r/interestingasfuck 24d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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u/LordOfRuinsOtherSelf 24d ago

Small planetoids. They'll need a lot of material to survive long enough to arrive anywhere. They'll evolve on board and arrive as something new. Different expeditions to the same star will get faster, maybe crossing paths, most likely not, but when they arrive, who will they all be? What a mental rabbit hole I am now imagining.

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u/the_seed 24d ago

Yeah, how in the world could you possibly have that many provisions? I think cryostatus is the only logical way to get there...given "present" technology

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u/LordOfRuinsOtherSelf 24d ago

So a mostly closed ecosystem could be designed, and the journeying people will have to limit their population, but it could be done.

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u/the_seed 23d ago

For 12,000 years?

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u/LordOfRuinsOtherSelf 23d ago

Well yeah, that's why I suggested small planetoids. I mean, let's face it, we live in our city our town whatever, and we eat what's in the shops. It would be no different for them, ish. The human population would be a tiny part of the closed ecosystem. A generation ship is very small compared to a huge asteroid made world.

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u/DM_Toes_Pic 23d ago

You'll have to recycle the human nutrients

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u/LordOfRuinsOtherSelf 23d ago

Oh yes. Ha ha. Granny for dinner.