SETI and the Big question

"But we are getting heavily into the next step, the reformation of what it means to be human, away from the physical aspect of differences in humans toward a more non-physical approach "= virtual reality

we put a lot of stock in believing "they" give a crap about us and our future. we better HOPE somebody out there feels some sort of responsibility or empathy for us. My feelings are that we are considered the redheaded step-child of the galaxy and are kept at arm's length because we scare "them".


a reply to: Aliensun

a reply to: SLAYER69
Even if Warp drive is impossible, they likely have ended or nearly ended aging, perfected their bodies and minds to be machine like. That's if they did not decide to go full machine (some probably have).

If you can live forever then speed is not needed to traverse the Universe, only some amount of energy is required.

Even with the most advanced aliens, the vastness of the Universe could limit or prevent our meeting them, ever.

originally posted by: bottleslingguy

"But we are getting heavily into the next step, the reformation of what it means to be human, away from the physical aspect of differences in humans toward a more non-physical approach "= virtual reality

we put a lot of stock in believing "they" give a crap about us and our future. we better HOPE somebody out there feels some sort of responsibility or empathy for us. My feelings are that we are considered the redheaded step-child of the galaxy and are kept at arm's length because we scare "them".


a reply to: Aliensun

There is no reason to believe we are the most evil or vile species in the Universe. In fact we may be the most docile. Stop self hatred, it is not good for humanity.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Not sure what you are getting at ...
Which part did you not understand or consider complicated

originally posted by: SLAYER69
a reply to: Blue Shift

I feel it's very possible given our current level of accelerated technical development. We are making huge strides and the pace does not seem to be slowing anytime soon.

I seriously think we are about to make several tremendous breakthroughs relatively soon.

I know, I'm being optimistic.

Or maybe more accurately, the public will soon become aware of several tremendous breakthroughs relatively soon.

Seriously...and I'm not talking about alien tech.

originally posted by: carewemust
I find it humorous that scientists and people in general feel that life has to live on some type of a body. Life can just float and swim through space the same way fish swim the ocean.

All available evidence I've seen does not support what you say. Life might survive dormant for a while in an asteroid or comet, but not long enough to survive interstellar voyages. Organics on the other hand do survive and can seed other systems with those valuable materials. And while life can't survive a journey to another star, it may be possible for it to survive interplanetary. It depends how long it's in space. Too long its dna will degenerate--I think from the cosmic radiation.

I think the best evidence for life elsewhere are these:
1) The life detection experiment on Viking
2) The martian meteorites which suggest possible extinct microorganisms

On that basis, it's possible Mars seeded Earth or Earth seeded Mars. Another intriguing bit if information is Mars may have supported life earlier than Earth. This MIGHT mean it's more likely Mars seed Earth.

Some references:
gillevin.com/mars.htm - Dr Gilbert V Levin - Research on Mars...
www.dailymail.co.uk - Life DID begin on Mars - then we all travelled to Earth on a meteorite: Element crucial to the origin of life 'would only have been available on the red planet'...
science.nbcnews.co m/_news - NASA scientist David McKay, famous for Martian 'nanofossils,' dies at 77...
www.nbcnews.com - Tiny Blobs and Tunnels in Meteorite Revive Debate Over Life on Mars...
phys.org - Life from Mars could have 'polluted' Earth: Krauss...
www.washingtonpost.com - NASA team cites new evidence that meteorites from Mars contain ancient fossils...
news.nationalgeographic.com - Life on Mars Found by NASA's Viking Mission?...
news.bbc.co.uk - Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab...
news.softpedia.com - Comets Can Create and Carry the Building Blocks of Life, Researchers Found...

There's so much out there I won't try to list more. I might get my post deleted by mods. This many links might already be a breach of the rules. Suffice to say NASA currently thinks conditions on Mars are hostile to life and have been for maybe a billion years or more. However, there's a lot of evidence piling up pointing to extinct life. The dismissal of potentia llife in Venus's atmosphere and the overall reduction in quality of cleaning procedures since Viking, makes me wonder what the agenda is. Perhaps I'm wrong about the decline in procedures, but I'm fairly sure they don't care as much about the probes they're sending to Venus. I think the possibility of cross-contamination is there. It's really not too mcuh different from when we came to the US mainland and unknowingly spread illness to the native americans. Strangely enough, we knowingly spread it in a few cases--after we'd "wisened" up.

