Are We Alone?

[DiveCon]

SETI's budget is about 4 million dollars or so. Its not even a drop in the bucket of the Federal Budget. Its barely a water molecule in the bucket. I'd much rather have those guys listening than just ignore the heavens entirely.

Sure, they may find nothing, but if they do, who knows?

i looked it up, but didnt save the link, SETI used to get federal funding, but not anymore
its all private

Wouldn't surprise me. NASA's budget is so small that its probably time for them to solicit private money.

I view SETI as a longshot that may pay off. Even if they don't find signs of extra terrestial life they may one day find some amazing stellar occurance that leads to new theories.

exactly, i used to have SETI@home on my old desktop
havent reinstalled it on the new one yet
but i figure if they use a few spare cycles of my CPU to sort through all the data, and maybe i'll be the one that actually finds it

 

[westwall]

This Nellis UFO is also interesting....

YouTube - 1994 Nellis super secret UFO sighting

That video (a complete waste of 7 minutes of my shortening life!) is totally useless for anything but humor. There are a very few credible UFO reports (please note I am using UFO in the correct way-they are unidentified) but the vast majority of the photo's and videos are easily explained. I well remember the "Phoenix Lights" hysteria of a few years ago and the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the video was "hey those are USAF IR defeating flares". Which is what the Gov said and which the UFO enthusiasts ignored.

There was however a photo taken several years ago by a weather camera that recorded an object in the atmosphere that was calculated to be travelling at 1/6th C. That is pretty close to the average speed of a meteorite but not within the atmosphere. This had no contrail, or perceptible shockwave etc. An interesting anomoly.

 

[saveliberty]

Psst...NASA.

Get a bunch of people to start reporting aliens landing. Peer review their reports and conclude we are going to get killed by alien invasions soon. The money will just pour in from the government. For faster service, recruit Al Gore.

If you get a spare million, don't forget me.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, we've spent lots of money on SETI but have found nothing yet.

And as far as Biblically speaking goes, no.

That is untrue - there was the Wow in 1977

SPACE.com -- Interstellar Signal from the 70s Continues to Puzzle Researchers

..and we're not talking biblically, we're talking reality...

the bible is the best trove of archaeological evidence we have. Which means...it is real.

Not hardly. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down long before the Isrealites.

Archaeological Sites

Perhaps the best known and most accurate information from the Jericho site comes form yet another excavation under Kathleen Kenyan from 1952-1958. Her techniques were far superior to Garstang's and involved rigorous examination of the soil and very careful recording of its stratification. Kenyan was able to obtain a cross section of the city through its entire history by digging a narrow deep trench while maintaining clean and squared off edges. When presented with an area that would require wider areas to be excavated- the floor plan of a house for example- she carefully dug in measured squares while leaving an untouched strip between each section to allow the stratification to remain visible. Kenyan's main objective during her excavations at Jericho was to trace the history of the site back to it's earliest settlement. While trenching downward through the site she uncovered the first walled city along with a number of houses and courtyards that had been constructed over 10,000 years ago, during the Neolithic. Kenyan was able to learn something about the city's early inhabitants from a tomb located near the deepest layers of the city. Inside the tomb were a number of skulls covered with clay. The skulls were dated at about the seventh millenium BC and were beautifully decorated with paint. Upon further excavation Kenyan maintained that the walls of Jericho had been repaired and rebuilt at least seventeen times. The damage may have been caused by earthquakes. The most recent of these walls (already dated to around 1400 BC by Garstang) was dated by Kenyan at 2300BC. Kenyan found no evidence of defensive structures that could confirm Garstang's previous claims that Jericho had been destroyed by the Israelites in the 15th century BC. In fact, she concluded that Jericho had lay in ruins for centuries before the Israelites even arrived. In short, there was nothing for Joshua to destroy.

 

[antagon]

there could well be life. there's less of a chance that there's intelligent life. there's even less of a chance that some extraterrestrial intelligent life regularly visits us here.

 

[Old Rocks]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.

Now consider the complexity of life as we know it here on Earth. Every breath that we breath contains pollens, spores, microbial life. All composed of thousands of differant proteins.

