Does Life Exist
 

I would like to be up front about what I believe to be the truth of the universe and that is that life does not rampantly exist. That life as we know it, or imagine it more than likely does not exist on more than a handful of worlds. Given what we now know about how unique our planetary situation is, and how lucky we are to have had the events in our planets history that fostered life on our world, one can not but help deduce that the odds of it happening else where in the universe is astonishingly astronomical to a number and degree that is beyond our ability to comprehend. How the moon played a pivotal role in creating life on our world and how it still plays a role in keeping our planet stable enough to support life coupled with the rare combination of h2o and gasses that make up our atmosphere, our distance from the sun, our distance from the center of the galaxy and so on. Life is extremely rare and even more so in the universe at large.

I do not believe that Earth has been “visited” by aliens, nor do I believe that we, even after a hundred generations to the 10th power, will ever encounter alien life similar to anything that we have imagined. At best we will find only microscopic simple organism or odd plant life, but no humanoid or intelligent life.

If you look at the facts as they are presented today, the truth is but a simple thing to see, we are alone, and if we do not take care of what we have, we will loose it.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Not an argument, judgement or a statement, just something to read if interested.

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious..._equation.html

Slick.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Hmmm I don´t agree with you at all. What you are describing (the distance to the Sun, the influence of the Moon, H20 etc. etc.) are all conditions that had to be met for a planet to turn out the same as Earth... but life can exist in countless different contidions. If Earth had a SO2/CO2 atmosphere mix (with 0% oxygen) and a temperature of say 150°C, forms of sulfur bacteria (that we know of today) would be plentiful all over the globe... and with those kind of gasses in the atmosphere it would get so dense that even water could exist in liquid form at temperatures higher than 200°C...Life is very very tough...the usual range of 0 to 100°C + water + oxygen is only limiting to very complex organisms (that we know of!) what I am trying to say here is that you must not limit yourself to planets that are similar to Earth. One of the best "conditions" for life is the presence of water and a rich "soup" of anorganic/organic compounds in the planets atmosphere and crust. I think life will be very plentiful in the universe, we will prolly find it in many solar systems... another question all together is how much of that will be intelligent and not only a green blob of goo on a rock somewhere... that noone can answer because we just don´t know how frequent intelligence comes around (we only know of one example on earth) we´ll just have to wait and see.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

The moon keeps our planet anchored and thus we suffor few and minor wobbles that would otherwise decimate our climate and reduce the liveable life supporting time of our world to nill.

There is no proof, none what so ever, that life exsits on any other planet within our solor system. That is eight other planets and their moons with nothing.

I did state that life such as simple or extremely complex forms of it, bacteria, single celled ameba, and such can and more than likely do exsit. Hell I'll conceed that it is likely there are planets with oceans simular to Earth a billion years ago that may be teaming with life, but nothing like us. No developed life formes in the sence that they have a society like ours, advanced, and on the verge of exploring space.

So life can and probably does exsit on other worlds, but no life like we humans.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Atrocities, have you been reading Rare Earth, by chance?

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, a brief summary of the Rare Earth argument can be found on this page...
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw102.html

Re: Does Life Exist
 

making statistical arguments like ... there are 8 other planets with moons in our sol. system and none of them has life is very argumentative. First of all we might discover life on some of them and even if we don´t the fact that there is life on only one of them tells us nothing about the rest of teh galaxy... Here are my conclusions:

- I have read the Rare Earth hypothesis and it is very similar to Drake´s assumptions but for one small difference. The guys that did R.E. assumed that there is little life out there and Drake assumed that there is a lot and both tweaked their equations to produce the desired affect. It´s the age old optimist vs. pessimist tug-o-war. The real problem is that none of the factors in their equations can be estimated and not to mention all other factors they left out.

- the real questions is how many intelligent life forms are out there ATM. Well given the fact that we´ve been monitoring the EM band closely for the Last 70 years and found no TV, radio or other transmissions comming from outer space one can resonably conclude that there are no human-like aliens (close to our tech level) in a radious of 70 light years around Earth.

- for the remaining 90k light years of our galaxy who can say... we simply don´t have enough knowledge to make a resonble estimate. It´s just not possible.

