Could aliens as intelligent as us just not want to bother with space travel?

Scientists are looking for alien life of course, and they are thinking of alternative ways an advance civilization could communicate with us. Couldn’t it be possible that aliens from another planet just would not bother with space travel? Maybe they didn't really care about leaving there earth and instead concerned about their civilians and technology used inside the earth? Perhaps they haven’t achieved space travel because they are working hard to achieve peace, or a technological ease on their earth?? I know it is impossible to answer this but it is something that I started to think about.

reply to post by Maddogkull


I think you have to be interested in space travel if you are concerned to avoid death - individually and as a group. We can imagine intelligent aliens, under little selection pressure, who were never prey species...such slow-growing crystals or whatever, who don't get excited about death, might not feel the need to get some of their eggs out of the one-planet basket...
But me I sure think we have to get off of this planet ...I think disinterest in space travel is a bad sign in a human, oh my yes...

I am certain there are plenty of planets like you mention, and plenty that are pre-industrious, and also plenty that are highly advanced space faring...all levels represented throughout the universe.

You must think as we do however when considering if and when we come across a alien civilization that has not yet reached space flight and still warring with one another. How would we handle it? Would we simply sit back and let them figure it out so they could grow wise from their experiences...etc

I imagine if they are in contact with us, it is very limited to the leaders only and to set down basic ground rules before venturing out.

Well as humans we've always looked towards the stars. Our religion is based around the entire concept of the "heavens" and space.

It's logical to assume that another intelligent race would have perhaps gone through the same thought processes in their early evolution, much like we have.

In that case, they would have certainly wanted to explore outside of their planet like we are doing now.

Now here's something to add to the discussion.

What if they did develop space travel, traveled a bunch and THEN decided to just stay where they were.

What possible reasoning could they have?

An interesting thing to discuss.

~Keeper

Of course there would inevitably be advanced civilizations that choose not to go into outer space for various reasons.

And there is also, other races/civilizations that took the other route, such has Human Kind. We choose to go into space.

Some do, some don't.

You just happen to be part of a race that DOES conduct space travel. We are just really new at it, but we are getting better all the time.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower


What if they did develop space travel, traveled a bunch and THEN decided to just stay where they were.

What possible reasoning could they have?

An interesting thing to discuss.

~Keeper

I bet they wouldn't all want to stay at home, right (there is always a spectrum of responses, a bell-curve distribution, as it were)...so then you would have two separate populations, that would wind up breeding independently (assuming the stay-at-homes didn't get wiped out by some local misfortune...that's the problem with staying at home)...then you get genetic drift and eventually two separate species...right?

Anyway that's how I expect it works out.

reply to post by Maddogkull


It depends on how depleted the alien planet is as far as resources are concerned. Right now the human race is divided and so there is not enough money being spent on space travel for us to make it very far but if we manage the transition into a Type 1 Civilization we will be united enough to look outward. By the time we make that transition the resources on this planet will be becoming scarce and so we will set out looking for new life but also looking for resources.

So I think if these aliens are like us and have depleted their planet they will definitely be looking to space travel to find new worlds.

Originally posted by nine-eyed-eel
...then you get genetic drift and eventually two separate species...right?

Anyway that's how I expect it works out.

I agree with your speculations.

You seem to be absolutely correct about it.

As they split off into separate groups, there would be genetic drift.

UNLESS, there is a super fast method of transport that would allow anyone from the far reaches of space to quickly come back home for a visit.

If they can travel across the whole system quickly, genetic drift would become less likely. As they would be traveling so much.

How would we handle it?

First, we'd try to convert them to the current popular religion.
And if they don't convert,...well you know what we'd do next.

Take me to your leader.
Hi leader, tell me about your people.
Tell me about your religion.
What, you have no religion?!! Let me tell you about (insert make-believe friend here)

I think that the only reason we pushed in to space was because we have a moon. Without a short 250,000 mile trip, I don't think that we would have gone beyond a few satellites.

[edit on 4/5/2010 by wookiee]

reply to post by muzzleflash


Thanks.

I think the actual human race is on the verge of speciation, as well...

I'd like to be in some mobile home park in space with 100 other psychos and we all take a vote and then genetically engineer ourselves into crab-monsters or whatever...that sounds like good fun to me...

Sure. It's quite plausible. Space travel is hard, space is really big and empty, and outside of the immediate solar system, there's nothing worth bringing back to earth on a cost-benefit basis, since even the closest stars are years away in the absolute best case, decades to centuries for more reasonable engines..

Unless the species has a vested interest in flinging it's prodigy throughout the stars so that some trace of their civilization will be guaranteed to survive almost anything, there isn't really anything worth doing outside your own solar system.

You'll notice that we don't place that big a priority on that, so we haven't even tried sending people any further than our own moon, not for lack of technology, but for lack of motivation.