Even with such fantastic-sounding speeds and considering that there are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 other stars in our Universe, we are nowhere close to another habitable planet. Our nearest neighboring star, Alpha Centauri (which is viewable only from Earth's Southern Hemisphere) is over 4-light-years distant. The issues for achieving interstellar flight are discussed on the GETTING THERE pages. For now it is important to realize just how isolated we are, and how precarious our existence may be.

Spaceship Earth has a self-sustaining life support system powered by our sun and presently supports a crew of roughly 6 billion humans, plus many other life forms that are an integral part of that self-sustaining life support system. There are some who think that our solar system's complex motion within our own galaxy is tied to the apparent 62-million year cycle of mass extinctions [Rohde 2005], either by exposure to gamma ray bursts [Medvedev 2007] or asteroid collisions. It is certain that further asteroid collisions are in our future, but not certain when or how severe those impacts might be. Just for reference, according to the NASA website "Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards" [Morrison 2004], the greatest danger is from Near Earth Objects (NEO) that are roughly 2-km in diameter that could kill a 'substantial fraction' of humanity. These hit the Earth once or twice every million years. Efforts have begun to provide decades of advanced warning, but as stated on the NASA website: "the most likely warning today would be zero – the first indication of a collision would be the flash of light and the shaking of the ground as it hit." Regarding the smaller NEOs that only have the energy of a large nuclear bomb, another impact is likely over the next two centuries. The most recent of these occurred over the unpopulated Siberian Tunguska in 1908.

Homo sapiens has been on Earth for only around 150,000 years, which is short compared to the timescales of planets and stars. This does not imply, however, that we will be around forever. Considering our growing impact on the environment and the increasing power of our weapons (which we still use against each other), it is reasonable to consider that humanity may cause its own extinction.

When contemplating our future, these are not trivial issues. To hedge our bets for survival – and to thrive – it is prudent to find other places to live rather than just this one modest planet. While space missions are being planned to learn how to live on the Moon and Mars, these destinations are intrinsically not human-friendly. Many valuable lessons are still to be learned on that front, and we wish those endeavors well. This Foundation considers the ideal scenario, however, that of finding another habitable world where we could also live.

Long before any interstellar destinations are reached, and in some cases long before any learning destinations are reached, there are other things in space that might be of interest. When considering foreseeable probes, these are some things to study and to be prepared for during the long, long journey:

Also, beyond just the notion of probes, there is the idea of colony ships. In this case the destination is not the point, but rather to have another habitat of Humanity out there.  In that case, these interim points of interest and phenomena en route might provide a valuable pastime.

• Cosmological Mysteries

 

• Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
• Anomalous clustering and galactic rotations, dubbed the "Dark Matter" mystery
• Anomalous accelerated red shifts, dubbed the "Dark Energy" mystery
• Anomalous trajectories of deep space probes
• Implications of the quantum zero point
• Basics of motion through spacetime
• Special Relativity
• Interactive - You Control the Throttle (Pending link)
• It's all waves
• General Relativity
• Quantum Gravity