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[Aqizzar]

[Duke 2.0]

 Didn't he invent Global Warming as well?

 But onto the topic, I am hopeful that independent companies will develop space industry. NASA has too much middle and upper management to be effective at anything. We need new companies to launch untested rockets into the skies.

 Also, wasn't there some scientists years ago that released math formulas that theorized life is present somewhere, and we would discover it twenty years ago?

[Il Palazzo]

For private companies to invest in space, it has to be somehow profitable. Right now, the only way to make money from space is to launch satelites(and send rich bastards on space trips)

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Don't worry, once global warming actually becomes an inconvenience to people I'm sure space travel will become at least a little more profitable, nevermind that it'll most likely be too late by then.

[Captain Mayday]

I remember that episode of one of them weird shows (something Zone or something Limits or something) where aliens visit us and are totally disappointed about how we kill each other with our primitive weapons and so on and so forth, and the leaders promise to fix that if he gives us more time, and we disarm and get rid of all our weapons and then declare world peace and crap. Then the aliens come back and laugh because they were disappointed that we sucked so much at violence, and he expected us to IMPROVE our weapons to be able to join their Empire. So they end up enslaving Earth or something.

Quite funny, and I didn't see it coming the first time. That was ages ago.

The Outer Limits. I saw that episode. At the end it showed them commencing to exterminate humanity in order to try again for a more violent species.

[Frelock]

But onto the topic, I am hopeful that independent companies will develop space industry. NASA has too much middle and upper management to be effective at anything. We need new companies to launch untested rockets into the skies.

I disagree.  If private companies were to develop the space industry, it would all be based around profit.  Personally, I'd like to see space exploration as a furthering of science, and pushing humanity's boundaries to the limit.  There comes a time when companies stop caring about being new or innovative, and just do the same thing over and over, because it makes a profit (when was the last time we saw a true innovation in the way a stapler works?)  Companies won't care about science for science's sake.

That said NASA really doesn't do much on their own; they're really just a funding giant.  Universities and companies spend thousands of dollars to make proposals for NASA, in the hopes of getting millions/billion to go through with the project.  Sometimes NASA will call for companies to build something specific, in which case you have a bidding war.  But still, NASA doesn't really do the research or building.  They're a funding and regulation agency.  I prefer that to single corperations in control, as it leaves the rest of us (speaking for myself as an upcoming scientist at a university) with some power to see our experiments put to the test.


On another off-topic note, do you know how they plan to land the next Mars rover?  First, they have a platform that gets into the lower atmosphere via the usual methods.  But it doesn't land.  No, instead, it hovers via rockets, under its own guidance (due to 10-minute light-distance between Mars and Earth) and lowers the rover down on a cable, and then flies off, leaving the Mars Science Laboratory to do its work.  What could possibly go wrong?  I laughed when my professor told me about it, until I realized he was serious.  The MSL also comes with a laser which can vaporize rocks (or martians), to get a feel for their chemical composition.  Oh, and it's powered by a nuclear reactor, and is a couple million dollars over budget and a few months behind schedule.

[JoshuaFH]

On another off-topic note, do you know how they plan to land the next Mars rover?  First, they have a platform that gets into the lower atmosphere via the usual methods.  But it doesn't land.  No, instead, it hovers via rockets, under its own guidance (due to 10-minute light-distance between Mars and Earth) and lowers the rover down on a cable, and then flies off, leaving the Mars Science Laboratory to do its work.  What could possibly go wrong?

REALLY? I'd like to see that performed on Earth!

I seen a simulation or something on the Discovery channel, where the robot was placed inside something like a balloon cocoon, and was allowed to just fall and hit the ground, where the balloons would then deflate, and the robot could get out unharmed.

[Frelock]

Yea, that was used for past missions, but ever since Phoenix got down on retro-rockets, air-bags have been somewhat out of style...

[JoshuaFH]

Out of style? How come?

[Tormy]

I'm in the mode of thinking that: It's not IF we find intelligent life, it's WHEN!

Yeah, exactly. However there is a problem....and that is the huge distances between the star systems within our own galaxy. [Reaching other galaxies is probably impossible, at least it looks like to me right now..]

"There are relatively few stars within ten light years (95 trillion km) of the Sun. The closest is the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light years away. Alpha Centauri A and B are a closely tied pair of Sun-like stars, while the small red dwarf Alpha Centauri C (also known as Proxima Centauri) orbits the pair at a distance of 0.2 light years. The stars next closest to the Sun are the red dwarfs Barnard's Star (at 5.9 light years), Wolf 359 (7.8 light years) and Lalande 21185 (8.3 light years). The largest star within ten light years is Sirius, a bright main sequence star roughly twice the Sun's mass and orbited by a white dwarf called Sirius B. It lies 8.6 light years away. The remaining systems within ten light years are the binary red dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 light years) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 light years).[76] Our closest solitary sunlike star is Tau Ceti, which lies 11.9 light years away. It has roughly 80 percent the Sun's mass, but only 60 percent its luminosity.[77] The closest known extrasolar planet to the Sun lies around the star Epsilon Eridani, a star slightly dimmer and redder than the Sun, which lies 10.5 light years away. Its one confirmed planet, Epsilon Eridani b, is roughly 1.5 times Jupiter's mass and orbits its star every 6.9 years."

So, even the closest start system -the Alpha Centauri- is 4.4 light years away. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across.
So, even if the scientist could create a "lightspeed" engine + a proper spaceship, it would take 4.4 years to reach the closest star system even. I guess it's needless to say, that it looks like utopistic right now...

[Makrond]

I believe that Candlejack is better th

[Rilder]

I believe some calculations put there like 15-16 thousand Civilizations out there.

Main issue is that they most likely are COMPLETELY alien, were not talking star trek aliens, were talking about eyes coming out of there mouth mounted testicles, they probably wouldn't even have feet, maybe not even mouths or even eyes. (Edit: Testicles are earthlike things aren't they? Remove them then.)

Not to mention Cultural differences... Oh gods the Christians would be horrified.

Even if they were able to get to earth, they'd be REALLY STUPID to make first contact.

I'd be within a year after first contact, at our current situation, we'd blow ourselves up.

[PTTG??]

All things considered, though, things that have to move through dense fluids will likely be fishlike, with streamlines and fins; surface-movers probably will have legs, and wings are also possible; all of them have evolved independently multiple times.

As for intelligence, I know of many tool users other than humans, and Dolphins and some other primates have 'culture'- or sharing of knowledge over generations.

[Duke 2.0]

Oh gods the Christians would be horrified.

Your imagination is lacking if you think they will be the only people offended.

[Il Palazzo]

Interstellar travel is stupid. Inteligent life forms wouldn't do stupid things.