So they find this new place, this 581 c place, this rocky ball only 21 light years away orbiting a tiny cool star at such a distance that liquid water could flow and life could, and let's be honest, probably would get it together and start living. So they find the first such place outside the solar system, the first of what are millions of such places out there.
So now what.
Obviously, learn more about it. The place could be as barren as Mars, which fits the same basic qualifications of "habitable." It could be tidally bound to its sun, as some scientists have speculated, with one face constanly in light and it's water a boiling, vaporing tea, the other face a frozen desert.
Doesn't matter, I say. We're going to keep finding more and more of these places, so let's not waste any time getting them colonized. Let's find a guy, and send him there. There's a guy willing to go, let's get him going. And maybe throw in some other guys, and some chicks. You know, so they can reproduce and keep a minicivilization going on the trip over.
Let's get a program started, the Send a Guy Initiative, let's train 'em and give 'em cell phones and infinitely powered nuke ships and every time we find us a habitable rock ball, send another guy. Stephen Baxter has the same idea in Manifold: Time, of course, only he wants to send a billion guys on every ship, and let them land where they may and spread human life willy nilly. But I'm okay if we start small. A guy or two. To each planet. We'll have us a fleet.
