Would you join a colony ship being sent 1000 light years away?

I'll go only if the men also wear sexy space suits!!

 

Funny you should say that. I always thought those pictures of aliens are what human beings would look like if they had to live in space with high technology. Not really using any of their own strength, much of their muscles would atrophy. Changes in pigment and other such things in the body would likely result from the increased radiation exposure and the decreased exposure to all the things your body is exposed to on earth that you aren't even aware effect you, like the atmospheres nitrogen content.

But as fr the OP, if it was the first trip, HELL NO. That's the trip where all the problems get stumbled upon like, "Oh, we should have brought more oxygen", or something considerably mood-breaking like that. Maybe after the hundredth trip when the main topic isn't surviving the trip, but making it comfortable and/or efficient.

 

I'd go, but not if there were socialists on board.

But I think if the intent were colonization you'd need to have more people, or a higher female to male ratio like something Dr. Strangelove suggested. In addition to that, I would require a really good set of playing cards. Because we would have time to kill. Lots of time...

 

There are several problems with travelling great distances.

For starters, how would you slow down? Once you reach the halfway point of your journey (actually, slightly before), you would have to reverse the engines and begin the gradual process of slowing down.

And even if you had managed this, you'd better pray that your navigator is top notch. All things considered, a planet travels in several directions at once (its axis, its seasons, orbit, its star moves, etc.) Oh yeah - and if you ever want to get home, you'd face the same problem.


Fortunately for the crew, the faster they travel, they faster time moves for them. In other words, a four-year journey near the speed of light will only be experiences as about one year for the crew. And the farther one travels, the greater the discrepancy between the observer's and the travellers' perception of time. (It sounds crazy, but if you could were travel across the known universe at the speed of light,billions of years would pass for the observer on earth - and only about fifty years for the crew! In a sense, your craft could be thought of as a time machine to the future.)

 

Here is the way I see it:

All space-faring civilizations (ones that have a permament presence in space) are going to be peaceful in nature.

Here is my logic.

The laws of physics are presumed to be same throughout the universe. This means that space-faring ETs already know about electricity, the energy potential of splitting atoms, etc. If they had been unable to overcome any violent instincts, then they would have destroyed themselves long before establishing a space presence. (Such a thing would presumably require an entire planet's resources and citizens working in cooperation.)

In my opinion, our civilization is at the "testing point." We are about as far as as we'll get with our current mentality and practices of war. We're at a crossroad - do we stop fighting wars and advance into the next phase of civilization, or do we desteoy ourselves?

 

I would. This scenario is pretty attractive in terms of goals and timeframe. In reality the questions would be tougher: "are you willing to spend your entire rest of your life on the ship, or are you willing to give birth to children and have them never see Earth, for a planet that MAY be habitable, etc."

 

+

Then you should go tag along... You wouldn't want the only humans in the universe winding up socialist and maybe you could put a stop to it!

 

from the little I've read of ion drive it will achieve no where near light speed, it has agonizingly slow acceleration even reaching the nearest star will take a long time and when the halfway point is attained the ship would need to reverse it's self slowing down just slowly as it accelerated otherwise it would overshoot it's destination,..all that star trek instant starts (warp speed) and sudden braking is fantasy and would kill everyone on board instantaneously...we are never leaving this solar system be happy with what we have and look after the only planet we will ever call home...

and since astronaut are normally in their late thirties of forties add in a 40yr trip what do expect a bunch of 70 and 80 yr olds do on arrival...

 

Those may be uniform, however what course life might take over there may be way different..

If they were like us maybe they would destroy themselves, but who says they would be like us? They may have evolved to be war-like, but not to their own species.

Just like many species on Earth.

 

So a radio signal comes from a planet, saying who knows what. Could be saying, "Remember us, for an asteroid is about to destroy our planet". Or not. But let's think about the scenario put forth by the OP for a sec. A race has had radio technology for at least 1000 years when we get the signal. By the time a group could get there, make that over 2000. Obviously this race will be WAY beyond us by then, if they're still around. Would they appreciate a bunch of dumbass monkey-men showing up with nothing to offer? Would a civilization that old have room for a colony, or wouldn't every bit of usable land already be in use? I mean, really what would be the point? It just seems like any kind of colonization should be done on an uninhabited planet. For one thing, we could use any resources there without fighting an intelligent race over them. For another, we wouldn't have to worry about being hopelessly outclassed by a species that might want to eat us.

 

Well since the Earth is middle aged, it would be advantageous for our hominin monkey kind to find a backup home somewhere else. So if we showed up a 1000 years later and they weren't there, even better. If we arrive and they have actually positively advanced, that would be unfortunate timing on our part but most likely they would already have been way past us or they are largely still stirring around with stone tools. More likely, we find nothing. Again good. Looking at the solar system, we'd be lucky to find a planet with all of the right conditions, and regardless of who or what is on it, we would want to make it our home.

Preferred star would be a nice red dwarf which somehow an Earth type planet floated in later to the habitable zone but not too close to be tidally locked. ( Note, it has to float in because most likely the early angry life of dwarfs would bake it up to a crisp. ) That way we would have in theory an endless supply of energy as if you get down to the right size star, it doesn't go boom on us either in some kind of supernova, hypernova, or more like what our G2 star will do, boil up, then down, then pop into a white dwarf. Our star will eventually be what Rhinana sings about: a carbon diamond in the sky.

 

I suppose the ship would have a self destruct button some where.

 

I suppose the ship would have a self destruct button some where.

 

Does it have to be a shiny red one?

 

I'm not sure why they would have destroyed themselves. If the species is particularly violent, the first nation to get the bomb might immediately nuke the others for supremacy of the planet. I would think it more likely that if there were intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, it would be extremely predatory. No Mr Spock's but lots of Predators vs Aliens. And Borg of course.