SPACE

[Darkflame]

Of course, I fully support Seti, and believe we should search whatever. But absence of evidence isnt evidence of absence and all that

The evidence of absence is the duration that the Earth has existed life bearing and uncolonised. Would we ignore a planet whose highest life form was a Tyrannosaur if we wanted it? Maybe highly ethical beings would have allowed man to flourish unconquered, but for most of prehistory there was no-one here to conquer.

Or maybe they didnt know earth was here, didnt want it, didnt care, or dont have space exploration at all.

I think the idea that aliens have to have better/worse tech then us is wrong.
They could just have different tech.

Maybe if you survive long enough as a species you get your energy straight from the sun, and the material goods of planets becomes a non-issue. (the value of the earth might itself be rather tiny to other planets in our system from their perspective even if they did value specific substances)

The point is, without a greater sample range then what we have we know nothing. The possibilitys are endless.

Maybe they did know there was life here, but they have existed so long as to know that independantly evolved life from them might actualy help them in the long run. A different way to look at the world could lead to difference science, solutions to problems they might have. It might be ethics, or it might be just forward-thinking on their part.
(or maybe, evolutionary wise, thats precisely what ethics is anyway).

Actually, personally, I expect aliens to appear any day now, slipping out of their quantum-wave-drive and causally asking for a few supplies before vanishing again into their superpositional ships.

Why now, and not in the time of the Trilobites? Or were you joking?

Well, maybe they did.
Maybe I am.
Maybe quantom wave ships need sentient species to witness them arrive else they disasper in a puff of logic

Maybe though, just maybe, our radiowaves we have ambiently been broadcasting only just reached a species able to detect them, and they have only just had time to get a probe to reach us.
There is a limit to how far our radio signals can go before they just vanish in the background noise of the universe. We might be lucky and their might be someone within that range looking.

There are no planet using aliens capable of intersellar travel anywhere near us. If there are interstellar travel capable aliens nearby, which I very much doubt, they are adapted to living in spaceships, or maybe in space itself (though that latter seems pretty unlikely), and they won't like planets, or any gravity wells.

hu?
You just contradicted your first argument.
If they live in space, that explains why they dont care for the earth.

And what makes you think none are near us?
What makes you think they live in space?

And what makes you think they "dont like" planets or gravity wells?
Surely orbiting around suns is the mostly likely?

If you can travel interstellar space, I dont think handeling basic orbits are a problem.

[zip accident]

Of course, I fully support Seti, and believe we should search whatever. But absence of evidence isnt evidence of absence and all that

The evidence of absence is the duration that the Earth has existed life bearing and uncolonised. Would we ignore a planet whose highest life form was a Tyrannosaur if we wanted it? Maybe highly ethical beings would have allowed man to flourish unconquered, but for most of prehistory there was no-one here to conquer.

Or maybe they didnt know earth was here, didnt want it, didnt care, or dont have space exploration at all.

That they don't have space exploration is plausible, but makes them irrelevant to the "might turn up tomorrow" scenario.

I think the idea that aliens have to have better/worse tech then us is wrong.
They could just have different tech.

There is no alien physics. The Earth is not in an unusual region of space, get over that one. They may have different tech, and we may not know all of physics, but whatever tech they have (supposing they exist) will fit in with the real universal laws of physics, whatever those may be.

The point is, without a greater sample range then what we have we know nothing. The possibilitys are endless.

The impossibilities are as endless as the possibilities, more numerous in fact. We may be wrong about the some of the apparent impossibilities being impossible, but over 50%? I don't think so.

Maybe they did know there was life here, but they have existed so long as to know that independantly evolved life from them might actualy help them in the long run. A different way to look at the world could lead to difference science, solutions to problems they might have. It might be ethics, or it might be just forward-thinking on their part.
(or maybe, evolutionary wise, thats precisely what ethics is anyway).

I think evolutionarily, that is very probably exactly what ethics are. You will meet a huge number of people who want ethics to be eternally true and based on some universal standard of good, "God" if you will.

Actually, personally, I expect aliens to appear any day now, slipping out of their quantum-wave-drive and causally asking for a few supplies before vanishing again into their superpositional ships.

Why now, and not in the time of the Trilobites? Or were you joking?

Well, maybe they did.
Maybe I am.
Maybe quantom wave ships need sentient species to witness them arrive else they disasper in a puff of logic

Oh goody goody gumdrops.

Maybe though, just maybe, our radiowaves we have ambiently been broadcasting only just reached a species able to detect them, and they have only just had time to get a probe to reach us.
There is a limit to how far our radio signals can go before they just vanish in the background noise of the universe. We might be lucky and their might be someone within that range looking.

Think about that a bit please. We've been broadcasting for less than 100 years in any meaningful levels, so 50 years to a star, 50 years at c for them to get to us. That's a very small region of space, and there are very few stars within that range, most of the stars we see at night are much further from us than that. If they have interstellar travel, and like using it, they would be much more likely to have wandered here at random on their travels. They didn't, and they had billions of years to do it, so the chances are very small that they will do it now.

There are no planet using aliens capable of intersellar travel anywhere near us. If there are interstellar travel capable aliens nearby, which I very much doubt, they are adapted to living in spaceships, or maybe in space itself (though that latter seems pretty unlikely), and they won't like planets, or any gravity wells.

hu?

Spelt "huh".

You just contradicted your first argument.
If they live in space, that explains why they dont care for the earth.

