I don't think anything is too far -- IF we can get a ship traveling at near light speeds. After all, something that's 100 light years away would take ~101 earth years traveling at 99% light speed, but only 14.24 years would pass for the people on the ship. So send a large group of people of diverse age ranges (including babies too, if possible) and you can easily start up a civilization on an earth-like planet (well, as easily as it could possibly be).

sign me up!

That should be a recent achievement, within 50-200 years depending on how technology progresses (If it continues the trend it has been). You can't never think of something in science as if, always as when.

I would have said "When" if we didn't have a pretty decent chance of also destroying ourselves before we get to that point

technology is asymptotical, we wont ever reach near-light speeds

Technology is asymptotical, we won't ever fly in the sky like the birds.

It is so wrong to say "we won't ever" with regards to anything in science. If everyone said that, we wouldn't be anywhere.

Technology is exponential, and everyone knows it...

The universe is not infinite.
It is the size of your own imagination, creativity and belief.
Because there is no universe,.. only energy.

On Topic

Quoting the Feb 2011 press release:

"The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter."

So they have 5 candidates for planets that are somewhat similar in size to Earth that exist in the habitable zone around their respective stars. These will all be relatively short period orbits, not like the 365-day orbit of Earth. The candidates will be orbiting closer in to small dim red dwarf stars.

not sure but i don't think so