It is nearly almost as if there were hidden hands at work in governance of the entire Western world, with invisible gatekeepers in each place which serve those hands. But that's mad talk, isn't it?
You'll be treated like this is crazy, even though it's true they are some countries that can break every rule without issue while the rest of us must live by strict standards. Asking for fairness is simply over the line. Upholding this system simply contributes to falling trust in our current system.
But hey maybe that's a good thing in the long run, if our current system isn't just.
How many in Goldilocks zones with stable orbits for billions of years? With non-toxic soils and atmospheres? With water at the surface and in significant amounts?
Now, how many can humanity reach in the life time of frozen embryos?
And if it's more than 30% bigger then escape velocity is likely beyond the practical limits of science.
That is a totally different topic. We’re talking about a hypothetical, where Earth is 20-30% larger, not whether an identical copy of Earth but 20-30% larger actually exists nearby. We know such roughly similar exoplanets are common, though. In that size range and in habitable zone.
And again, 30% greater escape velocity just isn’t a challenge. Existing rockets could be used to reach LEO, like Atlas 551 (well, probably want 552 to reduce the gravity losses). And then you can use electric thrusters (which don’t have a hard Isp limit) to reach wherever.
Heck, we could probably reach LEO even if escape velocity was twice what it is. Even 3 times, if you include more exotic propulsion methods that we’ve done some testing for (nuclear thermal, etc). With staging, etc, it’s just a matter of a worse and worse mass fraction, not really whether it’s possible or not. And once you get to low orbit, electric propulsion allows much better scaling as you can adjust Isp higher (although reduces thrust and means it takes longer to do your mission).
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