Extraterrestrial Life and UFO sightings; constructively critical deliberation.

[Typhon]

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@Zzz:  At this point in time I believe the only way would be to have a population of humans live permanently aboard a space station similar to the one we have orbiting the Earth right now.  But it would have to be the size of a small city with enough room to provide all the things you listed.  Put together over time, piece by piece, while it temporarily orbits the Earth.

Or, the animated state idea.  Put the ship on automatic pilot, go to sleep for 2000 years, wake up and you are there.  Remember the beginning of Planet Of The Apes? 

[Zzzptm]

Another take on why we don't see aliens amongst us: they already learned that this is something that doesn't end well.

We've got a number of fictional works that involve an alien visitor who slips up in his disguise and then gets handed over to the local vivisectionist team or something equally horrible. All it takes is one visit that goes horribly, horribly wrong for a civilization to decide, "Right. Never again. All that expense and effort, just to be killed by the hostile locals? No thank you."

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FTL travel: this would have to involve finding ways in which space is connected via shortcuts that traverse higher spatial dimensions. The shortcuts themselves would need to be large enough and safe enough for a spacecraft entering them to not suffer a sudden, tragic discontinuity between the part in the shortcut and the part not in the shortcut. Travel to such shortcuts is another consideration. Assuming we could get to .9c or .99c to reduce personal time spent in a space journey, we're still dealing with massive time dilation effects relative to live on earth or elsewhere. We age months, back on earth they go through centuries.

So to have that FTL travel without time dilation issues, the shortcut would have to itself exist on a planetary surface or very close to it and not itself be impacted by the planetary or stellar gravity well. If the shortcuts are able to be created locally, then the question becomes one of determining where the exit point is. This involves mathematics that are anything but trivial.

Even moving from where I sit to a location 3 feet to my left may, of necessity, require calculation of where that location *will be* in the instant I make my move, as moving to where it is right now might result in an unwanted placement of my body relative to the location three feet to the left. Too high and I fall, too low and my feet merge with the floor. Too far forward, I'm part of the dresser, too far back, I'm part of the bed. Now move me to a planet around a nearby star... that planet doesn't even share my frame of reference, so there are massive calculations needed to get the placement accurate enough to be safe.

And then what of this other planet? How do I find another planet that's a goldilocks "just right" match for a life form like me? And am I sure that any trace things that I need in this environment are also present in that one? I don't want to discover a day, week, or month into my interstellar visit that I need a supplement I didn't think to pack. ("Selenium? Who knew I needed that much selenium in my daily diet?")

Maybe I want to make sure that wherever I go, there are NO locals, because I don't want to get into arguments about property rights and why I need to come up with 6000 kwibblars to cover the cost of the oxygen that I converted to CO2.

[Zzzptm]

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@Zzz:  At this point in time I believe the only way would be to have a population of humans live permanently aboard a space station similar to the one we have orbiting the Earth right now.  But it would have to be the size of a small city with enough room to provide all the things you listed.  Put together over time, piece by piece, while it temporarily orbits the Earth.

Or, the animated state idea.  Put the ship on automatic pilot, go to sleep for 2000 years, wake up and you are there.  Remember the beginning of Planet Of The Apes? 

Yeah, that was cool. And also an argument to not venture too far from home...

We haven't even started into the discussion of the problems of zero gravity and microgravity on human health and development. We could get that space city spinning around a central axis, that's always been a workaround. But how would we be sure that the spinning city doesn't get taken out by collisions with particles or small bodies as it moves at .9c?

[Vyn]

We just need to develop the technological and production capability to create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld. A good read, if you haven't read it.

Regarding ET, meh. My mother claims that she and my aunt saw a UFO once. And it's true, they can't identify what they saw and it was flying. I subscribe to the philosophy that we won't know if there is technologically advanced, intelligent life elsewhere in the universe until we meet it. And since proving a negative is fraught with peril, all of the mental noodling regarding such life is simply that: noodling.

That isn't meant to be disrespectful. I recognize that there are many people, who are a lot smarter than I am, really trying to work ET out. But that can't ever be anything more than an entertaining pastime until we either meet aliens or have searched every corner of the universe and determined there isn't anything else out there.

