I think they where swallowed by a dog......

So you're saying there could be no scientific evidence? Everything is "because someone told me so"?

So...

Do you believe in the moon? You obviously haven't been there. So you must assume it doesn't exist, right?

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I'm saying that if it were something we could recognize as life, then MOST people wouldn't believe it came from outer space without having a religious epiphany.

Try to tell my 70 year old father that the internet is a useful tool for his business, and no amount of "proof" or "evidence" will ever convince him.

Try to tell 80% of the world that there is no "higher being" such as a god or gods. You can show them every bit of evidence that suggests you are right, and they will still not believe you.

People have been put in prison for PROVING that the earth went around the sun, and not vice versa.

So yes... it is easy to say that it will be difficult for MOST people to believe in the first real contact.

Sure, but for every 1000 fake looking aliens, all you need is one building-sized robotic spaceship hovering over a city firing out laser beams to convince people that it might have come from another world.

I'll always go back to this argument. The Universe has a lot of worlds, with a lot of opportunities for life to indendently arise. On each of these worlds, the course of life can take a different direction, leading to different kinds of civilizations. Many civilizations might create robotic exploration spacecraft indistinguishable from bananas. But it just takes one to buck the trend to give us the evidence that there's intelligent life on other worlds.

So where is the evidence?

__________________
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

I saw a UFO. 7 of them together actually, and from where I was standing, I know that they weren't the Russian craft we were told was re-entering the atmosphere over Florida. (this happened in 1997).

I wont go into details because it's pointless. The only people that would ever be convinced were those that actually saw it.

Yes Fraser... If the ship were like the one that totally covered the sky like the ones in Independance day, I might have second thoughts. But we have so much technology today that we could see tons of wierd things in our sky that are from here, that most people don't notice.... Mainly because we don't tend to look UP in the daytime.

I enjoy this debate with you. Because you are objective. I never once said it wasn't possible. I said that even if it were real, it would still be difficult to convince the masses. It only does take one. But like you said.. "Where is the Evidence?"

My reply is this.

Maybe they HAVE come.. but we don't believe it. Evidence abounds.

Only one?

How many Project Bluebook cases were left "unsolved"?

But we dismiss those because of all the other solved ones.

It all boils down to what you find hardest to believe. If we look for hard evidence, which I do, then it gets at least a little bit easier:

• 200 billion stars in the galaxy and planet formation quite common:
  – I find it hard to believe we are alone.
• Millions of people on this planet scrutinizing the skies for centuries and no hard evidence for robots (and I agree, it only takes one such civilization!):
  – I find it hard to believe they are already here.
• 11 stars within a 10 lightyear radius (116 within 20) make a very poor selection:
  – I find it hard to believe they are anywhere near us.

• I find it easy to believe they are rare.
• I find it easy to believe they are not longlived enough, as individuals OR species.
• I find it easy to believe the void of spacetime is much too large to be overcome.
• I find it easy to believe there is a science fiction buff in most of us, wishing it were otherwise.

You're absolutely right Anton, I agree with you 100%

Why is everybody so pessimistic about our ability to develop much faster space travel, at a reasonable cost, relatively soon?
(interplanetary AND interstellar)

Pamela also refers to this (directly and indirectly) several times during the show itself, I quote just one example:
"The further you try and go it gets not just twice as hard when you double the distance, but 20 times harder when you double the distance, or 1 thousand times harder when you try and get to the next star.[/size]

Just consider some facts:
1) a trip on an intercontinental airplane today is way cheaper (and faster) than a passage on the Titanic was only a century ago
2) a trip into lower space (see Virgin Galactic) is starting to become easier than the first attempts of transatlantic flight (definitely faster, too)
3) Even a trip to Mars, though maybe at the very limit of our current capabilities, is probably not a greater challenge than Columbus' or Magellan's voyages a few centuries ago (actually Mars might be easier - we know were we're heading and what will be the challenges once we're there, Columbus didn't know either)



Based on the historical rate of technological evolution
(which is actually still accelerating according to most indicators),
don't we have reason to assume that we might get there relatively soon?

