Science fact and Science fiction

[HopAlongBunny]

Given that the best spacecraft yet developed is a planet
What sort of weird and wonderful things can we concoct out the huge number of interstellar planets:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ithout-a-home/

Invasion force? Experimental environments? All the lonely people?

[HopAlongBunny]

This might actually deserve a different thread, but it was a small part of early space exploration.
The Age of Wood? sort of:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...en-spacecraft/

Have to admit, the cost constrained early days were quite creative

[Vincent Butler]

Given that the best spacecraft yet developed is a planet
What sort of weird and wonderful things can we concoct out the huge number of interstellar planets:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ithout-a-home/

Invasion force? Experimental environments? All the lonely people?

Zonama Sekot? Who all has any idea what I am talking about there, without looking it up?

So much of what used to be science fiction is reality now. Who knows how much else will turn to become reality?

[HopAlongBunny]

Looks like we have had a visitor:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017...aped-asteroid/

Sure. An asteroid, but that's what THEY would want you to think...

[Vincent Butler]

Looks like we have had a visitor:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017...aped-asteroid/

Sure. An asteroid, but that's what THEY would want you to think...

It was Han Solo and Chewie in the Millenium Falcon.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Didn't we have a batch of folks ship out their spirit forms on the ship following the Hale-Bopp? How is this visit all that special?

[Montmorency]

Didn't we have a batch of folks ship out their spirit forms on the ship following the Hale-Bopp? How is this visit all that special?

The Remnants are still bearing the torch for educational purposes.

[HopAlongBunny]

It was Han Solo and Chewie in the Millenium Falcon.

Maybe!
Actually the object was odd enough to attract the attention of SETI, and The Breakthrough Listen project is making an attempt to see if the object emits any radio waves:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-to-oumuamua/

Is it time to speculate wildly!? Why Yes! Yes it is!

[Vincent Butler]

Maybe!
Actually the object was odd enough to attract the attention of SETI, and The Breakthrough Listen project is making an attempt to see if the object emits any radio waves:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-to-oumuamua/

Is it time to speculate wildly!? Why Yes! Yes it is!

I just hope it is not V'Ger.

In my opinion, SETI is a big waste of time and money, but whatever. My opinion is not going to change anything. It is interesting to wonder how many times in 6,000 years such a thing has come by and only now are we able to detect it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I just hope it is not V'Ger.

In my opinion, SETI is a big waste of time and money, but whatever. My opinion is not going to change anything. It is interesting to wonder how many times in 6,000 years such a thing has come by and only now are we able to detect it.

One KC-46 costs the US taxpayer $147.4M, SETI costs $14M a year with only about half of that total being taxpayer funded. You may be able to ding them on RoI, but it is not a budget buster.

[Vincent Butler]

One KC-46 costs the US taxpayer $147.4M, SETI costs $14M a year with only about half of that total being taxpayer funded. You may be able to ding them on RoI, but it is not a budget buster.

Doesn't matter who is paying, it is still a waste of money, but I can't do anything about it anyway so I just complain about it. Frankly, I would rather see it going to that than some other things. And we may learn some stuff that we did not know, even if we never get to meet any Togrutas or Twileks.

Oh, seeing as this is the Frontroom, please nobody try to correct me on the 6,000 year age of the earth I mentioned. I respect the views of those who think it is older and was simply speaking from my point of view.

[Ibrahim]

Doesn't matter who is paying, it is still a waste of money, but I can't do anything about it anyway so I just complain about it.

It cannot be considered a waste of money, since the tech that goes into this can (and perhaps does) have applications in fields where it may matter to us from day to day, or in other fields of science. Thus while I can't say SETI itself will have any luck in its primary goal, I'm sure the tech dedicated to it, and innovations appertaining, can be applied elsewhere.

Frankly, I would rather see it going to that than some other things. And we may learn some stuff that we did not know, even if we never get to meet any Togrutas or Twileks.

Well, that's not for you or me to determine purely by purpose alone; That's because we simply DON'T know what we might get out of it. It's something I've experience first-hand when I worked on Cambrian Nevadan exposures: No one could have expected what I found.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh, seeing as this is the Frontroom, please nobody try to correct me on the 6,000 year age of the earth I mentioned.

I won't, but not because a correction is not Frontroom material.

But if you didn't want to catch grief over it, you probably shouldn't have posted this here to begin with. Because frankly, it comes across as you looking to bait someone as it is, even with the disclaimer you give later.

[Beskar]

I wonder how many times this has happened from the view from earth over 4.54~ billion years. The potential is simply amazing.

[Ibrahim]

That would assume we aren’t the only sapient life, and right again that one of them achieved interstellar flight. I’m optimistic about this, but I do wonder how we would be able to detect such a thing. Do we even know what to look for?

