Comment Re:Venus and Mars (Score 1) 575
We'll be able to live on Venus and Mars before we can live on this planet, even if it is a paradise.
The fastest man-made object ever was the Helios 2 probe in the 70s. With a gravitational assist from the Sun, it was able to reach 150,000 miles per hour. Even if we could escape the solar system at 10x that speed (which is FAR beyond our current capabilities) it would take almost 10,000 years to reach a solar system 20 light years away.
Realistic interstellar travel requires relativistic speeds, and right now we aren't able to accelerate anything much bigger than a hydrogen atom to those kinds of velocities. Not only that, but when you start to approach your destination, you need to be carrying just as much energy to slow back down.
A lot of people seem to think we'll be launching robot probes on 200 year missions within our lifetimes to go explore these newly discovered planets. It's easy to have one's imagination off by orders of magnitudes when thinking about interstellar distances.