And not even necessarily at such a huge cost?

Is that really such a wild speculation?

Well Clint, if you allow yourself to look at the problem from only one angle and keep out all relevant factors except one (in this case the history of travel), the conclusion may seem simple enough.

Let me give you an example from the world of sports: Men's high jump world record development! It took 29 years to raise the record from 2 meters to 2.10. It took 19 years after that to reach 2.20, another 13 years to reach 2.30 and then 12 years to conquer 2.40. Now based on this, how long would it take to reach 2.50? Well clearly, less than 12 years!

It's been 22 years since Povarnitsyn made 2.40 and we are nowhere near 2.50! The last Olympics was won at 2.36. Why?

Because for many years we were dealing with factors like technique, training facilities, competition and - drugs. Now we are encountering another factor: The limitations of a human body! If through the use of some Chinese wonder drug a human finally makes 2.50, it is highly unlikely that 2.60 will ever be reached (or say 3 meters to make things clear).

If you find yourself in the early phases of development (like high jump in the first 85 years of the 20th century or the first 500 years of exploration after Columbus) you might come to the conclusion that there is no limit. It's just a matter of time!

Sorry, but there are always other factors. The speed of light for one. And now we are facing, again, the human limitation: Our inability and - most probably - unwillingness to live in space for many generations.

If you make the ship big enough, it doesn't matter. And the generations born on board won't know a planet anyhow. It's a tough approach, but there's probably no other way. Let's have a straw pole; anybody else willing?

Oh, too true. And we seem to be having a hard time getting off Earth right now. I think it's pretty clearly established that Space Shuttle type vehicles are not the way to go.

Thanks for your answer Anton.

Although I accept that there might be natural limits to technological evolution (such as light speed for travel velocity - as far as we know), I don't quite agree with you human body analogy.

Stating that a human body can probably never surpass 3 m in high-jump (or let's say 50m to be even clearer) is like saying that Columbus' ships could never have reached the moon. That's obvious!

However, we can reach the moon (and also can jump 3m (or 50m) high easily - think of bunjee jumping) with the help of new technologies.

I don't see those upper limits (other than the speed of light, for all we know), Ok, space is vast, but so was the American continent before the railway.

And I don't see any reason why the rate of technological evolution should - all of a sudden - slow down.

Oh, I can see lots of reasons for the rate of technological evolution slowing down or speeding up for that matter. Remember that the time perspective we are talking about now is hundreds or thousands of years while there are serious questions as to whether the earth can sustain its population 50 years from now. Answers to those questions will definitely affect the rate and direction of technological development.

But - I am not talking about the limitations of technology. In the high jump example, I was trying to compare the technology factor to for instance high jump technique. For decades the development of new technique and training methods was much more important for beating the world record than the limitations of the body. This is no longer the case. We have reached a stage where the human limitation is the main factor. To significantly change that factor (other than with superdrugs) you will have to wait a loooong time for biological evolution to take place.

My point is that for millenia (and for some time yet), technology development has been a main factor for exploration. When we now talk about going to Mars and further into the solar system, we definitely encounter our own limitations in a major way. And, as Pamela suggested, interstellar travel is a new ballgame altogether. Irrespective of technological development, the human factor will be overwhelmingly dominant.

I agree there can always happen some major catastrophe - or even just some cultural change of direction - to slow us down or stop us alltogether.
(after the fall of the Ancient Romans, e.g., the rate of technological progress definitely slowed down for about a 1000 years)

On the other hand, the argument that the earth cannot support any more people or any more progress is very old (remember Mathus?) - and so far everybody who argued that way was proven wrong.

Why do you think the human factor will be so much more dominant from now on?
What are you referring too exactly?
Please extend on that!

