Outside the Box: Lifeforms and Space Travel

I've been musing over a lot of sentiments I've heard from people I know, and from some folks here on ATS.

Let me first say that, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and if anything I say here upsets anyone in any way, I offer a preemptive appology. I'm not a scientist of any sort, so my opinions are completely subjective and I look forward to hearing what other may have to say.

And so, onward:

I have noticed that it seems hard for a lot of people to conceive of space travel as anything more than rockets and fuel. Just because the only publicly know form of space travel for humans is to strap ourselves to an over-sized firecracker and light the fuse, doesn't mean that there aren't other possible ways.

The manipulation of gravity, for example. Theoretically plausible, yet not yet achievable. That doesn't mean that someone out there couldn't have figured it out long ago and applied it. To some entity, the manipulation of gravity might well be as old and harnessing the winds to sail the seas is for humanity.
Generally people take the standing point of, "we humans can't do it, so that means that no one can either." Personally, I find the sentiment to be both a little arrogant and a bit ignorant. But that's just me.

It's the same with the whole, "well WE can't survive in space or on other planets in the solar system, so nothing else can either".

Is it not possible that some form of life could exist in something like the hellish Venusian atmosphere, simply because it evolved that way? That, to them, Earth is something like the arctic wastes because it's too cold? What is paradise to one being may very well be hell to another.

There are examples of such diversity right here on Earth. We can't survive the crushing pressure of the Marianis Trench, or the searing heat of the volcanic fissures on the trench floor. Yet, there are tubeworms and small fish that flourish and thrive in something that would crush and scorch is in seconds.

Life is not so easily pidgeon-holed as to be categorized in black and white by simply what is known to us currently. There is always what could be. We're all carbon-based life-forms on Earth. What if some other planet's ecology is based on silicon? What if they breathe hydrogen? Or helium? Or nothing at all? What if they devive their energy from the sun like plants? There are so many possibilities. Just because we haven't seen it, doesn't mean that it could never be.

The vaccuum of space could be a walk in the park for some unknown creature. Swimming beneath the ice oceans of an icy moon could be everyday life for something else.

The bottom line is: anything is possible. It's just a matter of keeping an open mind. Please take into consideration that science is only science because it is what we have been able to prove or discover so far. If we knew everything, we wouldn't still be searching.

There are so many new and exciting things out there to be discovered, I'm sure. Perhaps someday we'll all bear witness to something truly unexpected and mind-blowing.

Thanks for listening,
G