Example:
phys.org - Search for Mars life stymied by contamination threat...

Adding insult to injury, the first spacecraft NASA landed on Mars some 40 years ago, dubbed Viking, met the highest cleanliness requirement, even if it never had the same golden opportunity to detect life.

"The missions we have sent since Viking have not been cleaned to the same level—Viking was essentially sterile," said Catharine Conley, who heads NASA's office of planetary protection, set up to prevent cross-contamination between Earth and the Solar System's other heavenly bodies.

Another:
www.astrobio.net - Keeping It Clean ...

AM: Were the Spirit and Opportunity rovers sterilized the way the Viking landers were?

CC: No. The rovers were cleaned to the standard of 300 spores per square meter. We did not expect them to go to special regions so they were not baked. The idea of special regions was still in flux at that point, but because the rovers were intended to go places where we were fairly confident that life would not survive on the surface, we didn’t require them to be sterile.

So OMG you read that? NASA thinks it's possible ther're areas on Mars with life and if a lander doesn't go there it's not cleaned as much. This means if they want to go to an area to try to detect lfie they have to clean the lander more. In Curiosity's case, htey never intended to find life.

As far as I know, none of the planned missions in the comings years are going to the "special regions". A mission in 2018 and another in 2020 will try to "find life", but they won't be going to the special regions. AS far as I know, the special regions are places where there's water ice within a meter of the surface. The recent evidence of liquid streaks would probably be classified special, so none of these landers will be able to check them.

However, the Viking landers MAY have found life (refer to the links above). The sites where htey landed were very dry. Despite this, there was frost often seen on the surfce. Gilbert Levin arges there was just enough water. The fact these sites are not specially designated bodes ill to the entire protection policy, since non-special sites mean landers are not cleaned as much. If landers were sent to those sites again, they probably wouldn't be cleaned as thoroughly as the Viking landers, unless NASA designates them special.

a reply to: neformore

"Were dinosaurs warm blooded?"

Link:

www.dinosaurs.about.com...

"Dinosauroids revisited, revisited"

Link:

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

originally posted by: artistpoet
Not sure what you are getting at ...
Which part did you not understand or consider complicated

Why so many rules?

Gilbert Levin--now 92--explains his experiment he helped make for Viking:

I encourage to watch it if you don't know about him. He's 92 and he won't be around much longer. He did this video recently. Imagine yourself being about 90 and doing this. Most scientists and the whole of NASA believes in the chemical explanation and thus believes no life was detected. The resentment towards him is deep. He's explained as a defunct yahoo. I think even ATS's James Oberg described him that way. They might be right. Science has to hold a high standard. And yet, not being a scientist myself, Gilbert Levin grips my attention.

Here's another:


It's a different story for the Mars meteorites found on Earth. There's greater support for the idea of evidence of extinct microorganisms activity (or presence) in them. One of the big names behind all that was David McKay, now deceased. I provided links in my prior post about him and some of the research tied to this topic. James Oberg himself linked an article about the tunnels, linked (again) below:
www.nbcnews.com - Tiny Blobs and Tunnels in Meteorite Revive Debate Over Life on Mars...

a reply to: SLAYER69

At least a small percentage of eyewitness UFO reports [including my own] is proof enough for me, that life exists outside our solar system. One possible reason why the U.S. government won't release proof of past alien star ships visiting our planet, is because NASA's quest for the search for alien life would be a moot point if full UFO disclosure were revealed.


I'm speculating...that on typical earth type planets in our universe, the dinosaurs would have evolved first before the mammals --- And barring any earth-shattering cataclysmic events...some warm-blooded meat eating dinosaur species would have evolved into highly intelligent dinosauroid species, with three fingered hands and three toed feet.

And on a time scale comparable to our own Earth...the dinosauroids might be millions of years advanced ahead of typical earth type planets, where mammalian humanoid races dominate the lifeforms.

a reply to: Blue Shift

To what do refer as rules ... ?

