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Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
I agree, but I also believe that there is no life outside of this planet that will ever be of any use or interest to us beyond scientific curiousity.
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The problem with that statement is that Xenobiology is an unknown sciece. Without ever studying anything, there is no way to ever say that is true or not.
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If there was any reachable life that could teach us anything useful, we'd have long since detected their communications signals. If such life was capable of reasonable interstellar travel, we'd have long since discovered both their communications signals and possibly the exhaust of their drives, provided they were engaged in the last 30 years or so.
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There are almost an infinite number of frequencies that could be broadcast on, and we have to directionally focus our receivers to listen for these signals. Now multiply that by the number of stars to listen to.... You get the idea why it's taking so long. And then you have to process each glump of data to figure out whats out there. (Coincedentally, if you want to help with that, you can join me help filter the data while your computer is not doing anything functional by joining
BOINC and installing the
SETI@Home project (There's an enigma decoding project too for you subnuts
), and they make for decent screensavers).
Your saying we should be able to see the exhaust from a single ship within 30 years travel, when we are having difficulty detecting asteroids the size of small towns that are a few days/weeks away?
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For all practical purposes, we are stuck here, and nobody will ever know we are here.
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Probably true, but nothing ventured nothing gained. Kennedy's to the moon speech is coming to mind.