Right now I'm working on a paper for a class of mine where we are supposed to take the role of an aid to the president to either support or denounce (or whatever other options there may be) whether or not "we" should seek out life on other worlds. I was thinking about this, and I know Yarr has interest in spacey stuff (I think anyway) so I decided to bring up a topic about it here.

Should there be a serious search of extra-terrestrial life?

:|

let's think how would we be affected if we did find life..
-biology
-philosophy
-astronomy
-and if the life was intelligent and had knowledge to offer us, that would potentially expand our intelligence in any subject

my opinion is definitely "for" search for e.t. life, because i think gains we would make in the aforementioned categories are so worth the risk of losing the resources we would expend to perform the search. but don't take it from me, my major is astronomy, so i'll probably end up writing a paper like yours someday

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Well, first off, when searching for life, we'd most likely need a human(or humans) to go along with whatever we sent along with it. As of now, we know almost nothing of what would happen to a person under prolonged exposure to microgravity. Of the things we do know, calcium and bone marrow is gradually depleted due to the lack of pressure. Also, if someone was to fall fatally ill (cancer, injury, etc.) there would be so little we could do now to help that person or persons recover. Not only that, but the mission would fail.

I would endorse the search for e.t. life. For example, take a stance from the Informationalist perspective. Contacting other species and exchanging ideas/information is a net gain for both involved parties. Naturally of course that is assuming other species would be interested in such an exchange and not fullfill the paranoid pop culture stereotypes. But hey, nothing ventured nothing gained.

To counteract the effects of microgravity a ship could be outfitted with a taurus wheel aligned laterally along the fuselage rotating in classic wheel fashion. If mounted properly, lets say superconducting magnets acting as the couplings on the axel, then there would be minimal need for corrective action of the main craft.

there really is no need to have a manned mission to search for life. if we are searching in our own solar system, robots ( http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/robots.php ) can do the data collection and analysis just fine. most of the focus of SETI projects is extrasolar, out of our solar system, and those missions can't be manned now or anytime soon. for those we use electromagnetic radiation detection, mostly radio, searching for any abnormalities.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

To assume we find life, but it's nothing that would be of direct use to us (say a planet still in the premordial stages of life) would it be morally correct to interfere? Also, take into account what would happen to society here on earth if we found beings of higher conscience than we.

I love the idea of it. Personally I think they just need to work on better and more advanced telescopes.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

I personally don't believe in evolution, so I wouldn't have a problem if we found a livible planet uninhabited by sentient beings. I think we should colonize it, b/c at the rate we're going we'll have housing developments like on the 5th Element.

i think it depends on what our interference would cause.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Yes we should seek E.T life.

No we cannot do it yet.

Yes there are other beings out there.

No they are not vegetarians.

Yes they do eat vegetarians.

No they dont know the answer to your question.

Yes they are smarter than us. (well me anyhow)

Oh and they wear my cooler stuff than us, afterall they are green ^^

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Kasdaye Regnar

before we go searching for new life.... i think we need to find ways to take better care of the ones we know already exsist here. of course im curious as to what lies "out there", but the money that would go into such an endevor could probibly go to more useful things here. its sad when a govt wants to explore different planets... but those officials have to step over bums to go pass the spending bills.

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75WHM / 37SMN / 61BLM / 37RDM / 70BRD / 75NIN / 75RNG / 56THF / 37WAR / 37DRG http://www.myspace.com/dan_wyld

i agree it's sad to see a person suffer, but i do still think it's worth it to search. is there not a way to help the bum and still search for extraterrestrial life?

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

ok if we are going to do this again. I like /point out when the last time we did this and cover this up.

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PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!

I love this topic being a sci-fi nerd and all.

Yes efforts should be made and are being made. i think in maybe a few hundred years time, space travel will be vastly available, especially now with the success of spaceship one.

We really have no idea what new technologies will come along, we may find a way to break the speed of light - theortically immposible i know , but then 200 years ago so was the sound barrier. Warp speed can i have it.
There is also the possibility of the B5 idea setting up space gates to go into hyper-space or i think it's like folded space that lets you get to places much faster, kind of like wormholes.

The economic opportunities alone will propel space travel and exploration. Imagine getting mining rights to a moon sized asteroid. That one asteroid could be worth trillions.

Yarr they are making better telescopes. They are supposed to be deploying one to replace hubble soon and this one is going to be like 10 times more powerful. I for one wish i could just jump forward 500 years and see how the Human race is going.

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Yes we should. But not while Bush is in office oh god i can see the first meeting now.