- what we can say is that if we do find aliens (or they find us) they will either be very very far ahead of us (tech like) or very very behind us. (since it is very very unlikely two cultures will be at the same tech level at any given time) ... but since we just barely climbed out of the stone age ourselves (10.000 years is nothing cmpared to the eones passed) any aliens that we *might* find will most surely be hugely superior to us

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ID4 all over again

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Good point, if there is life out there, and it has the ability to travel the stars, will it be friendly or hostile toward other life? We are a resource devouring race therefore I believe that if there is life out there, and I do not believe there is life, then they to will be a race dedicated to self preservation above all else and if we meet, we are food.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, broadcasting does send a lot of waste signal into space.

If you want to be communicating over long distances, cheaper and with less interference for others doing the same thing, you start using fibreoptics, and narrow EM beams from satellites and cell towers directly to your customer, rather bLasting it out everywhere...

Propaganda and distress signals are about all you'd want for omnidirectional signals, which unfortunately get the 'ol 1/r^2 fading. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

- Don´t EM transmissions fade at 1/r^3 ?

- Yeah but even with todays directed EM (cell phone, satellite comm.) a lot of it is reflected from structures and the earth itself and is rediated back out to space... I´m sure that if we were say 34 light years away we could watch Armstrong land on the moon... and if we were 2 light years away listen to Aaron talking over his cell phone with his phone company complaining about yet another problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

if any aliens did use standard energy to communicate, (and they were more advanced than us), they'd be using narrow band laser-type communication devices...

due to the minimalized signal strength fall off at long distances...

if not something so conventional (ie, if their tech was higher, they'd be using either tacyons or even most likely - Einstein coupled particles (where changing spin on one of them instantly changes spin on its 'brother', regardless of distance)...

these really are the most likely forms of long distance alien communication, which is why we need to get it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I believe there is a very good chance that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Possibly a lot of it. There are a LOT of stars out there after all. I consider the Drake equations to be on the conservative side. The Rare Earth guys are down right pessimistic in their assumptions.

However, it may be exceedingly difficult if not impossible for life to spread beyond it's home system. Life that is built to exsist on a certain type of planet with a specific type of circumstances cannot easily pack up in man made, or Phong made for that matter, ships and fly to the next star over.

Technology can only do so much to prepare for the hostile conditions we know exsist in the vacuum between our own planets, much less anticipate and prepare for dangers we don't know about.

We may be hundreds of years from being able to establish semi-permanant facilities on Mars or teh moons of Jupiter. And those will still be heavily dependant on the supply of resources and personell from Earth.

For life to spread to another star system we have to figure out a way to design extremely intricate technological systems, but make them Last the decades or centuries that it would take to reach our destination. We'd need multiple upon multiple redundancies for systems, and some method of repair and replacment of critical parts only with the raw materials and manufacturing capacity that we can carry with us.

Some people equate it to the sailing ship explorers of the enlightenment age on Earth. But that is romantic nonsense. It's much harder then that. To equate it you'd have to have a sailing ship where you can't throw a line over and catch a fish, and you can't stop on an island and gather water, where the trip Lasts so long the ship would rot out from under you, but you have to rebuild it as it does from wood you have stored in the hold.

Not an easy proposition. It may be that intelligent life is abundant, or at least has been abundant over the lifespan of the galaxy. But it may be simply beyond the scope and ability of that life to travel the lifeless void of space between the stars.

At least until we get a Warp Drive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ August 08, 2003, 13:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

I don´t think we´re hundreds of years from having self-sustaining colonies on other planets. All the technology that we´d possibly need has long since been invented (say 30 years ago). If they could send a man to the moon in 69 we can most surely send several to mars and have them stay there indefinately... the ony problem is the will to do so. (if you have the will you find the money and the means)

We have the technology to construct self sustainable environments... there are about 200 of them floating uder the worlds oceans (called nuclear submarines) They surface once every 6 months only to resupply on food beause it would be too unpractical to have it produced on-board. Everything else... water, oxygen, heat etc. is produced by the nuclear reactors that turn CO2 to O2 and recycle urine and the vapour in the air to usable water.... In a hypothatical colony we´d only need to bring plants along to produce carbohydrates for us to eat (I admit, it would be a strange diet but one would be able to live off it indefinately) And if we could genetically change certain cells not to grow into animals but just to produce large quantities of proteins we´d have ourselves a meat substitute... we´re not there yet but its completely possible.

sailing off to distant stars is another matter... We simply don´t have the technology to do so in the desired time span (10 years there and back).

