

Odds of Alien Life "Very High," House Panel Hears - wikiburner
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/12/05/Odds-of-alien-life-very-high-House-panel-hears/UPI-37211386226591/

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LukeWalsh
I understand concerns about focusing on issues that are directly pertinent to
the people of a country, however historically we have never seen a culture
solve all of its pressing problems and then decide to focus on science and
exploration. Instead what we see is cultures committing to solve problems at
home, but also investing resources in programs that look forward to new
discoveries. I think it's short sighted to postpone space exploration simply
because we don't have time for it today, or because we don't see the tangible
benefit. The point of space exploration from the beginning has been to search
for "truth and understanding," [1] a goal so noble that our astronauts risk
their lives in pursuit of it. With greater understanding comes solutions to
problems we never even knew we had.

[1]
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/In_the_ev...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/In_the_event_of_moon_disaster.jpg)

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Datsundere
Thank you for pointing this out. I respect astronauts more than soldiers for
this reason. Soldiers fight for their own people but untimately end up killing
other HUMANS. Astronauts are risking their lives on the other hand for the
better of the entire human society.

Unfortunately countries like to spend more money on war than space
exploration, especially the United States.

~~~
MrZongle2
Former soldier here: veteran of the first Gulf War. Was on the ground in
Saudi, and during the push into Iraq when the ground war started.

Pretty sure I didn't engage in any baby-killing, but thanks for furthering the
stereotype.

Edit: I specifically said "baby-killing" because this is the kind of slander
thrown at my father's generation when they returned from Vietnam. Not all
soldiers are killers, and to imply that they are is offensive. It's sad that I
have to point this out.

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kordless
I respect you and are grateful that you risked your life during your service
for us. However, making false blaming statements isn't going to help your
cause. Datsundere didn't say you killed babies. He said that soldiers kill
people, which is a true statement. It's part of being a soldier, but it isn't
necessarily the right thing to do moving forward for humanity.

You personally aren't on the hook for this. You signed up for the military,
took oaths to defend us (for which I am very grateful) and took orders from
decision makers who may or may not have been influenced in their decisions to
do the right thing. The rest of us have a right to voice those concerns and
ask hard questions about the opportunity cost of warfare. That doesn't mean
we're questioning the concept of chain of command.

I hope our sons and daughters end up living in a world where risk is still
ever present, but it is used for exploration and the furtherment of humanity,
instead of fighting and killing each other over what will later be considered
less important matters.

Edit for fellow HNers: Voting down a soldier for expressing some emotion isn't
cool. You don't have to apply (misweighted) negative karma to someone who is
sharing an important experience of their life to make an impact in the
conversation. +1 on the parent - listen to your fellow man, no matter what he
is saying.

~~~
clamour
Sorry to be a jerk but does it annoy anyone how often conversations about the
military/soldiers go through the perfunctory "I respect your service blah blah
blah..."?

The term "military _service_ " itself irks me to no end. It's not service,
it's a government job. No one thanks DMV employees for their "service".

~~~
aestra
Actually, there is the term "civil service" that denote all other government
jobs that are nonmilitary. I always referred to my mother as a civil servant
(she held a government job for 35 years before retiring)

My husband is a career sailor, in his 3rd enlistment, Iraq war veteran, and he
takes more of a "it's a job" look at it. He still doesn't really know how to
respond to strangers' "thank you for your service" even after 14 years.

I think people say it because they respect someone's willingness to risk their
life. Especially since we are taught that the military defends our freedom.

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was_hellbanned
> No wonder the American people think this Republican Congress is from another

> planet -- they're more interested in life in space than Americans' lives

And I guess Democrats are more interested in taking jabs at the opposition
than they are in uniting the nation in something other than war or fear. I
guess we'll have to wait until Mars attacks, then we'll see everyone come
together to fund space exploration.

(I'm not actually taking a jab at Democrats, just pointing out that they're
all a bunch of useless bottom-feeders who take any opportunity to speak ill of
the other. Let's send them all into space like DNA's telephone sanitizers)

~~~
ceejayoz
I tend to vote Democratic and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
can go fuck themselves on this.

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ori_b
Odds of alien life: Very high. Odds of it affecting us in the foreseeable
future: Very low.

It's an interesting question, and one that I would love to see research
funding for. But it's also unlikely to lead to any direct practical results
for a while, although offshoots of technology designed to answer it might end
up being handy.

~~~
warfangle
The metaphysical implications would be worth it alone.

~~~
ryandvm
I think you're overestimating the ability of the world population to
intelligently process this information. Hell - a third of the United States
thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old.

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CalcHere
Here's a calculation on my little side-project.

[http://www.calchere.com/c/k1zpzn0o/Aliens-existing-in-our-
ga...](http://www.calchere.com/c/k1zpzn0o/Aliens-existing-in-our-galaxy)

This is from Frank Drake

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Drake)

~~~
sanoli
Interesting. Using my estimates on your calculator my result was 1. Will keep
the link on my bookmark, for when I want to wonder. The one I can't really
figure out (all the others I can't really figure out, but they seem easier to
guess) is the last one, "Years for which such civilizations release detectable
signals into space". Is 10000 too little for a technologically advanced
civilization, or will most of them self-destruct because all life after that
ever springs up is essentially a race for resources? Is 100000 too much? How
long will we be around. It seems if we get the war thing solved among us, the
ceiling could get pretty high.

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sanoli
If radio signals is the best way for us to detect alien intelligent life, and
vice-versa, aren't we doomed to keep quiet then? I mean, how long until we
phase strong radio signals almost completely? I mean, has there been any
growth in the quantity and power of radio signals since, say, the 80's? It's
an honest question, since I don't know, but I see radio declining everywhere,
except for, I guess, airplane and naval communication. What else am I missing
here? Probably a whole lot, maybe someone could fill me/us in?

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j2kun
You could argue this with probability.

But that assumes that the existence or nonexistence of life is a random event,
and that goes at odds with some religious belief systems.

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api
Even if there is some sort of god or creator or what have you, it would be...
as Sagan put it in Contact... an awful waste of space if we were the only
project.

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j2kun
Well if common sense is your argument, then it's not even a matter of
likelihood :)

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Jemaclus
I think the spokeswoman for the DCCC missed the part where this was presented
to the House Science Committee, not the committee in charge of immigration or
minimum wage...

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squozzer
Let's say we find it, what then?

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0xdeadbeefbabe
I suppose they are more than 10 light years away, so I guess if we want to
talk then we transmit then wait for a long time. This earth like planet was
2700 light years away: [http://www.nbcnews.com/science/8-8-billion-habitable-
earth-s...](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/8-8-billion-habitable-earth-size-
planets-exist-milky-way-8C11529186)

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kbutler
You don't transmit and wait, you just keep talking* - we've essentially been
doing this since radio broadcasts began, but we haven't heard/recognized a
response yet...

*I thought this was a NASA quote, but I probably got it from a science fiction story somewhere?

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jeffcoat
You're probably thinking of Isaac Asimov's story "My Son, the Physicist".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_the_Physicist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Son,_the_Physicist)

