerate for the other half. If we had technology to allow for a slow-but-steady acceleration, it could get going pretty fast, perhaps even 10-20% the speed of light by the time it had to start slowing down. We currently have some ideas for how to do that, but nothing we could currently produce.

    Of course, if there is some unexpected discovery we currently don't understand that could help us in space travel, it could happen sooner. Like a way to decrease the mass of the ship to allow it to be easily accelerated.

    When we try to predict the future, we always leave out the stuff that seems really obvious later on. One thing lacking from 2015 in Back to the Future II? -- CELL PHONES -- But, they did have a fax machine in the bathroom.
     
  16. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    No, not quite. His paper was an attempt to resolve the black hole firewall paradox.

    This article might shed some light (lol) on the topic:
    http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-holes-1.14583
     
    Lord Vivec likes this.
  17. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014
    There's an awful lot of unknowns there. The OP is like a haphazard lego tower of hypothetical upon hypothetical. Even so, the key variable in terms of putting a some kind of timeline together is 'are the unions involved?'
     
  18. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    It's not easy to give a timescale for such an event. There are lots of things to factor in such as the size of the planet, its gravity and orbit etc

    It will likely take us decades to colonise The Moon as it is.
     
  19. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    These are questions that the brightest minds on earth probably can't answer. And you're asking it of sci-fi geeks on a Star Wars message board.

    Flavour.
     
  20. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    This feels like a JCC thread. Beez can you post a 5 paragraph essay about your thoughts on this?
     
    slightly_unhinged likes this.
  21. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2004
    No, my friend. This is the missing link. The thread between threads. The tag between tags. The key. The netherworld of categories where up is down and down is up, nothing makes sense, and we're all floating in a limbo of questions and uncertainty. Save the cheerleader, save the world. This...




    is a beezel thread.
     
  22. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014

    Hahaha! I didn't even notice the senate tag
     
  23. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Probably the best thing he's ever done.
     
  24. thebeanpole

    thebeanpole Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2013
  25. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    This was started in the Old Senate, too. :eek: