Let’s Go
News your great-great-grandkids can use:
Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.
Astronomers reported Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away — or some 77 trillion miles. That planet hasn’t been found yet, but should be there based on the team’s study of red dwarf stars.
Galactically speaking, that’s right next door.
Road trip, anyone?
About thirty years ago, my grandfather gave the keynote address at an Association of Steel Distributors conference. It was called, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Place Called ‘America’.” Moving speech, and I believe a very new congressman named Dick Armey was in attendance. The premise, as you may have already guessed, was that the circumstances that allowed for America’s birth were unique, unrepeatable. That if we piss it away, there’s no recreating the magic.
Unless…
Yeah, new planets.
That’s one of the things that hooked me into Robert Heinlein’s Lazarus Long tales. Each new planet had to be colonized, and each new one settled by English-speakers had a little spark of America in it — while the Real America went just as crazy as the rest of dying Old Earth.
So please, keep finding more and closer planets. And faster — because I’m becoming increasingly certain that we’ve run out of time to avoid my grandfather’s warning.
It won’t be NASA colonizing any worlds. They could never get the permits required to disturb the existing ecosystem.
Now, the Chinese or Indians might get something done.
Yeah, that! And the unrepentant sexuality.
LL is one of my all-time favorite characters. First ran across him in high school, and have been a fan ever since.
And sooooo quotable.
..”because I’m becoming increasingly certain that we’ve run out of time..” No, no no! Never give up hope. We never know what tomorrow might bring. As long as there is you, and the others at PJ Media, and Reason & Cato & Instapundit & Dr. Helen then there hope. I, and a bunch of others are counting on you all!
Besides, when the chips are down, there’s Vodka…and that always helps!
Thank you.
And I am so stealing that last line.
@ Jim G Well said! and ditto but I’ll take Bourbon please.
It’s all about the rear guard action now. They’ve won, but it matters a great deal how fast they’re allowed to cement their power into place. A couple more generations, and maybe our grand-kids will be able to make a run for it, if they’ve got any breathing room at all.
So, even if it’s a losing battle it’s still worth fighting.
Scotch on the rocks for me.
I’m waiting for our world’s version of Andrew Jackson Libby to free us from the contraints of inertia.
I guess they disproved all of the Mars anomalies and earth history not officially known by the catholic church. When they do reach a planet 13 light-years away, they’ll say they miscalculated and can they please have more funding…
Sorry; we know NOTHING about those other planets. They MIGHT be in the heat range in which the (hypothetical) water might remain liquid. Or they might not. “Time Enough for Love” is a great story, but Niven’s “Known Space” tales are better science – and as good a set of stories. Let’s hope that our Universe-class starship doesn’t arrive at Mount Lookatthat! or on Jinx.
The flip side is that the Kepler telescope shouldn’t have found anywhere NEAR the number of planets as they have. Finding this many must mean that planets are as common as, well, “dirt”.
Even if 90% of the planets in the Milky Way are incapable of supporting life, that 10% is going to still be HUGE. The odds of finding other sentient races out there, as a result, is going to be pretty high. The bigger question for space exploration is “at what level of technological advancement will mankind meet alien races?”
Also, at some point the “Core Worlds” will ossify and the “Outer Rim” will develop separately, and largely in a liberal format. This explains Firefly’s Brownshirts, the rise of Manticore and Haven in David Weber’s Honor Harrington Saga, the Earth Alliance Civil War in Babylon 5, and the Rebellion in Star Wars, etc.