The Plausibility of Alien Life

There is one thing that most people forget to consider when dicussing about alien life. Right now, we believe that the universe is about 13 billion years old, more or less. Our species has only existed a couple million years, more or less. Civilization on this planet has only existed for about 5-10 thousand years. We've only become technologically advance enough to transmit and listen to radio waves. We haven't even gone to another star system.What are the chances of 2 or more technologically advance civilizations existing within communication range of each other at the same time to be able to come in contact with each other?Time isn't just a problem. Time is THE problem.

*Blink* You did not just say that did you?People used to think flight was impossible. People never even imagined supersonic speeds. And even then, people imagined flight would be like people flapping their wings to fly more like birds.I am reminded of a science fiction novel I read some years ago. The novel was written before records were invented. The title and author escapes me for now. The author's vision of the future was that in the future if you ever wanted to listen to music you'd just turn on what we would perceive to be a primitive version of the radio. The characters explained that there were always people playing music and transmitting the music as a service to society. Recording the music and play it back later never even occured to this author.I'm pretty sure if a technologically advance race decides to embark on interstellar travel they'd do it with much more efficient ways than what our current science would allow us. What you just said is little better than how people during Kristofer Kalumbus's period would describe intercontinental travel in the future.

Um, not intending to steer us off topic, but the universe is anything but random. As a matter of fact, some of us "old schoolers" believe that there is no such thing as random. Chaotic might be a better word to describe things.Anyway, it kinda ticks me off everytime I see very smart people telling people about the impossibility/impracticality of interstellar travel. All their reasons are purely 20th/21st century science and technology. To loosely quote a science fiction character whose name I can't think of right now, there are a million ways we can travel vast distances in space without using the humongous amounts of energy predicted by current science, and most of them we can't even think of. To stamp our feet down and declare that it is simly impossible or impractical for humans to travel to lightyears away using our current level of technology is, I think, extremely arrogant. Again, the people of Kristofer Kolumbus' time never imagind there'd be 747's karrying hundrids of peepel halph wai around the worald in less than 2 days.

The zero-zero drive... That's easy. All we have to do is overcome the hayflick limit... Can I have some of what you're smoking? I laugh at the idea of having anything but an all-male crew to explore the universe. You and I both know that a woman isn't capable of the higher brain functions needed to make sound decisions and all that good stuff. All she's good for on a spaceship is to distract the men from doing their job correctly. Franklie, I'm not ass obtimistik as u r. Aphterall, G-d never sayd anythyng in the bybel uhbout lyfe on oder blanets.

Rrhain, permit me to reitterate what you just said. That's not the same thing. The amount of windspeed required to get a ship moving that quickly is decidedly non-linear. That's why a sailboat could never move at such a speed that would allow us to travel from continent to continent in less than months time. Efficiency is one thing, but Scotty was right: You kinna change the laws o- physics. I don't doub that technology will advance to allow greater efficiency. I suspect that lighter but stronger wood material could conceivably be developed. But sailboats that travel at incredible speeds are the stuff of science fiction. Longboats don't get as much drag, but they are too small to carry enough people and supplies for long periods of time across the oceans. This is why I say I can conceive of it being done: Your sailboat has to be really big for the sails to be big enough to catch enough wind and the boat itself has to be light but strong enough to allow greatest efficiency in speeds, but I certainly don't say it's physically impossible. I say it is emminently impractical.If u stil don understan buy nowe, your using current language, current science, current technology, and current understanding of space to describe what future star travel might be like. Just close your eyes, sit back, and imagine talking to a 15th century person about faster ways people could be using to travel from continent to continent and see how frustrated you are when that person keep using his current "science", current technology, and current understanding of the world to describe what future intercontinental travel might be like. Are you high on pot? How in the world did you get the idea that this is what I was saying? The world is so large that the cost of sending your family half way across the world for a 1 week vacation is impractical.

Note that I haven't speculated anything. All I've done is drawn a similarity between Rrhain's objection to star travel and how 15th century people might object to vacation travel to the other side of the world. Both base their objections on their contemporary science and technology and understanding of what's possible and what's not. The zero-zero drive I mentioned was a joke.How might we travel to other star systems? I don't know. I'll tell you this much. If I had been living in the 15th century, I would never have guessed HOW people could travel to the other side of the world in less than a few years time.

I'm a proud chauvinistic, sexist pig. Actually, I'm not.