Similar to all of the discussion throughout the ages about what happens after we die. There are many thoughts, some feel they know, but one person's truth may be another person's joke. I suspect we will all know the answer to that question long before the question of ET is answered...

In the meantime: 

[Typhon]

Despite Vyn putting a bleak outlook on the subject, I will say this: 

100 years ago traveling and landing on the moon seemed impossible.  Today it's like, been there, done that.  Mars will be conquered next.  Perhaps even a human colony.  Beyond that, who can say?  But I am sure it will require 2 things.  A lot of time and an awful lot of money.

[Charger]

To Vyn:

Yeah this might just be noodling but man it's very entertaining noodling!


To ZZZ:
FTL travel is essential for space exploration there is no doubt about that. How that is achieved is pretty much anyone's guess as human knowlage isn't quite there yet. Our science (at it's current point) doesn't even seem to know if it's possible.

I'm thinking the most logical and effective way to travel long distances would be through worm holes. But then again who knows...maybe sci-fi has been onto something with the whole hyperdrive thing....the thing is our science isn't there yet.

Despite Vyn putting a bleak outlook on the subject, I will say this: 

100 years ago traveling and landing on the moon seemed impossible.  Today it's like, been there, done that.  Mars will be conquered next.  Perhaps even a human colony.  Beyond that, who can say?  But I am sure it will require 2 things.  A lot of time and an awful lot of money.

Yes that's the thing. Science goes forward pretty fast at times. Who knows what we have in the next 100 years. Ion drive engines for sure so the trip to Mars would just be a short few day flight. There will also be a permanent colonies on Mars and on the Moon...and mining operations on asteroids and we have visited the moons of Saturn.

This ofcourse if money isn't spent on futile wars here on earth.

[Typhon]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel.  It probably is unachievable.

[Charger]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel.  It probably is unachievable.

Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible...

[Typhon]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel.  It probably is unachievable.

Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible...

Let me fix that statement for you:


Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible.

[Vyn]

Another way to look at FTL travel is to consider that perhaps we're looking at the wrong thing. The numbers and theorems are what they are, but maybe we are missing something?

I'm not saying that real analysis points the way, but here is an example of what I mean:

Take an object that has a position. The first derivative with respect to time is velocity. Second derivative is acceleration. The third is jerk. The fourth is jounce.

Jounce is also known as snap, because the fifth and sixth derivatives of position with respect to time are known as crackle and pop.

It wasn't so long ago that we didn't know what jerk represented in the "real" world. It was just the result of a calculation, but we didn't have the perspective to apply it to anything. We didn't know what it meant.

Now we do. Jounce is kind of a known thing. Crackle and pop aren't.

That doesn't mean they are superfluous...perhaps something along those lines will unlock our space travelling potential.

[Typhon]

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Maybe you shouldn't comment during breakfast time. 

[Vyn]

Physicists have a milky sense of humor 

[Charger]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel.  It probably is unachievable.

Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible...

Let me fix that statement for you:


Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible.

Oh I see what you did there....It's a biiiiiig if....This cracked me up actually!


Vyn seems to have had too many bowls of Rice Krispies...


There's a brand new study about a potential way of seeing whether a planet can have life or not:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf

Basically it states that Earth once was more purple than green and that the color purple might indicate early forms of life on a planet. Very interesting.

[Typhon]

I wouldn't get my hopes up on FTL travel.  It probably is unachievable.

Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible...

Let me fix that statement for you:


Well the thing is IF we have already been visited by an alien race then it is not unachievable but very much possible.

Oh I see what you did there....It's a biiiiiig if....This cracked me up actually!

Only took you 4 days to get it. 

There's a brand new study about a potential way of seeing whether a planet can have life or not:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1810/1810.05150.pdf

Basically it states that Earth once was more purple than green and that the color purple might indicate early forms of life on a planet. Very interesting.

  Yes, that is interesting.

[Charger]

Only took you 4 days to get it. 

I did saw it earlier but wasn't able answer and then I completely forgot.