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The nearest life-bearing planet is most likely hundreds of light-years away. Faster-than-light communication doesn't mean faster-than-light travel, and nobody w

The nearest life-bearing planet is most likely hundreds of light-years away. Faster-than-light communication doesn't mean faster-than-light travel, and nobody wants to sit in a spaceship for 200 years.

kowdermeister 12y ago
True, but the Fermi paradox is about the question of where's everybody, not where's the next galactic pub.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  You take a right at Barnards star.
ChrisGranger 12y ago
But suspended animation, often used in science fiction films with long spaceflights in them, would make a 200-year-long trip seem an awful lot shorter. I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume that a life-form that achieved near-light-speed travel will have also discovered a way to lie dormant during the trip if necessary. Also, there's no telling how long an alien life-form might live, or how patient they might be. Basing things on human lifetimes and personalities seems a little anthropocentric given that we know practically nothing about alien life.
- sooheon 12y ago
  As long as we're doing away with assumptions, we should also throw out the one that aliens have a desire to propagate and colonize across the universe.
derekp7 12y ago
If you can get near light speed travel, then time dilation means that you won't experience a 200 year trip, only those you left behind. So any species venturing on a one-way trip wouldn't even blink at the prospect of light speed getting in their way.
- lgas 12y ago
  I'm not a physicist, but as I understand it, it takes light 1 year to travel 1 light-year. If the nearest life-bearing planet is hundreds of light-years away, even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would still take you hundreds of years to get there, from your frame of reference. Time dilation just means it would appear to take even longer from the frame of reference of those you left behind (or those you were headed towards).
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    In the frame of reference of a photon, no time passes between emission and absorption, regardless of the distance it travels.
hyperbovine 12y ago
We haven't even ruled out life on the closest planet to us yet. (Or Mars.)

kowdermeister 12y ago

True, but the Fermi paradox is about the question of where's everybody, not where's the next galactic pub.

jacquesm 12y ago
You take a right at Barnards star.

ChrisGranger 12y ago

But suspended animation, often used in science fiction films with long spaceflights in them, would make a 200-year-long trip seem an awful lot shorter. I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume that a life-form that achieved near-light-speed travel will have also discovered a way to lie dormant during the trip if necessary. Also, there's no telling how long an alien life-form might live, or how patient they might be. Basing things on human lifetimes and personalities seems a little anthropocentric given that we know practically nothing about alien life.

sooheon 12y ago
As long as we're doing away with assumptions, we should also throw out the one that aliens have a desire to propagate and colonize across the universe.

derekp7 12y ago

If you can get near light speed travel, then time dilation means that you won't experience a 200 year trip, only those you left behind. So any species venturing on a one-way trip wouldn't even blink at the prospect of light speed getting in their way.

lgas 12y ago
I'm not a physicist, but as I understand it, it takes light 1 year to travel 1 light-year. If the nearest life-bearing planet is hundreds of light-years away, even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would still take you hundreds of years to get there, from your frame of reference. Time dilation just means it would appear to take even longer from the frame of reference of those you left behind (or those you were headed towards).
- maxerickson 12y ago
  In the frame of reference of a photon, no time passes between emission and absorption, regardless of the distance it travels.

hyperbovine 12y ago

We haven't even ruled out life on the closest planet to us yet. (Or Mars.)