[Growltigger]

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