April 25, 2007

• Fascinating, but with 5 times Earth gravity, it ain't habitable as far as I'm concerned.
• Humm... I didn't think about that. But does 5 times the mass result in 5 times gravity if the planets radius is increased by 50%? If it was 5 times more dense I would agree.
• > just 20.5 light-years away Well what are we waiting for? Attack!
• Are there any honeybees?
• Anyone read Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement? Although I don't think 5G would squish you, but there might be some interesting flat bugs over there.
• Meanwhile, scientists on Gliese 581 C are tuning their instruments and pondering the obsession the inhabitants of Sol 3 have with The Golden Girls. 20.5 light-years, you know
• If the mass is 5x earth's and the radius is 1.5x, the gravitational force at the surface would be 2.2x ours. That's enough to keep me from living there. Well, that and the 22.5 light year thing...
• If we launch now, with newborn babies on board, and training facilities, by the time they reach there at lightspeed, we'll have a 20.5-year-old army, ready to fight! And they'll be totally alienated and psychpathic. Not to mention sick of each other.
• The question is not if we could live there, but rather if anything at all could. Any indication of any type of extraterrestrial life would be world shattering news, possibly the biggest news in the history of mankind. Indictions of intelligent life on other planets would, of course, be even more earth shattering news, but insofar as we are not even really sure that intelligent life exists here on earth, I personnally wont get my hopes up yet.
• muteboy: <ex-physicist>No, because of time dilation, they will have aged considerably less time. For instance, if the ship is accelerating out at one gee, then decelerating at one gee halfway there, the newborns will have experienced only 6.1 years elapsed time.<\ex-physicist> After 6.1 years, there would be a lot of poo-filled diapers, so I grant your other point.
• Oh, good. Another excuse to destroy this planet, since we can all just go live an another one. Never mind the minor problems of distance, density, etc. In a related story, Stephen Hawking may be a bright guy, but his ideas about colonizing outer space are absurd (how else could he justify generating vast amounts of pollution so he can take a glorified joy ride?) Then again, maybe if they keep looking they'll find The Little Prince.
• So long, suckers!
• Hawking sez, "I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers," Hawking said before his flight. "I believe the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space." I find that just so nihilistic, cynical, and pessimistic that it's a little bit crazy. If you wield that kind of influence and believe the human race is that far off course, maybe you could work for some kind of change in that course? Instead of hoping for sheer escape into space? I dunno, but he went down a notch in my book with that one. Nobody tell him though, cause I don't wanna like hurt his feelings or anything.