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Odds of Alien Life "Very High," House Panel Hears
- squozzer 13y agoLet's say we find it, what then?
- ChristianBundy 13y agoHow?
- mapleoin 13y agoWe have a whole genre of literature dedicated to answering that question.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 13y agoI suppose they are more than 10 light years away, so I guess if we want to talk then we transmit then wait for a long time. This earth like planet was 2700 light years away: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/8-8-billion-habitable-earth-size-planets-exist-milky-way-8C11529186 http://www.nbcnews.com/science/8-8-billion-habitable-earth-s...
- clavalle 13y agoThere are a ton of candidates in our cosmic neighborhood (less than 70 light years away).
- kbutler 13y agoYou don't transmit and wait, you just keep talking* - we've essentially been doing this since radio broadcasts began, but we haven't heard/recognized a response yet... *I thought this was a NASA quote, but I probably got it from a science fiction story somewhere?
- jeffcoat 13y agoYou're probably thinking of Isaac Asimov's story "My Son, the Physicist". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_the_Physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_the_Physicist
- salient 13y agoWe try to invade them, of course.
- Datsundere 13y agoThey're probably just single celled animals if anything. I just don't believe they can be as advanced or better than us. Some people may disagree (people who would die for star wars/trek).
- druiid 13y agoWhy does that have to be the case though? The universe/galaxy are already very old. I can't imagine there's anything preventing alien beings from having gone through an entire life-cycle already, since humans began to walk the earth.
- clavalle 13y agoWe'd probably attempt communication. We'd also probably try to send probes. Hopefully intelligent, self replicating probes that will avoid contaminating any alien biological systems while gathering information and transmitting it back. Of course, that would be an extremely long lasting project so we'd have to set up some way to collect the signal here at home for the next few dozen thousand years. In other words, we will have some interesting questions to ask ourselves and interesting challenges to overcome. Perhaps, for example, we could find a dead moon, planet or stable orbit nearby (to avoid contamination) and set up a station or artifact that any intelligent life that gets to the advanced stage of getting to that body would find. We could have information about ourselves and instructions on how to communicate with us. We could even do this for all candidate planets -- whether we know that they have developed intelligent life or not, yet. Basically lay out a galactic internet protocol so that even if these things are discovered long after we are gone, they could attempt to communicate with others that have found any of the other protocol monuments.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- hereonbusiness 13y agoOn the odd chance that we find life in the Alpha Centauri system, maybe we could lodge that complaint, just in case.
- LukeWalsh 13y agoI understand concerns about focusing on issues that are directly pertinent to the people of a country, however historically we have never seen a culture solve all of its pressing problems and then decide to focus on science and exploration. Instead what we see is cultures committing to solve problems at home, but also investing resources in programs that look forward to new discoveries. I think it's short sighted to postpone space exploration simply because we don't have time for it today, or because we don't see the tangible benefit. The point of space exploration from the beginning has been to search for "truth and understanding," [1] a goal so noble that our astronauts risk their lives in pursuit of it. With greater understanding comes solutions to problems we never even knew we had. [1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/In_the_event_of_moon_disaster.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/In_the_ev...
- Datsundere 13y agoThank you for pointing this out. I respect astronauts more than soldiers for this reason. Soldiers fight for their own people but untimately end up killing other HUMANS. Astronauts are risking their lives on the other hand for the better of the entire human society. Unfortunately countries like to spend more money on war than space exploration, especially the United States.
- cobrausn 13y agoSo, are you concerned about the betterment of the species or about individual humans? Unfortunately, the two are not always in alignment. As an aside, many astronauts are former soldiers.
- CalcHere 13y agoHere's a calculation on my little side-project. http://www.calchere.com/c/k1zpzn0o/Aliens-existing-in-our-galaxy http://www.calchere.com/c/k1zpzn0o/Aliens-existing-in-our-ga... This is from Frank Drake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake
- sanoli 13y agoInteresting. Using my estimates on your calculator my result was 1. Will keep the link on my bookmark, for when I want to wonder. The one I can't really figure out (all the others I can't really figure out, but they seem easier to guess) is the last one, "Years for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space". Is 10000 too little for a technologically advanced civilization, or will most of them self-destruct because all life after that ever springs up is essentially a race for resources? Is 100000 too much? How long will we be around. It seems if we get the war thing solved among us, the ceiling could get pretty high.
- j2kun 13y agoYou could argue this with probability. But that assumes that the existence or nonexistence of life is a random event, and that goes at odds with some religious belief systems.
- was_hellbanned 13y ago> No wonder the American people think this Republican Congress is from another > planet -- they're more interested in life in space than Americans' lives And I guess Democrats are more interested in taking jabs at the opposition than they are in uniting the nation in something other than war or fear. I guess we'll have to wait until Mars attacks, then we'll see everyone come together to fund space exploration. (I'm not actually taking a jab at Democrats, just pointing out that they're all a bunch of useless bottom-feeders who take any opportunity to speak ill of the other. Let's send them all into space like DNA's telephone sanitizers)
- api 13y agoThe USA today is a thoroughly fear-based culture. Land of the free, home of the brave.
- ceejayoz 13y agoI tend to vote Democratic and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee can go fuck themselves on this.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Steuard 13y agoThat bit in the article made me furious. Edit: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's contact page is here: http://www.dccc.org/page/s/contact http://www.dccc.org/page/s/contact I tried calling them on the phone about this, but their "Comment line" voice mail box was full and bounced me back to the receptionist, Matt. (On the bright side, Matt was very helpful and offered to transcribe my comments into their web comment form for me. I opted to just type them up myself.)
- ori_b 13y agoOdds of alien life: Very high. Odds of it affecting us in the foreseeable future: Very low. It's an interesting question, and one that I would love to see research funding for. But it's also unlikely to lead to any direct practical results for a while, although offshoots of technology designed to answer it might end up being handy.
- warfangle 13y agoThe metaphysical implications would be worth it alone.
- ryandvm 13y agoI think you're overestimating the ability of the world population to intelligently process this information. Hell - a third of the United States thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old.
- kordless 13y agoExcept if, for example, our discovery of the nature of the universe accelerates a change for us that isn't stereotypical of "Aliens from another planet". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity for context.
- Jemaclus 13y agoI think the spokeswoman for the DCCC missed the part where this was presented to the House Science Committee, not the committee in charge of immigration or minimum wage...
- sanoli 13y agoIf radio signals is the best way for us to detect alien intelligent life, and vice-versa, aren't we doomed to keep quiet then? I mean, how long until we phase strong radio signals almost completely? I mean, has there been any growth in the quantity and power of radio signals since, say, the 80's? It's an honest question, since I don't know, but I see radio declining everywhere, except for, I guess, airplane and naval communication. What else am I missing here? Probably a whole lot, maybe someone could fill me/us in?