One proposal is to use say ion engines to propel enormous ships that carry hundrets of thousands of people in a self-sustaining enovironment with an fusion energy source that would Last for centuries to the nearest stars... they would require 50 years to get there and they would never return... but their offspring would construct a new civilisation on a planet orbiting that distant star and build new ships and send them off to yet other stars.... it has been calculated that it would take several million years but in the end we could colonize the enire galaxy using this principle...

Well I´m still hopefull that physics will save us and discover that travel over and beyond the speed of light is indeed possible... and I´m a firm believer in the saying that anyting is possible.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You should consider that to send a manned mission to Mars would require far more technology than we currently have. The effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body, the micro metorites that would pummule a ship to dust, and the enormus calculations needed to get there and back, the cost, etc.

Keep in mind that NASA has stated that ships with rotating sectiosn are not fessable in any degree and the technology to create such a ship is currently not available.

The best we can hope for in the next 200 years is perhaps a small moon base or orbital facility near the moon. Nothing more.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, because when you send out a signal pulse, it moves out in a spherical shell. The area of the shell is proportional to r^2. Dividing the signal out along that surface, you get 1/r^2.

For a Cylindrical wave it goes down 1/r (think a long light bulb filament blinking on and off)

Plane waves maintain constant intensity. (1/r^0)

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You should consider that to send a manned mission to Mars would require far more technology than we currently have. The effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body, the micro metorites that would pummule a ship to dust, and the enormus calculations needed to get there and back, the cost, etc.

Keep in mind that NASA has stated that ships with rotating sectiosn are not fessable in any degree and the technology to create such a ship is currently not available.

The best we can hope for in the next 200 years is perhaps a small moon base or orbital facility near the moon. Nothing more.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think you are pretty alone in thinking that it's technology that hinders a manned mission to Mars.
Today it's mostly economics, the cost will be huge.
The problems with micro-meteroids won't be all that much bigger than when we went to the moon i'd belive, just more prolonged but not a major problem, we've sent probes much further than Mars. Yes, they get hit but it's solvable. Even I can solve that one, 1 meter of lead will stop most meteroids (Not the best solution I agree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ).
Prolonged zero-g is not a hindrance either, a problem yes but not unsurmountable. The Russians have had people in space for over a year with much less training facilities than would be possible to mount inside a Mars mission.

The huge calculations is not any problem, that could be solved by most nations space agencies, even our small Swedish space agency has resources to calculate trajectories needed, fuel amount, thrust, launch dates etc..

No the problem is cost, it just costs too much and the profit isn't availible in any near future, to justify that cost will be hard.
If the motivation was right we could have had a manned mission to Mars in the 90-ies, heck, even in the early 70-ies if the motivation was STRONG enough to justify the cost in money and lifes.

Remember that it's hard to get funding for the international space station, the most expensive human space project so far, and that is much cheaper than a Mars mission I'd guess.

[ August 08, 2003, 14:52: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Does anyone have any idiea how big an antenna we're talking about to receive a local TV-transmission out through the atmosphere and the magnetic belt of Earth and the magnetic belt of the solar system and then 34 light years away?

Hey, does the magnetic belts even interfere with EM's? I guess not. But there ought to be some EM disturbances from the sun though, or?

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, you are missing my point. I wasn't talking about renewable recourse like food and water. I know we are very close to or have acchieved teh basic technology needed for these things. I am not even talking about basic energy needs. Nuclear power is a good long term option, and there is some talk about magnetic scoops to pull hydrogen molecules from the surounding space.

I am talking about the huge amount of raw materials and manufacturing capability you would need to be able to build replacment parts for all the myriad pieces of technology on board the ship. It's not simply a matter of scale, or making a larger ship. Because the bigger you build it and the more equipment you have dedicated to these support functions, the more things you have that can break. It's a curve that I am not confident you can ever get ahead of when you consider you are looking at decades long trips at least.

The submarines are not nearly as self-sufficent as you think. 6 months suberged is nothing. They can surface any time they need and head for a repair dock if something breaks. Or a helicopter can bring them a new circuit board in a matter of hours.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually if you read the recent literature most of the scientific community now believes that Mars colonization is out of our current technological reach. It is NOT simply a matter of money. Recent findings are that the radiation levels there are much higher then we previously believed among other things.

I think most agree that eventually we could have colonies on Mars. The question is whether we are capable of having self-sufficent colonies on mars. And I mean TOTALLY self sufficent. Not dependant on regular replenishment shipments from Earth with spare parts, etc.

