-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Space: The Final Frontier
- Thread starter Windu
- Start date
space is actually really full of stuff. it's not empty at all. only from our limited perception does it appear that way.Tideas said:
as for being the only life in the universe? yeah, it's possible. but simple mathematics and probability makes it unlikely.
even if there is other life out there, there's no guarantee that it's more advanced than us and will come looking to make contact with us. we might be the most advanced civilisation in the universe... we can't know for sure either way.
so the onus is on us to get out there and explore. we may find primitive cavemen, an advanced alien civilisation or nothing. we won't know till we try.
and even if we find no life out there, we will make other amazing discoveries.
that's funny. it's actually easier to prove you wrong than to prove the contrary wrong. if we find life (or it finds us) we can just say, "there it is. intelligent life other than our own. you're proven wrong. end of story."Tideas said:
but it's impossible to prove absolutely conclusively that there's no life out there. there is just so much space to explore that we could simply say, "well, we haven't looked over there yet."
gamergirly
Member
besada said:
Never really thought about it that way. That while you're lolly dalling down here on Earth everyday, an immediate danger circles you every 90 minutes. Also, what was the real purpose of the ISS? Wasn't it supposed to be used for a stopping point for extra-terrestial explorations?
Mystagogue
Member
Tideas said:
It has been said before, but "the abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence."
Yup, there is quite a lot out there.. But honestly, when talking about a subject as large as life elsewhere in the universe, or galaxy, it's almost impossible for us to say what is probable or impossible, because we know so very little about everything else. When you're discussing an issue waaay beyond yourself or knowledge, it's not as simple to rule out certain things. It's like being primitive and knowing you can't live under water, but then discovering that the water is filled with life.. our knowledge is premature to make assumptions on what can and cannot happen in the beyond. For all we know the universe could be teeming with life right under our noses..Scrow said:
Scrow really covered a lot of this nicely, but I just wanted to add a few points. Before anyone can try to prove you wrong, you should define what you mean by "space". Are you talking about the entire universe? Or does this just have to do with extraterrestrial life?Tideas said:
Also, proving science wrong is exactly what a lot of scientists do for a living (part of the reason why you see money being spent on tests that show "obvious" stuff). The very moment that some basic form of contact is made with an alien signal, I guarantee that the first thing that happens is a bunch of independent sources will set out to disprove that claim. Besides, at this point, science doesn't say: "There is life out there." ... there's no proof of it. That doesn't mean we should stop looking though, because what science does say is that there is the possibility of it (and the level of that possibility has been challenged in both directions over the years).
And very little of this has to do with bias towards a certain view. It has to do with making sure that we're correct (or correct as we can be given the data we have to work with).
Send your name to Mars on the new rover. I don't know how often they do this, but I know they've done this at least one before because I signed up for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter one. Anyway:
http://mars9.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/index.cfm
http://mars9.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/participate/sendyourname/index.cfm
www.nasa.gov said:
Crazymoogle
Member
gamergirly said:
The ISS has always been a science station first and an orbital rendevous point second, basically. It has a lot of communications equipment but it's not really useful for past-orbit missions as it doesn't carry a remarkable amount of fuel or supplies that could be used for something like a Moon mission.
A real orbital dock/resupply station - no matter how much we could use one - would be tremendously more expensive, to the point where it really isn't very feasible until we have a cheap and reliable way to get into orbit.
Tideas said:
Tideas said:
As of right now it is impossible for anyone to prove you wrong. It is also impossible for you to prove yourself correct. Without any direct evidence to support either side of this topic I think it becomes ignorant to assert absolute truths without any evidence. A lack of evidence is not evidence itself. We can however, find one of these view points to be more probable than the other, and thus be more likely to believe that it might be true.
In our galaxy alone there are an estimated 400 billion suns. We are now finding that solar systems (like our own) surrounding suns of our type and size are the norm, not the exception. There are likely over a billion solar systems in our galaxy. To date we have found over 300 planets outside of our solar system. The majority of all of these planets were found within a 300 light year radius of our sun (a very small fraction of the galaxy). The galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter. All of these planets were giant gas Jovian planets, most many times the size of Jupiter. We haven't discovered any terrestrial planets yet, but this isn't because they aren't there it's because they are too hard to detect. They are much to small. The reason why we've discovered so many "Jupiters" is because of their massive sizes. However I suspect we will start uncovering a ton of smaller rocky planets when the Terrestrial Planet Finder satellite is launched.
On a Universal scale, there are billions among billions of galaxies, some like ours, and some different in the observable Universe that we can see. The closest galaxy to ours, Andromeda, is a massive monster housing an estimated trillion suns. A recent discovery of a Jovian world in Andromeda confirms the existence of solar systems in another galaxy (not that we needed that confirmation) and who knows how many hundreds of billions of solar systems within the entire galaxy itself. As far as we can tell the Universe is filled and stuffed with uncountable amounts of worlds and solar systems. The elements that made ours, and our planets along with Earth and life are abundant everywhere. Supernovae release almost every periodic element known to man across space, and worlds are formed, just like ours. Everywhere. Whether these worlds have developed life is only a question that can be left to speculation, it can not be answered, yet. It seems much more likely to me that the Universe is filled with life.