[HopAlongBunny]

They seem to think that our visitor was interesting; like a piece of driftwood, but it's interstellar driftwood!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ou...itor-1.4454180

[Vincent Butler]

That would assume we aren’t the only sapient life, and right again that one of them achieved interstellar flight. I’m optimistic about this, but I do wonder how we would be able to detect such a thing. Do we even know what to look for?

A civilization that has mastered interstellar flight, yet has not mastered a cloaking device. Unless they are trying to get our attention (as stated before, I don't actually believe in extraterrestrial life, but am playing along with the thread.)

By the way, has anybody read the "Conquerors" series (I think that is what it was called) by Timothy Zahn? It would be along these lines.

[Ibrahim]

A civilization that has mastered interstellar flight, yet has not mastered a cloaking device. Unless they are trying to get our attention (as stated before, I don't actually believe in extraterrestrial life, but am playing along with the thread.)

By the way, has anybody read the "Conquerors" series (I think that is what it was called) by Timothy Zahn? It would be along these lines.

Who said that interstellar flight necessarily implies advanced cloaking technology?

[Vincent Butler]

Who said that interstellar flight necessarily implies advanced cloaking technology?

Nothing, I was speaking tongue-in-cheek.

One would assume, however, that if they have mastered interstellar travel they would have figured out cloaking, or at least stealth of some kind. I am not being original in this viewpoint, I did borrow the idea from elsewhere, only he used the terminology that they had not grasped the concept of shutting off their running lights yet had mastered interstellar travel.

Besides, I am not convinced we have not figured out cloaking. Who knows what technologies are being implemented that we don't know about?

[Ibrahim]

One would assume, however, that if they have mastered interstellar travel they would have figured out cloaking, or at least stealth of some kind.

You'd be surprised:

For a less speculative example: the Chinese were pretty sophisticated--in general they were way ahead of the west till the Early Modern Period, but it never occurred to them the Earth was a Spheroid till relatively recently (possibly the 11th century AD, definitely by the 17th century). For comparison, everyone knew the correct shape in the West and Near East since the 3rd century BC; Columbus for example wasn't criticized because he thought the Earth was round, but because he believed the Earth's circumference was lower than calculated--his critics were in fact correct.

It's not quite like figuring out how to shut off the lights; this is a far more complex topic--how to make a person or (in this case) craft invisible. Just as the technology (and thinking) needed to figure out the Earth's shape differs from that of mixing chemicals to make them go boom (or using a magnet to find your way around), so will cloaking and making space-craft. Afterall, technology and science aren't discovered neatly.

Besides, I am not convinced we have not figured out cloaking. Who knows what technologies are being implemented that we don't know about?

Well, I only said the aliens (hypothetically) may not have developed it--at least for space-craft. I didn't say anything about humanity. Mostly because, cloaking tech has been around for a while, and is public knowledge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD83dqSfC0Y

But no, they can't do this for airplanes--not yet. Stealth for craft (and even tanks) at this time is really about radar stealth, so as not to be detected by enemy fighters and radar installations. This technology has been common since the late 1980's, and gained attention during the Persian Gulf War.

Personally, my take on most UFO sightings near military bases are more likely tests of such craft, and not aliens. This doesn't discount an alien visit, nor that there are aliens in the first place, nor can you make an argument that it is impossible for them to have paid a visit: we simply don't know. This is especially as once again, we simply don't really know what to expect. For example, we don't know if they even feel the need to shut off the lights...

[Agent Miles]

Most of the cool scientists at SETI and in the Exobiology departments will tell your children that 100,000 intelligent alien races may inhabit the universe. Even if they have an extraordinary understanding of the Drake equation, that might be a very lonely place. The "Hubble Bubble" with the volume of the observable universe centered on the Earth contains about 300,000 billion, billion, billion cubic light years of space. So if we are statistically lucky, we may have an intelligent neighbor within our 3 billion, billion, billion cubic light year zone. Yaaay (sarcasm off).

That may seem daunting, however, time is on our side. The universe is 13.72 billion years old. Galaxies formed within a half billion years after the Big Bang. Giant stars in those galaxies were rapidly fusing hydrogen into heavier elements. After only a few million years these stars with hundreds of times the mass of the Sun were going super nova. The heavier elements that make up life were created in the explosions and spread throughout the surrounding hydrogen clouds. The shock waves created smaller stars like our's. If some of these stars evolved like ours (physics led to chemistry led to biology), then intelligent creatures might have populated them by 5 billion years after the BB. So beings like us should statistically have existed 8 billion years ago. That would give them time enough to colonize everything in that 3 bn, bn, bn cubic light year space. Either interstellar space travel is totally impossible or they should have found us. They wouldn't be visitors. The Sun would be part of their turf. Our ancestors would have been able to look up and see the alien's Dyson ring around the Sun.

Perhaps, the most intelligent members of any advanced species eventually discover technology that the most foolish members of their species use to cause their extinction.