Now were we to develop a trans-C drive, and found a planet that looked like the Garden of Eden, with a perfect atmosphere, our heroic Intersteller explorer land, steps onto this new planet, draws a deep breath, and goes into instant massive anaphylatic shock. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the proteans on a world with a totally differant evolutionary history would be the same as the ones that we evolved with.

What are the ethics of interfereing with a planet that is developing, or has the possibility of developing, intelligent life?

And what about life not as we know it? Silicon based. Living in an environment that is much hotter or colder, or even under much higher pressure, or no pressure at all.

I cannot remember whether it was Clarke or Asimov that stated that the universe is not stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

SETI. A wonderful idea, that has already been involved in some discoveries of new things, to us, in the universe. Consider a primitive tribe on a sea surrounded island. Assuming that there are other people somewhere out there, and that they communicate with each other, he faithfully sends up every day one of his subjects with the best hearing, and another with the sharpest sight, to listen for drums and look for smoke signals. Even as the island is bombarded by the electromagnetic signals from geosychronious satellites, as well as other sources.

Moved out to, say, the orbit of Pluto, a much quieter neighborhood, and with a much improved technology, SETI might someday discover a distant civiliazation at about the same stage of development as we are. A civilization with a million years of technological and evolutionary advancement on us? I doubt that we have the faintest idea of how they communicate.

 

[DiveCon]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.
....

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

 

[westwall]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.
....

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

Absolutely. We have completely alien ecosystems here on Earth. The black smokers have tube worms and a whole host of other creatures that exist independant of the sun and photosynthesis. They have a completely foreign system that operates via chemosynthesis and they derive their nutrients fom sulfides.

What makes the Goldilocks region so important is the availability of liquid water. That is the significant factor. O2 is not the important factor.

 

[Chris]

This Nellis UFO is also interesting....

YouTube - 1994 Nellis super secret UFO sighting

That video (a complete waste of 7 minutes of my shortening life!) is totally useless for anything but humor. There are a very few credible UFO reports (please note I am using UFO in the correct way-they are unidentified) but the vast majority of the photo's and videos are easily explained. I well remember the "Phoenix Lights" hysteria of a few years ago and the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the video was "hey those are USAF IR defeating flares". Which is what the Gov said and which the UFO enthusiasts ignored.

There was however a photo taken several years ago by a weather camera that recorded an object in the atmosphere that was calculated to be travelling at 1/6th C. That is pretty close to the average speed of a meteorite but not within the atmosphere. This had no contrail, or perceptible shockwave etc. An interesting anomoly.

The Phoenix lights were not explained. The flares filmed at 1030 pm were not what people were reporting all over Phoenix at 830 pm. Hundreds of people, including the governor of Arizona, saw an enormous ship fly over at 830 pm. Some friends of mine saw it as well. You really should do a little more reading on the subject.

And the Nellis video was amazing when it was shown on television. You can't tell much from the internet video, however.

 

[THE LIGHT]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.

Now consider the complexity of life as we know it here on Earth. Every breath that we breath contains pollens, spores, microbial life. All composed of thousands of differant proteins.

Now were we to develop a trans-C drive, and found a planet that looked like the Garden of Eden, with a perfect atmosphere, our heroic Intersteller explorer land, steps onto this new planet, draws a deep breath, and goes into instant massive anaphylatic shock. There is absolutely no reason to assume that the proteans on a world with a totally differant evolutionary history would be the same as the ones that we evolved with.

What are the ethics of interfereing with a planet that is developing, or has the possibility of developing, intelligent life?

And what about life not as we know it? Silicon based. Living in an environment that is much hotter or colder, or even under much higher pressure, or no pressure at all.

I cannot remember whether it was Clarke or Asimov that stated that the universe is not stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

SETI. A wonderful idea, that has already been involved in some discoveries of new things, to us, in the universe. Consider a primitive tribe on a sea surrounded island. Assuming that there are other people somewhere out there, and that they communicate with each other, he faithfully sends up every day one of his subjects with the best hearing, and another with the sharpest sight, to listen for drums and look for smoke signals. Even as the island is bombarded by the electromagnetic signals from geosychronious satellites, as well as other sources.

