What is your answer to this question?

[DR HANS SCHWANTZ]

I am curious and maybe this has been answered somewhere on this site (I did try the search function with this question but nothing really came up to answer it), so here goes:

What do you feel is really to be found in outer space if we could explore it by actually travelling through it  in what I assume would have to be a long range star ship?

I love Star Trek and of course this is fiction, but still it makes one wonder what is really out there when you watch an episode.

I would like to garner some input from everyone here what they think. It may be interesting if this has not been already discussed before to see what you might have to say in answering my question.

[shnozzola]

   My own thoughts  are that, for every 10 solar systems we find similar to ours (distance to heat), we find a bit of amoeba like life (basic cells) that can take environmental extremes.  For every 1000 solar systems we find with the correct distances for heat, we find plants and less developed animals  - fish, early evolution.  For every 100,000 solar systems with these correct distances from heat, we find something more advanced.  I guess if the distance is more exact - what life needs, goldilocks temps - we can find something intelligent.

   Of course each area is at some evolutionary stage - come here in 1000 years - we may have killed ourselves off  with our Taliban mentality.  It may be more of a evolutionary lottery of intelligence than a temperature extreme problem.  I also wonder if the travel energy and speeds are possible for life to find each other.  I hope so.

But overall, relatively speaking, that makes for an infinite universe teeming with life.

[Nick]

Veger

[DR HANS SCHWANTZ]

http://www.veger.net/

I liked it

[Anfauglir]

I doubt we'll find anything to talk to, certainly.

I was at the Science Museum on Sunday, and saw an I-MAX film about dinosaurs and stuff.  Part of the film is that if life on earth (from bacteria to man) was represented by a 12-hour clock, man has been around for 8 seconds - and less than half of that would be what we might call "intelligent".

So not only do we need to find a planet that is capable of supporting life, and has generated that life, and has survived any extinction events.....we have something like a 1 in 10,000 chance of life being at the stage where when we say "hello", it will be able to say "hello" back.

Zero chance of any galactic empires, sadly, at least without a Cherenkov drive.

[hickdive]

Green women, in bikinis.

[Bereft_of_Faith]

I think life, even ones we might communicate with, may be likely, but the catch is that I fear we (and they) may never discover a means of transport to anything but the nearest star.  Even at light speed, the nearest star is roughly 4 years away, and the closer one travels to light speed, the more massive one becomes (I'm currently traveling at about .25 c)

There is also the idea that any civilization that discovers the atom and how to split it may not make it far enough to discover other cool things.

The energy requirements to do things like open worm holes (wouldn't we be crushed on the way in?) or to fold space (that has to be really really expensive) might be prohibitive.

It may be a cold hard fact that all civilizations, at least this far from the more crowded center of the galaxy, might just be spread too far apart to ever make physical contact.

SETI has been up and running for a couple of decades:  So far, no replies.

[Bereft_of_Faith]

Green women, in bikinis.

That's racist!  What about the fine blue women?  Oh wait.  I mean, that's sexist!!