Hearing distances like 12 light years makes you think if it is ever possible to travel there.
However, when you start to think about it, nihilist thoughts start to kick in.
However, when you start to think about it, nihilist thoughts start to kick in.
We'd most likely need a generation ship, given that current estimates of max velocity is in the range of 0.5 to 0.8c.
That means spending trillions of dollars and putting thousands of people in a ship in orbit, sending them off and most likely never seeing them again.
But before that we'd want to send unmanned probes to:
a) test out the propulsion and other systems b) scout the planets themselves, identify a good candidate
But the probe itself would take 20-30 years to reach + 12 more to report back.
Otherwise you're asking thousands to be explorers and guinea pigs for all this technology, with no guarantees about finding a habitable planet or coming back home. With something like the Mars mission you'd probably get volunteers without any family. People would be far more reluctant if it's a generation ship.
That sounds like Mass Effect: Andromeda. Which is basically about that, humanity sending a sleeper ark to another galaxy (due to a perceived threat that might wipe out humanity in our galaxy), with no guarantee that there will be something there (although they did do some telescope measurements of the potential planets there).
Does anyone recommend any books that have explored these ideas?
So you need a reactionless drive, which thus far is entirely science fiction.
This is even before you start thinking about micrometeorites in the way (which long transits increase the danger from), and simply maintaining complex machines in perfect working order for decades or centuries in the harsh vacuum of interstellar space with no external power source (no solar panels).
And that's before you start thinking about how we don't even know how to colonize an alien world, and unless you're willing to wait centuries to get intelligence on the planets you're flying in blind.
IMHO the answer to the Fermi Paradox is the most depressing one. Interstellar travel is too difficult and expensive. By the time it's feasible you are already well past the point of needing it. You can build endless orbital colonies and mine your home system and it's nearly unlimited resources forever. There is no need to embark on a colossally expensive boondoggle to colonize a distant solar system when everything you need is at home.
Yes, it's hard at our current tech level. But not nearly hard enough to explain the Fermi thing. I mean, take your scenario of solar system development: it'd be natural to exploit the Kuiper Belt and then the Oort, and the Oort blends into interstellar travel, as Freeman Dyson pointed out -- still quick on a geological timescale.
It's going to be a tough sell to tell people "You need to pay an extra tax for your entire life so we can fund construction of an interstellar ship that your great grandchildren might witness the launch of, but won't arrive at its destination for a thousand years after that."
It's hard to imagine anything that could motivate the human race to do that short of the Vogon constructor fleet announcing that it will arrive within a couple of centuries, ready or not.
Of course this is speculation, but it's one chink in the case for the cost of travel stopping life from spreading. Personally I expect fancier higher-tech faster means in the actual future, like Forward's Star Wisp scheme.
https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-nasa-s-peer-revie...