The Russians do have a project to clean up near space in the works.
Most likely just a launch hole for themselves.
The Commons Problem, everyone can launch anything, then disown it. Hundreds of years later something very expensive with people on board gets hit by a Jamacian Bobsled.
As for a second Earth, the local area has been scanned, nothing.
These are apes, so even ten light years is out of their range.
On scale, from Mars, the Sun is just another star. On Venus, it must cover half the sky.
For a long range project, moving one of the outer planets inward, attaching a moon, wet it down with a few comets, would be cheaper and faster than going anywhere.
Moving Venus out would work. Give it a big Moon, shade it from the Sun, a permanant lunar eclipse, and it would be ice in a hundred years.
Our main limit is we can not get much in space, it costs $20,000 a pound, and until we build an elevator, construct an orbital ring, we are not going to get the big contracts going.
The best way to get an Earth like planet around the nearest stars is build it here, slingshot it around the sun, and direct it to the next star. If it has a magnetic field, and atmosphere, humans could go along for the ride. It would be a snowball for the trip, but could be seeded with life, that will awake when it orbits a new star.
Living underground would not have the spaceship problems. It would have air, water, and endless space with gravity.
There have been reports of wandering planets between the stars. Speculation that Venus was a recent capture.
Towing planets has problems, the impact of rocks thrown is the best addition of force, comets count more than rocks. A train of comets coming around the sun, hitting Venus in series, could expand it's orbit, without breaking it. Once it is moving, more hits increase speed, and it would take fifty years to knock it out of the gravity well, and on to another star. Mecury would make a good Moon.
Moving planets around for a few hundred years would be good practice for a several thousand year trip to the next star.
There are several that combined with comets, which we have a large supply, mass from the asteroid belt, also good supply, and given a Moon, could be terraformed here, and be livable within a hundred years.
There has been speculation of directing comets to Mars, for water and atmosphere. Mars lacks a magnetic field. That is harder to fix.
If there was another Earth, always on the other side of the Sun, I doubt we could send people there. Maybe three for a oneway trip. Radio would be blocked. They could not return, we would never know.
A ship that could carry hundreds to Mars, with everything they need to survive, is way beyond out current means.
First build an off planet space shipyard. Then we can make plans.
28 Sep 2014, 5:56 pm