Only when we can do that can we even think about sending a ship to another star. And that will be more difficult because at least on mars you have access to the planets raw materials.

A good example of what I am talking about is the Int'l Space Station. It is not anywhere near self sufficent. One accident grounds the Shuttle fleet and you hear talk of abandoning it alltogether. Even keeping it operational is tough. Depending on teh Soyuz means only two crew members can remain on the station. And those two are so busy doing station maintenance that they complain they don't have time for research. More money would not make it self sufficent. It might give us better options for replenishment, but wouldn't make the station self suficent.

[ August 08, 2003, 15:33: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Did the Drake equation thing that Slick posted, used pretty pessimistic figures (by my standards, anyway) and arrived at N=3. Interesting. Additionally, went out and found this:
Mars Colonization Plan

Might be a little on the optimistic side, but it does spell out a fairly serious program. Also, I will admit to be a tad biased in favor of Mars colonization -- I'm a member of the Mars Society.

Mars Society webpage

Re: Does Life Exist
 

I gotta read the Posts better before I reply, sorry.
I missed the first post and replyed to the reply, thought it was about a simple two-way mission to mars, Colonies is something enterely different, I agree on that!

My sincere apologies, it won't happen again, ever, promise http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I totally believe Mars will be colonizable someday. I was merely commenting that we aren't there yet. And not just fomr a lack of money or political will. There are definite, significant technological hurdles that need to be overcome for a permanant habitation. Self-sufficency is a long way past that, although I believe both are possible.

I just question whether it will ever be possible to build a ship that can travel between the stars without all the crew dieing and the ship turning into scrap metal before it gets there.

I do however believe life exsists out there. I think someday we may figure out a method of communication with them and be able to learn about each other. I am just not confident we will ever be able to visit them.

I can envision a "galactic internet" with information being shared about the various worlds and races. We could use this information to design virtual trips to these places.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

[quote]Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Quote:

No, because when you send out a signal pulse, it moves out in a spherical shell. The area of the shell is proportional to r^2. Dividing the signal out along that surface, you get 1/r^2

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">yes, yes I realize that normal enery disperses at that rate because of spacial enlargement... but Em waves are a combination of magnetic and dipole movement... I haev a vague memory that my physics book even has it derived somewhere that EM transmissions actually fade at 1/r^3 because of dipole movement on the antena...

I fo course could be wrong .. it´s been two years since I studied physics carefully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ August 08, 2003, 16:13: Message edited by: JurijD ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Also, note that the Drake equation was formulated to look for life that can communicate with us. As such its numbers are for our galaxy alone because the assumption is that other galaxies are too far away to pick up individual signals.

So if the question is about "intelligent live in the universe", Drake equation would have to be multiplied by the "biyyllllons and biyyllllons" of other galaxies, and the term about communication dropped.

Slick.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Amusingly the Soviets, right at the end, had the capacity to get a man to Mars. The Energia rocket, biggest rocket in the world, has a huge potential for lift. With all six booster rockets it could easily lift the top Apollo stages high enough for the trans-lunar burn. I do not remember the exact details, but I believe it was also capable of getting something like fifteen tons to Mars. That's enough to get a brave hero to Mars. He isn't coming home for a while, but he can get there, maybe walk around for a little while, claim a great victory for the motherland, and take a happy-sleepy pill.

This is not as unlikely as you might think, either. These men, and women, have just about anyone else beat for pure daring-to. Read about cosmonauts some time, incredible humans with incredible accomplishments.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Well the Russians (or our slavic brothers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) have always had the edge in space exploration, even now after the collapse of the USSR, NASA actually bought the plans for a 20 year old russian rocket engine that offers a 30% better force to weight ratio than the best engines the americans every developed... and this masterpiece was sitting in an old abandoned warehouse ont he outskirts of Moscow for lack of funding in space exploration.

That aside... back to Mars: I still say the only real obstacle to Mars colonization is politics and the lack of will power... heck 20 years before they went to the moon we barely discovered the jet engine! When Kennedy proposed the idea there were large portions of the so called scientific community that called him a "very optimistic war-monger" that didn´t know what he´s talking about... their most serious objection was that if anyone ever tried to land on the moon they (and their Rocket-ship) would sink in the soft sandy surface never able to get free again.... LOL

The thing is that there are always problems... if there were´t any someone would have already done it. The challenge is to go for it and try to do it. Don´t try to solve every problem on the blackboard, that´s crazy and sadly that´s how nasa operates now... and its also the reason why the russians were alaways ahead with 1/10th of the USA resources.
I mean why the hell would rotating ships be a problem... there is no reason for it... just bring a big wheel into space, spin it around and you have a rotating ship... I mean asteroids spin all the time and they have no problems with space travel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif heeh, jokes aside, there will always be people who say something is not possible and that we should wait... I say try and do it now and see if it cannot be done.

