---
title: "Scientists Are Planning a 1,000 Year Trip to Another Planet"
description: "In a bid to protect humanity from Earth’s inevitable demise, a team of scientists is trying to pull together a bold plan to colonize a distant exoplanet. It’s a long shot in every sense of the world. Scientists from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies told OneZero that the plan to send a crew […]"
date: "2019-12-10"
modified: "2019-12-10"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/1000-year-trip-colonize-another-planet"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "space"
  - "space colonization"
  - "the digest"
---

# Scientists Are Planning a 1,000 Year Trip to Another Planet

![A team of scientists wants to colonize and populate another world to protect humanity from Earth's eventualy demise or destruction.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/scientists-planning-1000-year-trip-another-planet.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: SpaceX/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Long Shot

In a bid to protect humanity in case Earth becomes uninhabitable, a team of scientists is trying to pull together a bold plan to colonize a [distant exoplanet](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-exoplanet-atmosphere>).

It's a long shot in every sense of the word. Scientists from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies [told *OneZero*](<https://onezero.medium.com/scientists-are-contemplating-a-1-000-year-space-mission-to-save-humanity-70882a0d6e47>) that the plan to send a crew to a potentially-habitable exoplanet in another solar system — [perhaps Proxima Centauri B](<https://futurism.com/proxima-b-blasted-radiation>) — could take centuries or millennia. That means entire generations would be born and die during the journey.

## Technically Possible

The challenges facing such a mission are so myriad, however, that the scientists' comments sound a bit flip.

"There's no principal obstacle from a physics perspective," executive director Andreas Hein told *OneZero*. "There are a lot of challenges, but no fundamental principle of physics is violated."

## Long List

Among those challenges is figuring out how to sustain human life on such a long journey through space. Based on current research, even a trip to Mars is ill-advised because scientists haven't yet figured out an effective way to shield astronauts from [deadly cosmic radiation](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/radiation-exposure-mars>), and the [medical issues](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/nasa-research-astronauts-clots-bizarre-blood-flow>) caused by spending time in space are still poorly understood.

And that's assuming that an exoplanet will [actually be hospitable](<https://futurism.com/astronomers-search-alien-life>) once people get there, speaking nothing of whether any of those space-born generations will change their mind about the mission they were assigned at birth.

**READ MORE:** [Scientists Are Contemplating a 1,000-Year Space Mission to Save Humanity](<https://onezero.medium.com/scientists-are-contemplating-a-1-000-year-space-mission-to-save-humanity-70882a0d6e47>) \[*OneZero*\]

**More on space colonization:** *[Reality Check: IT Would Take Thousands of Years to Colonize Mars](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/thousands-years-colonize-mars>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)