I don't see it as contradiction, I did quite carefully say "planet using".

And what makes you think none are near us?

There has been no reaction that we know of to our probes of the solar system, so I don't think there are any in the solar system, including the Oort, which is where I'd expect them to be.

What makes you think they live in space?

If you exclude the possibility of FTL travel, they have to be capable of surviving in space long enough to get from star to star. That's a long time. If they can do it for that long, they might as well do it indefinitely.

And what makes you think they "dont like" planets or gravity wells?
Surely orbiting around suns is the mostly likely?

Orbiting is one thing, landing is entirely different. We can't survive a landing on Jupiter, if there is any land at the bottom. They might be similarly troubled by a landing on Earth, or maybe even the Moon.

If you can travel interstellar space, I dont think handeling basic orbits are a problem.

Nope, probably no problem with orbits, though if you don't usually deal with them they might be a surprise. They might have a nasty case of sunburn if they came as close to they sun as, say, Neptune.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Apparently scientists have discovered Methane on Mars and reckon it might be generated by teensy weensy sub-surface bugs.

There's supposedly a news conference going on somewhere.

[Absolute_Zero]

New Scientist: Our world may be a giant hologram

[axel000]

Maybe if you survive long enough as a species you get your energy straight from the sun

[ElfQrin]

Apparently scientists have discovered Methane on Mars and reckon it might be generated by teensy weensy sub-surface bugs.

There's supposedly a news conference going on somewhere.

Can it be related with this (August 2 last year)?

The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce "Potential For Life" on Mars

[Portland]

Maybe if you survive long enough as a species you get your energy straight from the sun

[ElfQrin]

Apparently scientists have discovered Methane on Mars and reckon it might be generated by teensy weensy sub-surface bugs.

There's supposedly a news conference going on somewhere.

Can it be related with this (August 2 last year)?

The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce "Potential For Life" on Mars

Uhmmm... old news, actually:

Methane on Mars could signal life (29 March 2004)
NASA Scientist: 'Mars Could be Biologically Alive' (19 April 2005)

[Kronos]

That's an interesting thing to remember, what if a race of beings discovered a way to manipulate gravitons BEFORE they even invented a 'computer' of any kind?

Imagine if you got into a UFO and flying it was like flying a Spitfire or something ie with no automatic controls or digital readouts of any kind

[F-ZeroOne]

Then you'd be buggered in tight turns. The Spitfire had a "twist" in the wing, which caused a slight shudder when approaching the stall. Not many saucers with wings...

[axel000]

Pix of the prototype pressurized lunar rover as shown during the Obama inauguration parade.


Suits are stored on the rear of the vehicle but entered and exited from within.

















Systems monitor / readout on retractable arm very sci-fi


Some nifty video of the appearance in the parade and testing in Arizona.

[Stone]

Systems monitor / readout on retractable arm very sci-fi

Noooos it's running XP

I wouldn't much relish the idea of spending 14 days in it with another person though. Even in microgravity

Stone

[Axeman]

I love the prospect of seeing people land on Mars in the near future just like anyone else, but I have always wondered about these 'colonisation' efforts.

I mean you only have to look at the surface of Mars or the Moon to see they get the shit kicked out of them by asteroids and the like, so it makes you wonder if they could ever make a colony there without running the huge risk of it catching a large rock on the head due to the lack of a useful atmospheric buffer.

Are they going to build underground?? Seems like a good option to me, but I have never been to mars so it couldn't say. And what about the Moon, is it totally useless to us as a platform of some kind or is it actually made of cheese?

[PVB]

I love the prospect of seeing people land on Mars in the near future just like anyone else, but I have always wondered about these 'colonisation' efforts.

I mean you only have to look at the surface of Mars or the Moon to see they get the shit kicked out of them by asteroids and the like, so it makes you wonder if they could ever make a colony there without running the huge risk of it catching a large rock on the head due to the lack of a useful atmospheric buffer.

Are they going to build underground?? Seems like a good option to me, but I have never been to mars so it couldn't say. And what about the Moon, is it totally useless to us as a platform of some kind or is it actually made of cheese?

The Moon is very old and most of the craters on it are also very old.

Some research for you:

http://www.astronomynow.com/081014Re-wr ... eMoon.html

But we only have ages for a dozen or so lunar regions, which cover 4.3 billion years of lunar history.
Therefore we do not have accurate time sampling of the history of the Moon. For instance, there is no data points from one billion years to three billion years ago.

http://www.answersincreation.org/moon_recent_impact.htm

CONCLUSIONS

Although most scientists expect large impacts on the Moon to be rare (perhaps 1:1000 chance every 1000 years), the probabilities may be underestimated. Furthermore, rare events do occur every day. For example, the chances of anyone in the United States being hit by space debris, struck by lightning or winning the lottery is highly improbable. However, these events happen.

It's possible that the Giordano Bruno crater is only 800 years old. On the other hand, it may be many millions of years old.

Just bear in mind that the Earth and the Moon are local to each other, so would get the same sort of amount of debris hits.

Granted our atmosphere burns up most of the meteors, but any major impact on the Moon would have been seen/reported by now.

None of the Apollo landings reported seeing metor hits (AFAIK).

Any lunar explorer's got more chance of winning the lottery than being hit by a meteor.

[F-ZeroOne]

I'm presuming the suits are connected by an umbilical system and not some sort of backpack life support?