Kepler-22b

[Reasoner]

Yep, neutrinos are pretty much mass less so this supposedly makes them faster. But with such a small change, it can lead to such a big break through with physics and well, everything we know. It's probably the biggest thing in physics to happen in a long time...

[rasterbee]

Lucas the relevance is ...um ok so we were talking about how long it would take to get somewhere far away and I said hey look if we can break the speed of light then who knows what we are going to do next or something I wasn't very specific.

[Vishnu]

Lucas the relevance is ...um ok so we were talking about how long it would take to get somewhere far away and I said hey look if we can break the speed of light then who knows what we are going to do next or something I wasn't very specific.

Even AT the speed of light, it would take 600 long years to reach the new planet!
But like you said, if we can break the speed of light, then Everything's gonna change, for the good!

[o0miza0o]

[COLOR=blue]

What say you? Do you feel we are getting closer to finding 'other' life forms? What happens if/when we do 'make contact'? Who's willing to play planetary hop scotch and try out this new world once determined life can be sustained upon a planet such as Kepler-22b?

We are definitely getting closer to achieving contact with other dimensional beings. I believe these beings are way more advanced than us. They know we exist, but some of us are still yet to grasp the idea that THEY exist as well. We are not alone. Since I believe these multi-dimensional beings have advanced spiritually, they may be able to teach us a few things. Maybe there will be some hope left for humanity after-all.
As far as the passengers for the rocket/s are concerned - I've read an article that they already have the list of people they would fly off in case of emergencies. (If and when Earth goes towards destruction.)
As for the test dummies, it would probably be your average middle-class citizen.

[rasterbee]

miza, the idea of people evacuating Earth is insane. We do not have the technology to keep more than a handful of people alive for a few years in which they would drift aimlessly alone in our solar system.

[Rodri]

Space is big and we are puny mortals.
Going anywhere (outside our own system) is really not feasible and travelling faster than light creates raspberry jam out of human bodies, unless you can cancel gravitational forces, which we can't do yet.

Of course there is other life in the universe. That is just a logical conclusion based on the size of the universe and the number of different lifeforms here on earth. All life on earth may have evolved from a single origin species but the materials for early forms of life are known to be wide-spread in the entire universe. Statistically there must be some sort of life out there because the odds of life arising on one planet and not anywhere else are far too long to be feasible.

I wish it were easier to reach the stars. I wish I could jump on a ship and be in orbit around a different star in days or hours but that is still fictional unfortunately. We are almost as earth-bound as we have ever been (the furtherest a human has gone is the Moon but most space flights are just into low-orbit) and nothing much has changed at all in recent times. Humanity may reach the stars but not in my lifetime and only after sorting out a few issues here on earth (not destroying ourselves or the planet spring to mind) in the meantime.

[rasterbee]

Rodri, it is statistically improbable that we are alone yeah, and it will be astonishing when we find some microbe or bacteria floating under the ice on Europa. But the kind of life we are hoping for, an intelligent developed evolved form of life we can communicate with and learn from and share with....and all that, probably isn't out there. Even if it was at one point, they killed themselves off like we're going to in a few hundred years or accidentally blew their planet up or just died out millions of years ago.

Earth is very very special.

[eric0095]

Now, this all being said...it would be grossly egotistic and assumptious for any of us 'Earthlings' to think we could possibly be the 'only' living social structure in our solar system.

I think you mean galaxy or universe, not solar system Though there could be aquatic things under Pluto's icy surface, or one of Jupiter's moons that's also icy.

[Alusair]

Now, this all being said...it would be grossly egotistic and assumptious for any of us 'Earthlings' to think we could possibly be the 'only' living social structure in our solar system.

I'm assuming you mean galaxy/universe. If I remember, we've already found fossil evidence of simple bacterial life in extra-terrestrial rock samples of our own solar system.

As for space-faring speeds, I remember reading about solar sails which are supposed to be a way for us to handle long distance traveling at a reasonable speed (by our current standards). But we're a long way from being able to visit other solar systems. We have yet to make excursions to Proxima Centauri, our nearest solar system neighbor, which is "only" 4.7 light years away from us, or something around that.

Should we meet other intelligent life in the universe (physically, not through communications), I agree with Stephen Hawking's view that it will likely end up much like when Europeans made contact with Native Americans. Which end of the analogy we'd be on is uncertain. But I don't see this happening for a long while, at least not us visiting something else.

EDIT: Darn you eric, slipping in a post with my thoughts while I went afk in mid-posting.

[Reasoner]

I think some people don't realize that we (as humans) know so little about everything, yet we try understand everything. But with Dark energy and dark matter? There is always endless possibilities to explore, but not in this life time..