Well, the OP specified human-habitable. If so, we'd have settlements already, probably with at least one generation of children already born there. None of this go-to-the-Moon-a-few-times-and-then-sit-on-our-porch-for-five-decades nonsense.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I know. I bet there were alot of excited scientists, dreamers, explorers, visionaries and well, people like us who thought that that wa sit, the beginning of a new age. And then nothing for 50 years. What a let down. Too bad humanity is so short sighted.

On the plus side, we haven't had a nuclear holocaust.

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And billions have been raised out of absoute poverty. (Or rather, raised themselves.)

But for many of us, we have been livng in a new age of space exploration. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, Mercury, comets... All visited, all partially explored and we're still exploring.

No, but that was luck, not skill. We sure had a couple of situations where we very easily could have. And the nukes that make it possible still mostly exist, so it's by no means totally ruled out.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Every time I think we're going to get along great because of our shared interest in comics, you go all pessimistic...

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Kai's home computer is broken and her posting may be eratic for a while - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

I didn't say it will happen, just that it's possible. That's realistic caution, not pessimism.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Many a book was written with this plot...

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Eh, it's okay. I don't hold negative emotions more than a few hours, tops. So, friends?

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Kai's home computer is broken and her posting may be eratic for a while - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Sure! I never thought otherwise.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I don't know about Venus, But Harry Turtledove wrote a book called:"A World Of Difference" about the Mars scenario.

This reminds me of the book A World Of Difference, which takes place in a history where Mars is larger, habitable, and called Minerva, and the last image sent by a NASA probe sent to the planet is of a creature swinging a stick.

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"Look at me still talking when there's sience to do!" - GLADoS

Paul Hogans "Giants" series also referred to a planet Minerva in the solar system.

Supposedly, that is why the asteroid field remains today.

We know that the asteroid field does not contain enough mass to make up an appreciable planet- but I found the Minerva correlation interesting.

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"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." -- Vaclav Havel

Quote:

We just don't know much.

Yet if not for those words, what would science be for? - KaiYeves

I propose an ATM corollary to Godwin's law: an ATM'er will inevitably compare himself to Copernicus (Or Galileo), when the going gets tough. - CodeSlinger

The asteroids-as-lost-planet concept was the predominant hypothesis up until the 1970's, and is widely referenced in early science fiction. Heinlein, Asimov, and "Doc" Smith all played with the notion.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Well, that's good news for Hogan

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"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." -- Vaclav Havel

Quote:

We just don't know much.

Yet if not for those words, what would science be for? - KaiYeves

I propose an ATM corollary to Godwin's law: an ATM'er will inevitably compare himself to Copernicus (Or Galileo), when the going gets tough. - CodeSlinger

A system like Zeta Reticula would be a good candidate for multiple earth like worlds that are close enough for reasonable travel.

Even Alpha Centauri would be good, but a bit more tricky.

If you had beings, whose lifespans were, say centuries or thousands of years, who's to say a local cluster of stars isn't reasonable?

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. On giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

DDT, Removing invisible elves from backyards since 1939.

Dreaming like this just makes me sad... I want us to exist multiple places... if we want to survive as a species we must...

Now to add a twist... what if instead of having an inhabitable sister planet... we had a planet that rained destructive thread on us like Pern does... heh.

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-The Wolf
http://www.ryanmercer.com

Survive as a species? What do you mean by that? All species will go extinct. Our species probably won't survive the next 100,000 years, but say we did? Say we terraformed Mars and other parts of the galaxy. Suppose our species outlasted the lifespan of our star. Say we survive in other parts of the universe by then, say our species lasted until all even the red dwarfs burned out and the universe was in darkness hundreds of billions of years from now, only to be ripped about by dark energy and finally face extinction? Is that the goal of our species?

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. On giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

DDT, Removing invisible elves from backyards since 1939.

Or maybe we would find a way to travel to other universes. if that became possible, then it appears there is no theoretcial limit to how long we survive. And even if we didn't, I am sure we would not go softly in to that good night, we will rage, rage against the the dying of the light. A species goal is to survive, until it can not.

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