What biological limitations will stop us from eventually colonizing e.g. Moon and Mars? (other than maybe having to persist for few centuries...)


(great discussion, by the way )

I do believe that the Earth would do fine in supporting its entire population if it hadn't been for us messing it up so badly (and you must tell me about Mathus some time). The reason I mentioned the problems we face on Earth was not to say they cannot be solved but to point out that technology, economy and willpower may need to refocus in a major way - and very soon - in order to save the only planet available where members of the human race can survive without advanced technological support.

Colonization of the Moon and Mars will certainly be good for science and therefore also for our species but for a period much longer than the next 50 crucial years that I mentioned, it will not support more than a few hundred people compared to the soon to be 9 billion that have to share the Earth.

As for the human factor slowly becoming the dominant factor, bear with me if I return once again to suck the last drops of insight from my high jump example. If new, fantastic techniques and training methods will finally add a few more centimetres to the world record, it can be compared to Columbus’ ship being developed not only into the Saturn 5 but also into whatever device we will create to take us to Mars (and beyond?) within say the next 100 years.

But when legs are as long and as strong as they can be, we cease to produce records – the human factor dominates entirely. That can be compared to the fact that the descendants of Columbus some 600 years down the line who have not developed all that much, are now relying more and more heavily on advanced technology each second of their life, even to take a simple breath or to protect against constant life-threatening radiation.

Building a breathable atmosphere on Mars will most probably take thousands of years and when done, it will leave us with an extra planet much smaller than Earth while already today we would need FIVE Earths to sustain the present world population on a level the western civilisation calls normal.

Any astronaut can tell us that living on the ISS for 6 months and returning from there is not an easy thing for any human body to endure. And when considering the 2-3 years needed for a return trip to Mars, it is not so much the lack of proper technology that we discuss as the psychological and medical limitations of a human being. Add the extra years needed to go to a Jupiter moon and you multiply the strains subjected to the same old body and mind.

The sad fact is that while technology rushes ahead and puts Mars within Columbus’ reach, Columbus stays essentially the same!

Fascinating discussion!

On the one hand, Einstein's stubborn speed of light limit, and the exponential energies needed to achieve even half or a quarter of that speed, do impose a pretty fundamental diminution of the odds of contact with extraterrestrial life any time soon, or possibly at all.

On the other hand, when it comes to speculation about phenomena so far beyond our current knowledge that we can only guess, then an even more fundamental limitation than the speed of light becomes relevant -- namely, our own cognitive capacity.

It may be that there is a way to transcend the light-speed limit, but it may require the evolution of an intelligence as far beyond our own as ours is beyond a cat's. I often think of this when observing my own cat, happily self-assured of the complete sufficiency of his mental grasp of reality, utterly oblivious to his inability to solve practical problems that to us are absurdly transparent.

Even the most impressive achievements of non-human cognitive heavyweights like chimps and dolphins are still distant also-rans in the manipulation of abstract concepts and symbolic communication that human evolution has enabled. And it may be that another hundred-thousand or million years of evolution of human neurocognition is a precondition for transcending the light-speed limit.

But that's assuming that human mental abilities, however advanced, are even the right kind. It may be that we've already branched off along the wrong path of neural evolution, and in fact the only way to slip through the speed of light barrier is via something like telepathy or other advanced neural capacity toward which dolphins may be well on their evolutionary journey. And if that's the case, then alien intelligences evolved along those lines could be clamouring day and night for our attention, or carrying on a lively exchange with dolphins who are to them as chimps are to us, while we are as deaf and blind to their communications as an intelligent rat is to the text printed on newspaper lining its nest.

Or not....

Quite possibly the cat is MORE intelligent in his bliss than we are in our grasping of knowlege.

We are so busy trying to figure things out, that the transparent becomes opaque just by asking why.

Cats don't ask why...they just do it.

Not only that, but they have trained us to feed and shelter them for free!