Science time!
Planet mass and gravity
People are saying that 3x the mass = 3x the gravity. This is not true. The mass of a planet is proportional to its radius cubed. This means that the radius is proportional to the cube root of the mass. Since the force of gravity is proportional to mass over radius squared, this works out as meaning that the gravitational force at the surface is proportional to the cube root of mass. Assuming the planet has the same density as Earth, this means that the surface gravity is 1.44 times that of earth, still not exactly friendly, but a lot more reasonable. This is potentially a bit of an underestimate, as you might expect the planet to be slightly denser than earth due to its higher gravity, but this isn't too much of a factor since solids and liquids do not really compress under pressure.
Habitability
The planet is in the 'Goldilocks zone', meaning that (with an earth like atmosphere), it is not too hot or too cold on at least some parts of its surface (in this case around its 'equator' since it is side on to the star, and thus really hot at one pole, and really cold at the other).
There are really three states the planet could be in. Habitated, with an earth like atmosphere, uninhabited with a hostile atmosphere, or habitated with a hostile atmosphere. Let me clarify- Earth's atmosphere is a product of billions of years of work by microorganisms. You don't just get a planet with an earth like atmosphere and no life (unless some big disaster managed to wipe them all out I guess). There may be life in a hostile atmosphere, either as a result of evolution taking a different track, or because that life is in an earlier stage of development than on Earth. Interestingly, there may be ways to identify the composition of a planets atmosphere at a distance using spectographic techniques (seeing what wavelengths of light the planet absorbs/emits). If we detect an Earth like atmosphere, it's almost certain that the planet holds life. Unfortunately, I don't think the technology is there yet to do this with such a small (in relative terms), distant object.
Assuming we do find life, I find it incredibly unlikely that it'll be intelligent. Life has been on Earth for billions of years. But humanity for only tens of thousands. And we've only had stuff like radio for around a hundred years. The chances of any aliens we meet being at the same stage of development is miniscule. If they're behind us, they can't answer our calls. If they're ahead of us... well surely they know about Earth already? Why haven't we been hearing any signals from them?
Getting there
FTL travel is impossible. Sorry guys. This isn't just 'it's really hard', I mean it's physically impossible. The shortest time people can possibly get to this planet, even with super future technology, is 20 years, in Earth's frame of reference.
However people here seem a little confused as to how time dilation works. It isn't the people on Earth who feel the effects, it's the people on the spaceship. As you travel faster, your time slows down relative to the rest of the universe. This means that if you travel close enough to the speed of light, while to people on earth it looks like it took 20 years, for yourself it could happen in an instant. Of course, you still have to find a way to accelerate to that speed in any decent time frame, with a reasonable ammount of fuel, and without turning yourself into a fleshy stain on the walls of your spaceship. But these are engineering difficulties rather than physical impossiblities.
In fact, given some sort of infinite supply of fuel, even at a comparatively sedate acceleration of 1g (providing a nice simulated earth gravity), it's possibly to cross the entire galaxy within a lifetime. Of course, you'll be travelling so fast by the time you get there that you won't be able to do much sightseeing, but nevertheless it is possible.