On to the question of why we haven't seen it. Consider the spaces. If it took the Universe 13.7 billion years to develop..us, then why shouldn't it take other life forms a similar amount of time to come around? We are still in such an early age technologically. We can not yet even man a craft outside of our solar system, let alone reach the outer planets. Send satellites sure, but not a ship. Assuming there is a planet with life.. say on the other side of the galaxy, it would take 100,000 years traveling at light speed (assuming we could even gather the technology) to reach them. Nothing can travel faster than light, this is a Universal rule. No alien craft could travel to us faster than light either. How long would it take us to develop a craft that could meet light speed? The current theoretical devices propose that they would need to be ring like shaped propulsion systems with a diameter larger than our solar system, and with more energy produced than the sun. I'm guessing this technology is a long, long way off (There is of course the idea of traveling through worm holes and the like but these are even more theoretical and the natural existence of something like a worm hole is even debated yet).
As far as communication goes we have only been producing radio waves for about 70~80 years or so, and those signals have only traveled about 80 light years away from Earth. If there is an inhabited planet say only 40,000 light years away it would take us about 80,000 years to hear a message back from them. Considering again, distances... When you widen your scope you increase your chances. The more galaxies you consider the more probable it is to find life. If say the only other worlds that held intelligent life were on the other side of the observable universe they would be some 13 billion light years away. If they could see us, they wouldn't even see our solar system or our sun (it wouldn't be formed yet to them). Further more, with the expansion of the Universe we are now looking at 93 billion light years across, a much longer life span than any star. And this is only a fraction of what we can see that's out there. If they were in the closest galaxy Andromeda, they wouldn't see any intelligent life on Earth at all. It would be viewed as being 2.5 million years younger than it is now, so why bother making contact or spending the time to reach it when there are most likely other worlds closer. We are a speck of dust in the Cosmos (how could anything bother finding us, especially with our Oort cloud surrounding our solar system, being able to detect our Earth from outside seems negligible). There is also the possibility that out of our entire local group we are the only life forms advanced as we are. It may be us, in the future, making contact with them.
In writing this I am not trying to convince you of my view point, I am only trying to get you to let go of your "This is the only planet in the Universe with life. Period." stance by informing you that the probability of other life forms far outweighs the probability of there not being any. Unless you are of course some kind of geocentrist, or you are making your assertion based off of some kind of religious beliefs (then I doubt I will convince you of anything). And lastly I will leave you with the Drake Equation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
If it is too difficult to understand then view this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlikCebQSlY
Memphis Reigns
Member
God I love this fucking thread. It's fascinating, hopeful, and depressing all at the same time. I think about the universe a lot as well as our existence, where we came from, and if there are others. The one thing that I just keep coming back to is that whoever, or wherever we came from, it obviously doesn't want us to find one another. There is a quote in the movie Contact at the end when she travels to Vega. She asks if there are others, and they say there are MANY others, and that the only thing that makes the emptiness of space bearable, is each other. The line gives me chills. But I wish that were true and if there is a cosmic encyclopedia, it sucks that we are not part of it.
Anyone watching this live feed?
Forsete
Member
SVT aired the BBC "docudrama" Space Race which I found very interesting. I knew of von Braun but basically nothing of Sergei Korolev which was the one guy holding the whole soviet space program together.
Imagine if they would have gotten the same funding NASA got. I wonder how much further the race would have been pushed? Moon base (which is was von Braun wanted)?
Sad to see some of the soviet guys having basically no regard for human lives, having the workers work with toxic fuel with little protection. :/
Imagine if they would have gotten the same funding NASA got. I wonder how much further the race would have been pushed? Moon base (which is was von Braun wanted)?
Sad to see some of the soviet guys having basically no regard for human lives, having the workers work with toxic fuel with little protection. :/
Thaedolus
Member
Guled said:
I believe it has to do with the rate of expansion and basically reversing that...but I could be way wrong.
As for the second question, I don't think that it's impossible for the universe to be bigger, since space and time are expanding together...but again, I could be wrong.
thelegend69697
Member
Wondering if anyone is going to Easter Island next summer to see the total eclipse?
http://www.travelquesttours.com/EasterIsland2010/Easter_Island_Total_Solar_Eclipse_2010_home.htm
http://www.travelquesttours.com/EasterIsland2010/Easter_Island_Total_Solar_Eclipse_2010_home.htm
Halycon said:
Yeah there was this discussion a page or two back. The galaxies themselves are not moving at, or close to light speed, but the expansion between, say two galaxies moving away from each other at speeds greater than half of the speed of light would cause an expansion between the two to grow faster than light can travel. That is how it works if I am understanding it correctly. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Sentry said:
I dunno. I haven't heard that. Scientists today still reference the theory of special relativity and is taken by fact as most. Unless something happened recently that I'm unaware of, I think it's still accepted that light is constant for all observers. I'm not sure that we've moved anything nearly fast enough to confirm it in absolute though.
