Somewhere over the rainbow, the Raelians are cheering.
I read something onetime from Fermi? I think, when he was asked whether he believed in UFO/ETs/life from outer space visiting us here? His response (IIRC) was to pose the question where do they come from?
This is a really interesting response. If the closest Solar System is 1 MM+ (or 100K) light years away, and assuming one could physically travel at the speed of light (with conventional wisdom saying it can't physically be done) then the organisms from the next closest solar system would have to live over a 100K or 1MM just in travel time (the longest vacation drive ever).
If you next close off that life had to come from within our solar system, we will probably within the next 100 years be able to see live shots of every planet in our solar system. But we know enough right now that none of the planets or satellites contain the environmental conditions to sustain any organic life that we currently conceive.
For me, this argument was dispositive of the issue. Anyone have any comments on this proposition?