Capitalism really canot explore space... because every capitalistic country thinks in terms of money gains and not in terms of human advancement... but the Soviets saw the big picture, sadly the largest social experiment in human history didn´t work out so well because of human flaws and enemies aborad and within http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

As we are talking about colonising Mars, does anyone know anything about the radiation issue outside the Van Allan belt or something round the Earth.

As I recall, this was something I read about cosmic radiation, and how the Van Allan belt protected Earth, but outside it, long exposure would frankly kill astronauts. A short trip to the moon was not too bad, but longer flights would really be a no-no. Dunno if this is true or not, I suppose conventional radiation shielding would be too heavy to make it practical to launch (unless you did it peicemeal and assembled theship in orbit) but that would be a hellish undertaking.

My view is that there is most likely intelligent life out there as the universe is just so vast that even the remotest chance of life will mean it pops up in a few places. What I dont think it dies do is zip around Earth going wibble wibble and scaring farmers, rednecks and other wierdos

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You should consider that to send a manned mission to Mars would require far more technology than we currently have. The effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body, the micro metorites that would pummule a ship to dust, and the enormus calculations needed to get there and back, the cost, etc.

Keep in mind that NASA has stated that ships with rotating sectiosn are not fessable in any degree and the technology to create such a ship is currently not available.

The best we can hope for in the next 200 years is perhaps a small moon base or orbital facility near the moon. Nothing more.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think you are pretty alone in thinking that it's technology that hinders a manned mission to Mars.
Today it's mostly economics, the cost will be huge.
The problems with micro-meteroids won't be all that much bigger than when we went to the moon i'd belive, just more prolonged but not a major problem, we've sent probes much further than Mars. Yes, they get hit but it's solvable. Even I can solve that one, 1 meter of lead will stop most meteroids (Not the best solution I agree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ).
Prolonged zero-g is not a hindrance either, a problem yes but not unsurmountable. The Russians have had people in space for over a year with much less training facilities than would be possible to mount inside a Mars mission.

The huge calculations is not any problem, that could be solved by most nations space agencies, even our small Swedish space agency has resources to calculate trajectories needed, fuel amount, thrust, launch dates etc..

No the problem is cost, it just costs too much and the profit isn't availible in any near future, to justify that cost will be hard.
If the motivation was right we could have had a manned mission to Mars in the 90-ies, heck, even in the early 70-ies if the motivation was STRONG enough to justify the cost in money and lifes.

Remember that it's hard to get funding for the international space station, the most expensive human space project so far, and that is much cheaper than a Mars mission I'd guess.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I just watched a show on it a few weeks ago and the NASA guys stated that at current levels, we do not have the technology, nor the funding, for a manned mission to mars. They went into all the pros and cons and were very open about what was needed in order to mount a manned mission to the red planet.

So I am not talking out of my *** when I said what I said. It was all based upon what was said in the documentary.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

I don't know the radiation levels exactly, but, yes, there are some lethal areas between Earth and Mars. The current idea is that there would be a small shielded compartment in the ship where the crew would go when passing through these areas. A small shielded (probably Pb) compartment is much more practical than shielding the entire ship. If required, the crew could safely make short excursions out of the shielded room to operate equipment, etc.

Slick.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

The Soviets were ahead where they were ahead because Stalin choose to emphasize so-call 'old math' (mostly because an oppressed and decaying Soviet Union could not afford computers). This is the same reason such a huge percentage of the twentieth centuries' great mathematicians were from the eastern bloc. They came up with the mathematics that made it possible for one person to plot an orbit in a multiple-body system, that made that rocket engine possible, even the math behind stealth technology was developed by a Russian in the thirties.

The U.S. got to the Moon (which is not a moon, but that's another story), put out more deep space and interplanetary probes, and (until recently) had a much better safety record because it replied on 'new math', math that emphasized quickly turning any equation into one that could be run by a computer: less understanding, less elegant, more powerful, more number-crunching.

