Escaping a dying planet

Imagine that one day in the not-too-distant future, our scientists discover that our world is dying. It doesn't matter how this is happening, maybe magic or unstable core or Gaia herself has finally had enough of our sh*t, but the important thing is that it is happening, and soon.

Our only hope is to escape, and head out to space. One tiny solace is that the Earth isn't going to explode, just become uninhabitable, so we won't have to travel far.

With a time frame of around 50 years, assuming that everyone on the planet managed to pull their heads out of their asses and work together for a change, what would be the best method to save the most people, and how many people would we reasonably be able to save? What if we only had 30 years?

Harder science preferred. If your answer calls for needing more time, state how much extra time would be needed.

Edit: Tech level set 20 minutes in the future. I think I may not have been clear enough.

Edit: Thanks for all the great answers guys! Project ORION is clearly the way to go. I would accept more answers if I could, but Jimmy360 was the first to provide the answer. Thanks :D

posted over 9 years ago

Feaurie Vladskovitz‭

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