If humankind has a future in space it’s not gonna be through planetary chauvinism or pipedream of intergalactic diaspora, at least not without a technological black swan development

The future if it occurs will be inter-system orbital space colonies; O’Neill Cylinders, Stanford Tori, Bernal Spheres, Asteroid Terrariums, that kind of tech

Just like I said for the “interstellar travel is completely impossible forever” post a little while ago, talking about interstellar travel when the furthest humans from earth are a couple hundred miles up is premature.

We can’t even be trusted with one single planet, like fuck the universe is any better off if we get our hands on more

I scanned the article for fun.

The recent confirmation of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet called LHS 1140b has created a wave of interest within the astronomy community. The planet orbits within the habitable zone around its parent star—a red dwarf located some 48 light-years from Earth.

[…]

The space probe itself would need a form of propulsion capable of accelerating it to mildly relativistic speeds, say 10-20% of the speed of light. After a travel time of many decades, the sensors would pass through a target star system without stopping, making in-situ observations and then very slowly drip data back to Earth.

After we have a working probe - if my math is right - in only 288 years from the probe’s launch - we can get back data from LHS 1140b. Of course that assumes that the probe’s AI works flawlessly and the probe itself works flawlessly and it can go at 20% the speed of light. The probe gets to LHS 1140b’s neighborhood in 240 years. Then - flawlessly again - its sends back its data to earth which takes another 48 years and modern civilization hasn’t collapsed and we have the knowledge about the data and the tech to grab it.

Shit. I guess this effective altruism stuff is kosher!

Edit. Damn it. I found and fixed a mistake. I hope 288 years is right!

To infinity and beyond!

I believe it when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet.

Seems today’s leaders want to stop any and all scientific progress at all costs, for some damn reason. G Here’s to hoping the old bags return to space dust so we can progress.