I don't know what the bleep happened to the U.S. space program after Apollo. It seems like they really haven't done anything useful since then. It is sad and I, for one, am waiting for the day when one of two things happen.</font>

1. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Chinese get their act up to the level that actual completion for something meaningful starts and NASA gets its aft in gear.</font>
2. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The space program is pulled of its current 'life support' level of funding and finally laid to rest. Maybe someday someone else that really loves it will pick it up and do something with it.
   </font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">On another note, the reason that whole spinning-thing won't work is because there will be mass (astronauts and whatever) moving around inside it. "Every action ...." It then costs lots of fuel not only to maintain the right facing or alignment, but also to maintain the correct position relative to your surroundings. You may remember footage of the astronauts running around the inside of Skylab? Wonder why you don't seen any astronauts doing that anymore? It's because those kinds of antics actually knocked Skylab off course. I don't know if the Soviets ever even tried that nonsense, but you can bet that if it had worked, they would have set up something spinning on one of their eight space stations.

Additionally, on the note of how long the Russian or Soviet Space agency has kept people in orbit, do remember that those were experiments in how much a human body can take. They haven't put people up for longer because of the damage those experiments did to those men. Also recall that when long-term station residents come down they are weak: these men can only barely walk. Not going to do much good on Mars if you need three months to recuperate after landing.

(Yeah, yeah, Martian gravity is low... only one month.)

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Guys, remember the old saying : "When an expert says something is possible, he is very likely right; but when an expert says something is impossible, he is very likely wrong."

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Re-discovered another good link from NASA on FTL travel and the challenges it poses.

WARP DRIVE WHEN

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Side tracking slightly to our earlier chat about ET's and all that, I always recall a really good short cartoon story in 2000AD (a great comic over here in Blighty).

Basically, NASA are shocked when an observatory spots flying saucers. All telescopes are tracking the ET's and they see them fly to the dark side of the moon. Over the next few weeks, blinding light is seen from the dark side of the moon, and a shuttle is prepped to go up there and make contact.

The shuttle launches and gets to the moon to see the ETs flying away. It goes round the dark side of the moon to see what is happening there and is shocked to find a great big sign, kind of like a road sign that says no parking or whatever.

The gallant astronauts manage to decipher the sign and are shocked when it turns out as saying "WARNING, IRRESPONSIBLE RACE IN CHARGE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AHEAD"

Laugh? I thought it was

Re: Does Life Exist
 

jurijd, communism didn't fail because of enemies 'abroad and within'...

it failed because it absolutely relies on the 100% trustworthiness of people running the system to not take advantage of it...

since humans are animals, this will not happen

in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice... in practice however, its HUGE:)

[ August 08, 2003, 18:26: Message edited by: Cirvol ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's damn quotable.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's damn quotable.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It already is a quote. I am not sure when, but I have heard it many times before. I *think* it may be Einstein.

Slick.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's damn quotable.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It already is a quote. I am not sure when, but I have heard it many times before. I *think* it may be Einstein.

Slick.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, Yogi Berra...?

[ August 08, 2003, 19:36: Message edited by: geckomlis ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

I have found links giving credit to that quote to Yoggi Berra, and to JAN L.A. VAN DE SNEPSCHEUT, a
Dutch-American computer scientist and educator (1953 - 1994)

Have not determined difinitivly if it's either of them, or someone else entirely.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Berra, Einstein... Same thing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Slick.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

we are not going to another solar system soon
1. Yes there are planets that can harvist life out there, but they are far apart.
2. We dont see them and the optics to see them will need a very wide base line.
3. Multi generation ships are very very risky. In all societies there are distructive people. You would need a lead room for people and food to hide from radiation. Thats alot of lead so we would probably have to make a really good magnetic field instead.
4. no gravity and the inertia idea dosnt work.

i am not saying it wont happen

and with mars there just is not a reason to do it until we have micro machines that can turn rust and CO2 into steel and O2

Re: Does Life Exist
 

What do you mean by #4?

With "zero" gravity, inertia becomes more important, but certainly not stronger or weaker.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Warning : possibly controversial link below.

Is there intelligent life out there ? Here's one possibility.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">These would be the "human flaws" jurijd mentioned but that you didn't quote. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">there is no gravity in space
They did a test to see if you could use inertia as artificial gravity. It didnt work the person still had a bad back when he came down.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">ummm... Could you explain that one a little more? Or maybe drop a link. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

I like the "if there's anybody out there, where the bleep are they!?!" side of the question. Even within the limitations of the speed of light, it would take no more than a couple hundred million years for one race of intelligent life to spread throughout the galaxy, the whole galaxy.

