Scientists want to find a new planet to live on

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Such a planet would be far from here in Proxima Centauri a system centered around a red dwarf. We think an earth-like planet exists here and we could easily colonize without a lot of adaptation required. So let's say humans get their act together, build their ark, head off to Proxima Centauri and once we get there something like twenty years later, we find this planet is hostile to us with it's own evolved species just as earth has with all the oxygen and other elements needed for life to exist. What do scientists plan to do about the ones already there?

I assume this is an analogy for your humans colonized the earth conjecture. if so give it up, there is plenty of evolutionary evidence linking us to other primates.

Nah this is the real deal. Scientists figure our chances of going extinct decrease the more planets we colonize so their plan is to place humans on space ships, hurl them through interstellar space in the direction of promising stars like Proxima Centauri, hopeful there will somehow miraculously be an uninhabited planet strongly resembling Earth and humans will peacefully and gracefully transition to such places.

And another thing, why is it so important humans be completely descended from earth bound primates? If, one day, humans do, indeed, make it to a planet in another star system, doesn't it seem logical another species could make it here?

On that note, here's an interesting scenario: what if humans, at some future date, at least 100 years from now, develop the technology to travel in this manner and manage to find another home someplace else and this occurs after we have figured out more about genetic manipulation and cytoplasmic transfers and we bring this technology with us to our new home? What if such a planet is inhabited by several "tribes" of primate, similar to early forms of human and not advanced, merely stone age type humans. The new colonists are concerned so they get a hold of a few of these primates and start messing with their genes creating hybrid mixtures of human and these formally unknown primitives. Wouldn't that be something?

We could very well do then what some of us theorize was done to our ancestors, previously! Ironic, eh?

I figure the human race will perish before such a thing gets off the ground.
We may get to Mars, but I doubt we'll last even there.

Having said that, I think we should venture out. Our need for adventure and discovery is reaching a plateau, and we're getting bored with what we have. We need something to look forward to that will extend our human community. But at the moment, our communities are becoming homogenous, walled and gated, inward looking and over-protective.

Its not important in the sense of an ideology, its important because its factual. Is it possible for pre existing life to voluntarily colonise other planets, yes it is (provided of course there are other lifeforms) Its just not plausible for this planet, well at least not according to the fossil and genetic record.

Heck, if we can colonize other planets, I would want to be the ship captain, Id leave them there after unpacking, and travel the stars. that ship would become my home.

Bon voyage ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo; don't forget to send us a postcard.

Harvard astrophyicist Loeb theorizes that life may have existed just 15 million years after the Big Bang.
http://www.cnet.com/news/humans-came-lo ... -suggests/

If that is true, then then the same alien life could be spread out across the universe. Thus, other planets may not just have "stone age humans" but dinosaurs, or any other creatures that the alien DNA could produce.

Interesting article LNH. Trouble I find with the concept (as presented in the article) there are far to many what ifs and maybe's which go against hypothesis which have some evidence to support them ie the issue with heavy Elements. It is ok to theorise but at some point evidence is required. But like I said I am only going on the article and have not read his full hypothesis.

Well .... to answer your question about what we would do if we found evolved life already there. The answer ofcourse is: the same thing we did colonizing parts of the earth- exploit whatever lifeforms we can exploit- and extrerminate whatever gets in our way. And that includes any thing we find that might be comparable to ourselves ( ie intelligent creatures). Eat 'em, or enslave, or kill 'em off, or whatever.

Next question.

It's been three years since we've (the US) even had the capability to put a manned space flight vehicle in low earth orbit. Don't hold your breath.

First the Moon ,then Mars. I think by that time we could figure out what to do with a new planet. We could always hunker down in a cave or something.

Not gonna happen. At least not if congress has to approve the spending and NASA has anything to do it it.

I hope we go extinct before we can find another planet to f**k up.What makes us think we are irreplaceable to the universe?
Klaatu made a mistake,zap the hominid infection on Earth.Zap them good.

According to some physicists, the goal is to simply spread ourselves out so if one planet gets blown up, we will be on several others but everything goes extinct at some point as far as we know unless we can out think that we will, too.

So you have to put away your judgments and think of it from a strictly species preserving point of view. It doesn't matter that we mess planets up, it jjust matters that we spread our glorious species out to all parts of the universe. Keep in mind we will most likely bring other species from earth with us so you can expect an invasion of life from this planet to many others.

Even if we do not have room to bring their grown versions we can bring their tiny dna and clone them so we can still bring an ark full of animals and future humans too, if we bring an initial crew of colonists and mucho dna.

Since the interstellar space is not a true vacuum, nothing can travel faster than 0.2c without being torn apart by the hydrogen, helium, and lithium atoms. At this speed, it would take more than 20 years to reach Alpha Centauri, and a lot more to reach the nearest Goldilocks planet.