I’m just not interested in intelligent life in space. I want planets we can utilize for our own expansion.
Robert L Forward had some interesting ideas on intelligent life. In his book Saturn Rukh, intelligent life was discovered flying in the atmosphere of Saturn but its intelligence was limited to its own experience and of virtually no use to us.
In fact it was determined that the intelligent life was the very reason we wouldn’t return. They had gone to Saturn to study the feasibility of mining Saturn for Helium but the intelligent life would be determined to be an impediment to industrial use.
Saturn has Democrats? Who knew?