Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/newspostings/2701-2800/2747

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From: [e-mail] (Alan Douglas)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Falsifying the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis
Date: Sun, 07 Jul 1996 19:23:09 GMT
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[e-mail] (Leonardo Serni) wrote:

>If I wanted to colonize a galaxy, I'd build an incubator ship -- totally
>automatic, capable of self-repairing, of rebuilding a human being from
>scratch using basic elements, and of mining asteroids and comets to
>replicate itself. All I'd have to store on the ship would be some tons of
>CHON/R, the machineries, and the programs. Then the ship could go slow
>as it could. And in some **billion** years...

A billion years to explore the galaxy implies a sphere of colonization
expanding at an average rate on the order of 0.00005c.  One can just
as easily imagine a rate 10 or even a 100 times greater without
encountering any serious concepual difficulties that I'm aware of.
This means that the galaxy could be explored in hundreds or tens of
millions of years, which is less than the amount of time any
hypothetical aliens might be expected to have to play with.

>Leonardo revisiting Von Neumann's theory and Fermi's paradox

>...but the question is still, "WHY would anyone want...?"

Do you mean why would anyone want to expand the frontiers of
scientific exploration and research?  Why not?  If scientists could do
it, then what's going to stop them?  Excessive cost?  That will only
delay it to a time when the technology has developed to such a state
that it becomes affordable.

Or are you asking why would we want to spread mankind across the
cosmos?  How about self-preservation.  It's a big galaxy and you can't
be sure who or what is out there (at least not till you've gone out
and seen for yourself).  Why keep all your eggs in one star system?

Colonizing other systems would help protect us from any possible
hostile alien threat in three ways:

1) Early detection.  We would encounter any advanced agressive alien
races at the outskirts of our territory, giving us millions of years
to prepare an adapt before they make it to Earth.

2) Head start in retreating.  If we encounter nasty aliens 1000 light
years away in one direction, then we should have also explored 1000
ly's in the opposite direction.  That gives us a 2000 ly head start
that they'll have to make up before we could be completely wiped out.

3) Improved techniques and technology.  The more we explore the
galaxy, the better we'd get at it.  How quickly you can travel between
the stars is critical if you're fleeing an enemy threat.  Eventually
we'd run out of star systems though, and then the important thing
would be how long we could survive in the vastness of interstellar
space, and what forms of alternate energy we could live off when all
the stars are heavilly guarded.  At some point, the future of mankind
may depend on whether we've developped the technology to make the
really big jump to another galaxy.

Cheers,
Alan/