Since the galaxy has been around for billions of years, they should be here, or at the very least we should be picking up radio transmission from them: communicating with each other, communicating between worlds or craft within the same system, even radio transmissions that are meant to only reach individuals on the same planet should be making some difference. What is there? Nothing.

The matter may stem from some specific failure mode, some specific thing that intelligent life does to itself on a consistent enough basis that it never makes it out of its own solar system. That a bit depressing, as it could be seen as an assurance of doom. Whatever, keep breathing.

[ August 08, 2003, 12:11: Message edited by: Loser ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sounds like you mean a rotating ship type dealy. We don't have anything big enough to avoid significant force differentials at different heights.

Re: Does Life Exist
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think what he's referring to is the proposed use of a "rotating section" on a spaceship to generate an artifical gravity, much like you see in Babylon 5 and 2001: A Space Oddessy.

I guess muscle loss/atrophy (sp?) still occurs in this simulated enviroment, although I would expect it to occur more slowly than in a non-simulated gravity enviroment.

Then again I may be completely off my rocker. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Well this isn´t a good example but its the best I can do for now:

Before the Last ice age there were at least 3 differet species of humanoids living on Earth. People usually think that Homo sapiens evolved in a linear fashion from "lower" humanoids but what they tend to forget is that parallel to us several other species evolved (also from lower humanoids) that were in no way (mentally or physically) inferiour to us. But as you can see apparently only one of those species survived to this day (ok, forget about Big foot, the Snow man and the Easter bunny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

So one can resonbly conclude that (at least on Earth) similarily evolved intelligent species (although related) didn´t really like each other very much and there is evidence that over the passage of time one species took over teritories that belonged to another only centuries ago... not a very encouranging thought concidering that "the aliens" won´t even be distantly related to us.

And encounters of a technologically superiour culture with one less developed (in a militarily and sientific way!!!) also don´t tell a hopefull story. just look at what 200 Spanish soldiers did to the Inka indians back in the 16th century (I think it was the Inkas... or the Aztecks later on... same story:)

I don´t think E.T. will attack Earth to steal our water:) (since they have a quadrillion times as much freely available in those ice asteroids orbiting not far away from Mars:) Maybe our small and unimportant planet is what will safe us in the end. Because what could they possibly want from us... I mean there are millions of other planets with the same (or better) mineral composition as Earth... and besides it doesn´t make sence for a space-ferring culture to mine planets ... it makes more sence to mine asteroids where you don´t need to bother with this annoying gravity we keep hearing about :-) I mean why would you mine gold on Earth and then have to haul it up at enormous costs of energy to space when you have a few rocks with .0000% g already in space that are loaded with the suff. (no really there is an asteroid orbiting near jupiter that has more gold and platinum on it that our enitre planet *ka-ching* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ August 08, 2003, 12:23: Message edited by: JurijD ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

To detect inter-system communication within another system is propably hard.
You have to aim at that system directly, it's not very high signals that would reach earth if the signals aren't directed in a tight beam towards us, I belive. Not to mention that we might be listening on the wrong frequency, if communication is sparse they might not be using that many frequencies. And perhaps there is other way to transmit communication than by radio waves. Wires planetside and light in space? Perhaps mass communication isn't for all species?
What where the SETI resources in the 40:ies?

So to say that we've been monitoring the EM band closely for the Last 70 years isn't the whole truth.

(I might be out on thin ice here as I really don't know but what I've written here seems reasonable, right?)

[ August 08, 2003, 12:27: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Re: Does Life Exist
 

Atrocities, I gotta side with JuriD here. A handful, in a gigantic universe, equals countless planets with the possibility of life.

That the life forms in question have an intelligence like ours is hard to know for sure. The drake equation is easy to discuss and debate to figure out for number of stars and planets. But to define intelligence and technology, well, that might be difficult.

I'm a firm believer, that the laws of physics prevent these far flung societies from ever coming in contact with each other. If anyone ever discover warp points, jumpgates, I'll be shocked. And, IMHO, hyperspace drives and warp drives are just plain silly.

JuriD, you're back from vacation? Betcha you thought you'd have missed some turns on PBW, huh. Didn't figure you'd have missed nothing, didja. Welcome back.