A new super-Earth has been announced around M-dwarf Gliese 436…
Scientists Find Smallest Exoplanet
…now the radius quoted is ~ 1.5 Earth radii. Different mixes of silicates and iron give slightly different indexes (0.272-0.268) for a power-law fit to the mass-radius curve – in this case lets take the average ~0.27, which means the planet is ~ 1.544 Earth radii. Seems the media was listening, which is unusual for a space-science story. Surface gravity would be 2.1 gee so it’s not a long-term habitable planet, but alright for visits in exoskeletons. Just 30 light-years away, so a laser-sail could reach it in ~ 100 years at 0.3 c.
Could humans get there? Another recent news item is further results from earlier studies on H2S gas induced suspended animation (SA) in mice… Rotten egg gas to Save Mars Mission …though that item doesn’t discuss further possibilities of inducing the effect via its metabolites so there’s no direct poisoning via the hydrogen sulphide itself. The research is still too basic to say what the effect on humans will be. Mice are a good start.
Let’s imagine – say the SA effect is like time-slowdown that some writers have imagined. What would that imply? Perhaps a crew could be augmented by smart AI that responds to circumstances faster than the ~ 100-fold slower crew. And what would 1 subjective year be like in induced torpor? Could muscles be used at all, or would that be too fast? Imagine crew in power-chairs controlled purely by (very slow) thoughts, with robotic arms. A normal speed person would be witness to some very strange effects, and would be a blurry figure to a time-slow crew person.
Would you go, if you could? Or some place closer, like Alpha Centauri B’s putative rocky world? That would be at least 30 years round-trip at 0.3 c. Would you risk being cut-off from the rest of humanity for so long? Good telecommunications, via laser, would allow you to keep track, but you wouldn’t be able to contribute to it without a multiyear time-lag. Could you stand the separation? Could you tolerate the same faces nearby for +30 years?
