life on other planets...

Originally posted by Scriabin
Incidentally, Carl Sagan believed while there is mathematically almost a certainty that ET life of some sort exists, if not nearby, none of the ETs have ever been or will likely ever come here because the cab fare is just too damn much.

But that is assuming that the ETs in question are much like us.

Consider this scenario:
1. We develop a cheap energy source (lets say we get fusion working).
2. We develop advanced robots capable of replicating (ie making copies of themselves).
3. We decide we want to explore the galaxy.
4. We send out fusion powered spaceships with robots on board to all the nearest star systems.
5. They travel less than light speed so take up to 100 years to reach their destinations.
6. At their destinations they communicate back to us what they find and replicate and send more spaceships onwards.
7. It will take a long time, but eventually the whole galaxy could be covered.

So is it really reasonable to rule out that some other civilization did something similar in the distant past?

If there are aliens, then they sure as hell are givin' this dump of a planet a miss.

The whole concept that aliens only come to Earth to be spotted in lonely fields in Arkansas by gun totin' inbred hicks, is so incredible it makes "the Hulk" look like a documentary.

Originally posted by obliteration
I will send you a message if you're interested, BTW I agree with alot of what you say.

Ok, I will like that.

Originally posted by shavixmir
If there are aliens, then they sure as hell are givin' this dump of a planet a miss.

The whole concept that aliens only come to Earth to be spotted in lonely fields in Arkansas by gun totin' inbred hicks, is so incredible it makes "the Hulk" look like a documentary.

WHAT? I thought the HULK WAS a documentary. Goes to show you.🙂
I like the conspiracy theory about the idea that humans could not ever have built the pyramids by their own puny selves, so had to have aliens come down and do it for them. WHY aliens would want to come down to ancient earth and hear some power addled ruler of the lower kingdom crying to the aliens, GODDA have a pyramid. Said aliens go, sounds like a reasonable request to us, ok, we'll get out the force field movers and the extra-dimensional plasma torch and start cutting rocks. Any particular color? How many tunnels do you require? You want us to load it up with gold artifact too? Great, well just get right to work on that one.....

Yeah, that's the ticket, it HAD to have happened just like that, don't know why I didn't see it till they pointed out the logic to me.....

Originally posted by Scriabin
Has your company or anyone else figured how to send a signal of any kind faster than the speed of light?

How much energy would it take to send even one atom or any particle faster than the speed of light?

Has anyone read Poul Anderson's 1970s essay "Our Many Roads to the Stars?"

Incidentally, Carl Sagan believed while there is mathematically almost ...[text shortened]... r next to their bed in every hotel room.

I prefer to go figure -- but, hey, whatever ....

I deliberately made no reference to FTL, since so far it seems impossible.
I was talking about sensors, telescopes in certain bands like IR above the atmosphere that can see stuff visual light scopes can't, better penetration of galactic dust, etc. Look at the stunning photo's of very high res Hubble pics of galaxies 100 million ly away. Twenty years ago, astronomers could only dream of such resolution, now they are getting better than Hubble resolution on the ground due to active optics eliminating almost, the distortions of the atmosphere. Which is great for visible light, but they can't get around the fact that IR is severely blocked by our atmosphere so any real IR work has to be done in space. Same with UV, X-ray and gamma ray scopes, all have to be in orbit. But the sensitivity is growing yearly as better detectors are used and collector/mirror size also grows so we know more every day than we did the day before. That seems to me to say we will see signs (maybe ancient signs, like something from 50,000 years ago or something) or proven that there is no emission even though we could measure it if it were there. Still, it's a huge galaxy and ours is only one of billions just like it. Did you read my whole post? I know it was long but I have some ideas on the subject, don't want to just repeat myself. About using Andromeda galaxy to look for alien signals and the gravitational lens of the sun to amplify signals?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But that is assuming that the ETs in question are much like us.

Consider this scenario:
1. We develop a cheap energy source (lets say we get fusion working).
2. We develop advanced robots capable of replicating (ie making copies of themselves).
3. We decide we want to explore the galaxy.
4. We send out fusion powered spaceships with robots on board ...[text shortened]... y reasonable to rule out that some other civilization did something similar in the distant past?

The problem with that scenario is Bohr's argument. Where are they, why haven't we already seen evidence of them? If some civilization made Von Nuemann', self replicating and all that, the galaxy should already have been overrun. The fact that we find no evidence in spite of the fact we have taken pretty darn good pictures of just about every planet including all their moons and see nothing but natural processes, says a lot about the robot overrunning the galaxy theory.