Does Life Exist

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Loser:
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.

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.

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