Moved out to, say, the orbit of Pluto, a much quieter neighborhood, and with a much improved technology, SETI might someday discover a distant civiliazation at about the same stage of development as we are. A civilization with a million years of technological and evolutionary advancement on us? I doubt that we have the faintest idea of how they communicate.

 

[Chris]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvPR8T1o3Dc&feature=related]YouTube - Astronaut Gordon Cooper Talks About UFOs[/ame]

 

[Old Rocks]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.
....

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

Chemistry

 

[Old Rocks]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.
....

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

Absolutely. We have completely alien ecosystems here on Earth. The black smokers have tube worms and a whole host of other creatures that exist independant of the sun and photosynthesis. They have a completely foreign system that operates via chemosynthesis and they derive their nutrients fom sulfides.

What makes the Goldilocks region so important is the availability of liquid water. That is the significant factor. O2 is not the important factor.

Dive Con is pretty ignorant when it comes to science, but for someone that claims a degree in geology to not understand the importance of finding an oxygen atmosphere in a planet in the goldilocks zones is beyond comprehension.

 

[DiveCon]

Some thoughts here.

Any planet that we find in the Goldilocks Zone that has an Oxygen atmosphere will have life, that is to only way that such a planet can develop such an atmosphere.
....

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

Chemistry

bullshit

 

[DiveCon]

didnt read beyond there

why would the evolution on another world be dependent on Oxygen?
who's to say they couldn't evolve a life that breathed nitrogen more so?

Absolutely. We have completely alien ecosystems here on Earth. The black smokers have tube worms and a whole host of other creatures that exist independant of the sun and photosynthesis. They have a completely foreign system that operates via chemosynthesis and they derive their nutrients fom sulfides.

What makes the Goldilocks region so important is the availability of liquid water. That is the significant factor. O2 is not the important factor.

Dive Con is pretty ignorant when it comes to science, but for someone that claims a degree in geology to not understand the importance of finding an oxygen atmosphere in a planet in the goldilocks zones is beyond comprehension.

yiou are by far more ignorant than i ever could be you pedantic asswipe

 

[DiveCon]

btw rocks in the head,
something evolving on another world would not be limited to OUR chemistry
since they could have elements we have never seen nor heard of
and you called ME ignorant

 

[Old Rocks]

btw rocks in the head,
something evolving on another world would not be limited to OUR chemistry
since they could have elements we have never seen nor heard of
and you called ME ignorant

Lordy, lordy. Dive, honest to God, I had no idea that you were truly that ignorant. No, there will not be any elements on another planet in another stellar system that we never heard of. There may be a differant ratio of them, or even a differant ratio of isotopes reflecting an older or younger system. But no new elements.

You really need to take a basic chemistry course at the nearest community college.

 

[DiveCon]

btw rocks in the head,
something evolving on another world would not be limited to OUR chemistry
since they could have elements we have never seen nor heard of
and you called ME ignorant

Lordy, lordy. Dive, honest to God, I had no idea that you were truly that ignorant. No, there will not be any elements on another planet in another stellar system that we never heard of. There may be a differant ratio of them, or even a differant ratio of isotopes reflecting an older or younger system. But no new elements.

You really need to take a basic chemistry course at the nearest community college.

how the hell would you know
you are a complete IDIOT

btw, we dont even know that they have identified all the elements in THIS planetary system

 

[Old Rocks]

You poor fucking ignoramous. You really need to find out what the Periodic Table of elements means.

Each element has a distinct number of protons. Counting the elements that man has created, we are up to 111 protons in a nucleus. But the heavier elements, and especially the manmade elements, are not stable, many with a half life of a miniscule fraction of a second.

I now understand why you are such a trailer trash Conservative.

 

[DiveCon]

You poor fucking ignoramous. You really need to find out what the Periodic Table of elements means.

Each element has a distinct number of protons. Counting the elements that man has created, we are up to 111 protons in a nucleus. But the heavier elements, and especially the manmade elements, are not stable, many with a half life of a miniscule fraction of a second.

I now understand why you are such a trailer trash Conservative.

i KNOW what it means you dipshit

that in NO WAY eliminates the possibility of additional elements on other worlds