There you go. It's all about asking the right questions at the right moment.

A new planet just discovered very similar to earth and ideal to support life.
Only problem is getting there.

http://www.channel4.com/news/potenti...net-discovered

After ruining this planet, humans should be prevented from doing the same elsewhere!

Yeah, right. Humans can barely organise an excursion to the seaside, so what chance of getting anyone there any time soon?

We can't even get anyone to the moon or mars, so I'm not holding my breath.

All the extrasolar planets I have heard of are very unsuitable, and I don't know that this would be all that ideal. No evidence for water, gravity 3 times earth's? no way we could land there and get off again, or survive on there for long.

I think the term very similar is stretching it a tad.

'What's his car like?'

'Oh, it's very similar to your renault clitoris, except it's twenty feet long, nine feet wide, 15 feet tall and built out of challenger tank parts, and has a traction engine bolted on the back....

If you read the article, it is not 'ideal', it just has a temperature range which could be tolerated by humans. It doen't even rotate on its axis and has no sign of water, so also not 'very similar to Earth'.

I think it already exists and is called a Humvee.

Why did you take the clitoris out?

It's described by the scientists as "Just right for life".
I did not make any claim about humans living there.
In any event travel is out of the question at present.
They have not yet found water, but it's likely very early days yet for a full run-down on what natural features may be present, as it has only recently been discovered.

They described it as 'just right' referring to the temperature with a jocular allusion to Goldilocks tasting the bears' porridge.

Can I just make a point?

The search for extra solar planets need money. Such public funding will dry up unless that find 'exciting' stuff, because people are too dumb to realise that there are a lot of very important discoveries to be made which aren't 'exciting'.

Now re read the publicity release with that in mind.

No doubt ppl.have been studying planets and everything else out there, as best they could since first inhabiting the earth, and will continue to do so.
The costs involved in astronomy are probably not astronomical compared to a lot of other major govt projects, and a lot of knowledge incl.your own in previous posts comes from their studies.
In addition a lot has been discovered and learned from amateur astonomers at virtually no cost to the general public, so I see little harm from continued studies, but certainly a vast increase in our knowledge and understanding of whats going on out there.

They just had to keep it quiet under the Spanish Inquisition.

Yeah, true, but there are pressures to cut the budget for all departments, especially if they can't show good reason why they shouldn't be cut.

People like to see a significant return on their money, and all too often can't see that the dull stuff (to them) is important.

Its rather myopic to concentrate on what earthlings are doing or not doing............if there is intelligent life on that planet, or indeed any other planet and they are more advanced than us, they will get here sooner than we will get there.

In the future you or your offspring will be slaves or stew.

Not necessarily. They could be traders looking for exotic goods. One thing I do figure that if you are going to haul goods for any distance, they have to be well worth the trouble.

Sentient beings will either want to trade or establish empire, but an empire can only be as big as it can be controlled, and that requires fast mass transport.

Mind you, subjugating a planet without space defenses is pretty easy, you just drop rocks on their heads.