Want to make another post regarding Gilbert Levin's claims. This will be my last one. I wanted to figure out exactly what the establishment thinks and why're they're so sure. I don't want to leave the wrong impression--my previous posts.

One imoprtant clue is further injections of nutrients into the same sample did not produce labeled gases--the markers of metabolized nutrients. Biology should have produced labeled gases after repeated injections, as they do in experiments on Earth. It's believed oxidizers or superoxide chemistry can reproduce the results of LRE. Because chemicals are consumed to produce hte results, further injections would be negative. They also conveniently are depleted if heated, explaining the negative result for the control. Perchlorate is also thought to reproduce the LRE results (below).

online.liebertpub.com - Perchlorate Radiolysis on Mars and the Origin of Martian Soil Reactivity...

And of course the negative results of GEX and GCMS support the chemistry explanation. I'd love to read Mars: The LIving Planet right now, to see what Levin and DiGregorio thought ~1997 regarding this.

EDIT: Looks like Levin attempted to answer the 2nd injection problem below. Unsure of what it all means, but I'll put it here since it's relevant:

a reply to: SLAYER69



A few dinosauroid videos...



www.youtube.com...


www.youtube.com...


www.youtube.com...

I dunno, some people see the glass half empty, others see it half full. And then there are those who don't characterize it at all, and just see the glass with water in it.

Perhaps I'm a bit eclectic when it comes to the matter of alien life. Some points to ponder:

A) If it took as long as it did since the big bang to get where we are now in this part of the universe, would it be unreasonable to at least consider the possibility that it could take just as long or longer for another civilization to achieve the same?

B) Given the extremely violent nature of the universe, would it not be possible that entire worlds have come and gone many times over, and never actually had an extended enough period of millions of years of geologic tranquility such that technology could exceed that of our own? If our own planet's history is any indication, then perhaps technological advances can only get so far before mega cataclysm strikes- EVERYWHERE in the universe. Perhaps I am proposing that there is a universal, geologic limit to technological advances from any species. Something very major may always happen, wipe out all life, and reset the counter, so to speak.

C) It may also be possible that even given the tremendous numbers of galaxies you list, that the miracle of all elements coming together to support life, as on Earth, is so absolutely rare in the universe- that the next closest instance of this could be billions of light years away in another galaxy. And thus virtually impossible for us to make contact with anyone, or anything, else.

D) Given the structure of life here, with a top of the food chain, and a bottom of the food chain, as well as man's inherent desire to conquer the weak, I personally believe that it is very likely aliens would not be at all coming in peace- if they ever did come. Part of exploration is the need to gain. Gain something. ANYTHING. "Oh, what's this? A planet full of water and minerals and little primitive creatures that think they can blow us up with nukes? Ha. Watch this..."

E) Face it. There is a very real possibility we are it, and we are on the bleeding edge of space travel. It may well be us that discovers other life from our own space ships sometime in the next 100,000 years. And when we do, what do you think we will do? Why plunder, pillage, conquer and kill- like we always do- of course. But alas, we will most likely be wiped out by a supernova or monster asteroid way before that happens. It's a race against the galactic reset button.

Besides SETI "monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations from other worlds"...perhaps SETI should drop back an punt with a different tactic ---- For example...have SETI send broadband radio & visual transmissions into outer space, with imagery of possible printed diagrams of Foo Fighters or flying saucers, and images of extraterrestrial humanoid life along with documented evidence of eyewitness UFO sightings --- In other words --- Tell anybody out there who's listening: That SETI admits the fact about sentient extraterrestrial life and there wonderful flying machines visiting our planet, which might spur these otherworlders into making attempts to contact us with peaceful intent.

Just my .02

it's not self hatred because I don't feel one bit of responsibility for it. if it was up to me things would be completely different here on Earth.


a reply to: Xeven

From known evidence, in all this time, even earth has created only one intelligent life form.

a reply to: Xeven

Define intelligent.

Does the definition include a seeming bent toward destruction in favor of self aggrandizement?