In two years, Nasa will launch the Kepler mission . It's sole purpose is to discover earth-like planets that orbit suns simlar to ours in a "habitable zone" (HZ). From the official website, their expectations are to find at least fifty such planets, and possibly as many as 800. The question: Are we ready to learn of extraterrestrail life? If we were to discover tomorrow the existence of another planet with life forms (possibly sentient and intelligent life forms) how would our society react? Would we be afraid? Should we be afraid? Would there be mass panic and mayhem? Would religious groups freak out? What would our governments do? How would we Earthlings respond (globally)? Are we ready to receive this information? Share your thoughts on how the human race would react to such a discovery.
all this thing does is discover earth-sized planets. it doesnt discover life or even if the conditions exist for life. we've got a looooooooooong way to go before that happens, so i dont think theres anything to worry about.
Pure pandemonium...It would make a lot of people question their religious beliefs. Personally, I think it would be fascinating. Wish I could go into space and meet ET myself The concept of universe is too difficult to grasp for most people. For all we know, the universe never ends. I am a very scientific person, and to me space exploration only proves to further exentuate the complexity and ingenuity of the human mind. How could life not exist anywhere else? The probability that another intelligent form of life exists in a vastless universe cannot be zero. A simple comparison would be if I thought of a number between 1 and 1,000,000 and you had to one try to guess my number. The probability of that would be microscopically small, however the chance is still there. Only time will tell if life does exist elsewhere.
Yeah. But it's more of a question about ourselves as a race than it is about finding extraterrestrials.
Half the U.S. would be afraid (red states) and half wouldn't (blue states). Panic would be no worse then the celebration after winning a sports championship (think Chicago, L.A. and Detroit). When aren't religous groups freaked out? The government would lie to us since they rarely tell the truth. Respond? Microsoft, Walmart and McDonalds are already adjusting their business plans to include these new markets. Humans can't deal with different cultures on this planet much less alien civilizations.
I think a lot of it has to do with how we find them and what level of technology they are. If we were somehow able to find other intelligent life and they were at a far lower level of technology than we were I don't think it would cause much of a panic. OTOH if they were technologically superior to us then there would be a lot of panic and fear regarding whether they are going to do something to us. Also if we found them I don't think there would be as much panic as if they found us since the view would be we are superior for finding them first even if we are roughly technologically equal. Thankfully though given the vastness of space and the great amount of time direct contact seems doubtful. Even if we had telescopes and antennae powerful enough to detect another planet with intelligent life it would likely take hundreds of years just to say "how ya doin?" and get a "very well and you?" back.
we've been hiding gigantic killer robots in these earth like worlds for thousands of years..it's time to let loose
This is true. There is no reason to fear exploration. If we discover another sentient species before they discovered us, that means we are technologically more advanced than they are. In that case we should just strip mine their planet and move on to the next one.
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -Calvin The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes p157
It was a slap at the red states for being afraid of almost anything. Like say homosexuals taking over the world. I was trying to imply that citizens in the blue states would be more open minded. Well I guess citizens of the red states aren't afraid of guns.
What about extraterrestrial prejudice? I mean, don't we already have stereotypes built on what ET's are like and how they behave? Don't we (as a race) think that the ET's have magical powers? Fingers that glow on the end? An evil intent to conquer our planet? Super-powerful weapons? How would these prejudices influence us as a people if we were to acually discover another sentient race?
That probably sums it up. We've yet to find an Earth-type planet with an atmoshere that would support human life. I think we will, sooner, rather than later, but that doesn't mean squat about whether intelligent life lives on the planet(s) we discover. We would need hard evidence of intelligent life, such as picking up old broadcasts from their communications, as was shown in Contact very well by Sagan. That's the most likely way we'll discover real intelligent life, short of being visited ourselves, or visiting another planet that has it. (a long way off) I'm more concerned about whether we are ready to stop a large asteroid or comet that has us in a big bulleye. Right now, we could do nothing but wait for it to hit us, unless we had decades advanced warning. Of course, maybe we have already been visited, as my Dad always believed. I don't think faster than light travel is impossible, regardless of Einstein's theories. A serious question is, would a space-faring race want to communicate with us? As a planet, we are amazingly war-like and screwed up. Keep D&D Civil.
Actually, it was recently proven that light can be accellerated past 186,300 miles per second (the normal speed of light).
Yes, it has. We will find a way to do it (humans traveling faster than light), in my opinion. It may be far past our lifetimes (and we would have to avoid blowing ourselves up, or being hit by a devastating brick from outer space), but I have no doubt that we will. Keep D&D Civil.