DarkJediKnight
Member
Today was a historic day. We should be reminded of how much BALLS we now lack compared to 40 years ago.
Ugh. "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?", a program that aired in 2001 on Fox, was played again on one of our channels. Complete and utter tripe. They indulged every outlandish piece of speculation shoved their way, and they tried to make it look like they were being impartial and fair. Yea, that's why for every 4 quotations from the conspiracy theorists, you got a single one from NASA or someone else. And then they put on some assclown who believes that the Apollo 1 fire was caused by NASA assassinating some of their astronauts.
I swear, these moaning dunderheads won't shut up until they bum a ride to the fucking moon itself.
I swear, these moaning dunderheads won't shut up until they bum a ride to the fucking moon itself.
abstract alien
Member
Maybe if they got the hell out of the cornfield, they could have the chance to do so.Botolf said:
Man, everytime I read a story like this about Jupiter I have to admit that my first thought is "Monolith?"
Oh, I dont know if any of you guys read the BBC news website but they have have a string a news stories about the Apollo program lately (Anniversary 'an all) Here's a few of them:
What the Moon landings did for us
On Eagle's Wings - The hardware which Nasa hopes will once again carry man to the surface of the Moon.
How to land on the Moon - Space scientist Laura Major from the Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shows how the Alhat (Autonomous precision Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology) landing system could get astronauts back to the Moon.
Super Booster - Why did Nasa walk away from the powerful, reliable rocket that carried men to the Moon?
It also seems like some government types are considering a UK space agency (Please YES!)
Yahoo News said:
That's a massive telescope. It would be the largest telescope until they build the European Extremely Large Telescope, such an original name. I would kill to get a chance to look through one of those, *sigh* unfortunately us civilians can't unless we're an astronomer/scientist.
This story is incredibly fascinating. Basically, manned sea exploration has closely paralleled manned space exploration.
Nexus Zero
Member
Waste of time. All our money should be going into ESA who'd be able to do much cooler shit than anything we could do alone.
No no no no no!Orgun said:
We do NOT need a UK space agency - we need better funding for ESA. Seriously, what possible benefit would there be in running a national agency which would do nothing but duplicate existing services at the European level? With ESA there is no reason for any national European space agencies to exist.
DarkJediKnight
Member
Nexus Zero said:
They need to merge ESA and NASA. That way we can have a global, United Space Agency. They can call it USA... oh wait.
mcmonkeyplc
Neo Member
Sir Fragula said:
A UK space agency wouldn't take away funding from the ESA, it would mean all funding is directed from one UK agency, not several as it is at present. It also helps to define broad aims of the UK space industry.
The French have there own as well, they are part of the ESA. I think you misunderstand what they mean by a single space agency for the UK, they dont mean independance from ESA.
The Librarian
Banned
Starfleet.Sentry said:
mcmonkeyplc
Neo Member
Makes sense, with space exploration costing so much, however we are at the stage of having rival blocs at the moment.
I vote we call it the United Nations Space Core...UNSC.
I vote we call it the United Nations Space Core...UNSC.
Dax01 said:
Earthfleet.
We only get to be Starfleet once we hook up with some other civilisations and band together. Knowing humanity that would probably take a very, very long time (I mean, even once we found others)...though maybe overcoming 'planet-ism' won't be such a great leap once we overcome nationalism.
mcmonkeyplc
Neo Member
Dax01 said:
Oh and this after we have a fleet
Yeah, and that makes me sad. Space exploration should be our primary goal. There's so much to learn and explore, but too much time is spent on arguing about trivial bullshit.Sentry said:Starfleet :lol How about we try walking over to our neighbors house first.
If things continue to go at the rate they're currently going, we won't be doing much regarding space this century.. :|
Sentry said:
I think some scientists have said that the speed of light used to be faster. The theory of special relativity says that the speed of light is the theoretical max speed, but never gives an actual value. The speed of light is determined experimentally. So these scientists are saying that the speed of light might change (over millions of years), but no one knows why it changed. In other words, under normal circumstances, the speed of light is constant.
This x ∞Griffith said:
It's pretty sad, because we have the capability to do all of these things, the desire, the knowledge etc yet most of the world is still detatched from everything else out there, imagine if every human being had the ability to physically go up in space and see earth from the vantage point, how much it would alter peoples perspective on everything.
Ugh, so bloody depressing.
If only it were possible. If you show people the pale blue dot or the Hubble photo of the galaxies most people won't recognize the significance because they have no point of reference, it's just a picture to them. But if they could see the Earth from space as you say, they would be able to start to appreciate the size and scale of the universe which is the most mind blowing thing that anyone will ever experience, even with the little that we currently know about it.Sentry said:
Fantastic post. Agree 100%.Extollere said:
Lucky Forward
Member
The moon landing anniversary thread is kind of dead, so I'll post this here:
A Map of the First Moonwalk, Showing Scale
Large version here
A Map of the First Moonwalk, Showing Scale
Large version here