On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

[mooncliff]

Even if you are not normally interested in this, I suggest taking a look because it is a good example of how our technical abilities are getting better not by a little but by ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times in a matter of a few years.

This is the basis of technooptimism. Yes, yes, I know, humans always find ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Irrational humans mange to be their own worst enemy.

I am certain that there are thousands of bodies in this solar system that have bacterial life. Perhaps not at the surface, but deep under the ground or ice. The oceans of some of the moons of Jupiter exceed the volume of the entirety of the oceans on Earth. The entire Milky Way is similarly alive, and so are all the other billions of galaxies. And so the question remains of how common a technical civilization like we have at this moment is in space and in time. Confirmation of extraterrestrial life, and First Contact, will change everything. We might even get our act together.

This increase in technical ability is permeating every single facet of human endeavor. This is why The Singularity may in fact come even sooner than anyone dare dream.

Video in link below will not play outside the US, so here is another link for the preview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LWM3thutWw

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/f...ond-earth.html

http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/search-alien-life

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...ll-meet-aliens

http://radio.seti.org/

[Starving Steve]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

We are bankrupt. So why are we going to go on a joy-ride to Europa? For some spiritual uplift?

Let Saudi-Arabia or China or Qatar pay for joy-rides to Europa. Western nations have to dig-out of their debt-hole and stop peeing-away money on space exploration and other rubbish.

Nothing is ever going to change on Earth until the idiots in the Middle East destroy themselves in their atomic holocaust. And even after that event, things might not change. New idiots might appear on the world stage. There will be no "awakening" on Earth because there has been no such awakening in the past.

Even after WWII, a war in which tens-of-millions of people died, no world "awakening" occurred. Within days after the war, new wars were already being thought-up and planned for.... In the late 1940s, days after WWII, the Cold War was already paraded- out onto the world stage. By 1950, America and Russia were already in the Korean War.

Make no mistake about it, but any money budgeted for space exploration (including joy-rides to Europa) is more likely to be used for designing Star Wars, rather than for scientific inquiry. Probably, Star Wars would not be wars between worlds in deep space, but more likely: shooting from orbiting Earth satellites down to Earth's cities below.

[c1ue]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

Is this another NASA stunt like the pathetic one made last year?

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010...robiology.html

Followed by numerous slam downs of shoddy science:

http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com...ria-nasas.html

[lakedaemonian]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

We are bankrupt. So why are we going to go on a joy-ride to Europa? For some spiritual uplift?

Let Saudi-Arabia or China or Qatar pay for joy-rides to Europa. Western nations have to dig-out of their debt-hole and stop peeing-away money on space exploration and other rubbish.

Nothing is ever going to change on Earth until the idiots in the Middle East destroy themselves in their atomic holocaust. And even after that event, things might not change. New idiots might appear on the world stage. There will be no "awakening" on Earth because there has been no such awakening in the past.

Even after WWII, a war in which tens-of-millions of people died, no world "awakening" occurred. Within days after the war, new wars were already being thought-up and planned for.... In the late 1940s, days after WWII, the Cold War was already paraded- out onto the world stage. By 1950, America and Russia were already in the Korean War.

Make no mistake about it, but any money budgeted for space exploration (including joy-rides to Europa) is more likely to be used for designing Star Wars, rather than for scientific inquiry. Probably, Star Wars would not be wars between worlds in deep space, but more likely: shooting from orbiting Earth satellites down to Earth's cities below.

I would agree for the most part.

I wold prefer that IF money needs to be spent I would prefer it be spent on a Manhattan Project or the Apollo Moon Shot type focused effort on developing ultra energy efficiency technology and infrastructure and/or alternative energy production R & D.

But in having said that.....EVENTUALLY.....we have to figure out how to get some monkeys permanently off this rock.

At the moment, it's a bit like an unemployed family in a trailer park in foreclosure discussing a holiday to Zug, Switzerland.

[llanlad2]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

I would agree for the most part.

I wold prefer that IF money needs to be spent I would prefer it be spent on a Manhattan Project or the Apollo Moon Shot type focused effort on developing ultra energy efficiency technology and infrastructure and/or alternative energy production R & D.

But in having said that.....EVENTUALLY.....we have to figure out how to get some monkeys permanently off this rock.

At the moment, it's a bit like an unemployed family in a trailer park in foreclosure discussing a holiday to Zug, Switzerland.

There's an alternative-less people. The last time humanity pushed up against an energy ceiling like the current one led to the end of the roman empire and Europe's population to drop 30% from 18 millionto 13 million between 300 and 600AD. It didn't recover for a thousand years. Commerce and trade practically ground to a halt.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

There's an alternative-less people. The last time humanity pushed up against an energy ceiling like the current one led to the end of the roman empire and Europe's population to drop 30% from 18 millionto 13 million between 300 and 600AD. It didn't recover for a thousand years. Commerce and trade practically ground to a halt.

Yeah...I've considered the "too many monkeys on this rock" scenario....if that's the road we go down I hope my little monkeys make the cut.

[wayiwalk]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

Yeah...I've considered the "too many monkeys on this rock" scenario....if that's the road we go down I hope my little monkeys make the cut.

+1

I have been looking at it like this - with or without wars, the loss of cheap oil and without an inexpensive energy substitute, I think we're looking at a significant population decline across the world over the next generation.

I don't worry about my little monkeys making the cut so much as THEIR little monkeys....because their fate will be completely out of my hands.

[necron99]

Re: On the verge of detecting extraterrestrial life, tonight on NOVA in the US

I am a bit confused why somebody from SETI in October 2011 is talking about SETI's next 20 years when the funding for their main array was cut out of existence back in April: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...ing-telescopes
Did they find an alternate source of funding? Or are they borrowing other people's telescopes?

I'm torn -- I realize we're in a life-or-death economic crisis, but given that the radio telescopes exist, communicating to the cosmos with radio waves is ludicrously cheap compared to other forms of space exploration. It really is not much money to spend on a gamble that might pay off big-time.

As a lifelong sci-fi nerd, I have to send everyone to this explanation of why... it's a little simplistic, but the point is valid.

(Links to an Adobe PDF file)

http://www.univeros.com/usenet/cache...20a%20Hint.pdf