Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
It'd be hilarious if half the people we sent woke up with brain damage, and the other half didn't wake up at all. Generation ship is probably safer. At least we know how to do everything involved in that. Let's go hollow out an asteroid and spin her up.
Ok, if I'm going to participate as a colonist on a new planet, then its going to be ME, not my freaking great grand children. Who the hell would sign up for that??? Considering the arc of technology, there are several likely alternatives:

#1. Safe hybernation.

#2. Arrested aging - with this you have a reasonable chance of getting to the destination alive. You just better make sure its a big honkin' asteroid because its going to be a long, boring trip. Of course, that's what full immersion VR is for. Everyone can spend most of their time in the box until they get to the destination.

#3. Just send frozen embryos and some decent robots. When the ship is within 20 years of destination, put the embryos in artificial wombs and have the human appearing robots raise them to adulthood. They'd probably be the best adjusted kids in human history - what are we if not forged by the flaws of our parents, siblings and friends?

There's still potential for comedy when the destination turns out not to be habitable after all, or at least turns out like most of the planets in Known Space where there's one tiny part that's habitable and the rest isn't.
Whatever goes out would have to be able to make use of a number of means of colonizing. Likely there'll be some barren moons, if all the planets are like Venus or worse.