How does one find an Oort cloud body? (was Motherlode Earth)

Exactly, Joe! Why settle down (and I do mean DOWN) on a planet when there
are so many more aqccessible bodies out there? I agree with your assessment
as to the progression of settlement. I can see us USING planets, for their
available resources, IF those resources can be easily harvested from space-
dipping hydrogen fuel out of Jupiter's and Saturn's envelopes will probably
prove feasible, and possibly the other gas giants as well. The Jovian and
Saturnian systems, themselves will yield unknowable bonanzas for Human
advancement as we explore and discover types of matter unknown anywhere
else.. And of course, we'll be using the big boys for gravity slings for as
long as they, and we exist. But the true treasures are the snowballsand
asteroids, those roving resources that contain so many of the necessary
volatiles that we'll need to live and prosper in space. Sure we'll make the
jump from cloud to loud. A century isn't all that long, when you take your
world with you on your journeying. Someone pointed out, not that long ago,
that FTL is not a necessary technological development for us to conquor the
Galaxy. Humans, spreading just like this, filling our own system out to the
rarified edges, the part of interstellar space where Oort Clouds intermix,
and then inward toward the newer Primary would work very well.

From: Joe Strout
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:25 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] How does one find an Oort cloud body? (was Re:
Motherlode Earth)

On 6/13/13 9:42 AM, brooksn wrote:

> I'm confidant astronomers using the detection methods that found Sedna
> and other deep small bodies in the solar system, or other future methods
> will eventually find Oort cloud bodies.

Agreed. And, to be clear, Kuiper belt bodies are fair game too. I
imagine the colonization of the solar system will start with cislunar
space, proceed to Mars (for mainly sentimental reasons, IMHO) and its
moons, then to asteroids in both the main belt and in the inner solar
system, thence to the gas giant systems (each of which is like a
miniature solar system in its own right, with lots of easily accessible
material), and then spread out to the Kuiper belt, and finally the Oort
cloud (first the inner Hills cloud, and then the outer one).

By that point, we'll notice that the next Oort cloud over (bound to the
Centauri system) is only a short jump away... and when all the other
objects in our own Oort cloud have been claimed, sooner or later,
somebody will decide it's worth going the extra light-year or two, even
if it takes them a century to make the trip.

Best,
- Joe

P.S. As for detecting them: "four currently known trans-Neptunian
objects 90377 Sedna, 2000 CR105, 2006 SQ372, and 2008 KV42 are
considered possible members of the inner Oort cloud." (From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud)