When Does SETI Throw in the Towel?

space.com ^ | 01/18/07 | Seth Shostak

[SunkenCiv]

as futile as searching for the Seven Cities of Gold

What?!? I've spent years looking for those.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Don't worry too much. With inflation, they're only worth four now.

[denydenydeny]

Maybe we are alone in the universe, after all.

[SunkenCiv]

I found a web page a week or so ago, some mathematician, where I read that the odds of driving a mile each way to get a MegaMillions ticket and being involved in a wreck with a fatality (yours or the other guy) is six times better than having the winning numbers.

So, from now on, buy seven tickets. Pllt, problem solved.

[Brit1]

So if 'God' created our Solar System simply for the human race and fundamental physics prevents us from attaining FTL velocities whats the rest of the huge mass that is the universe for ?

[Straight Vermonter]

Never give up......

Never surrender.

[GonzoGOP]

1) Don't know the mind of 'God' myself so can't say.

2) Can't even prove 'God' exists, I'm just pointing out one of a whole series of highly improbable things that had to break our way in order to show up. The moon forming event is only the most improbable. And total probability is all of the individual probability's multiplied the MFE tends to skew the numbers from the already highly improbable into the silly. A pit boss in Las Vegas once told me that he doesn't have to know how a guy is cheating, or even prove that he is. If he saw something that defied the laws of random chance you were asked to leave.

3) While higher life appears to be highly improbable, even given the enormous number of stars in the galaxy, 'Life' in its simplest forms appears to be able to exist and develop almost anywhere. Perhaps God, Fate, or the Bookies in Vegas just prefer bacteria over higher forms.

4) While fundamental physics does prevent FTL it does not stop us from reaching the stars. A starship using a Helium 3 fusion drive and magnetic ram scoop breaking could reach some of the nearer stars that we know to have planets. It would have to be a giant ship and the generation that departs Sol would not be the one that arrives in their new home. Humanity can reach the stars, just not commute back and forth like Star Trek.

[Brit1]

I suspect that as we fill more of the unused 96% of our 'Grey Matter' with knowledge of the 96% of the universe we don't understand and can't see then the 'highly improbable ' will become the 'more than likely'.

[canuck_conservative]

Who says we're filling the unused part?

Despite all our scientific advances, there's still lots of people who think WWF wrestling is genuine, or that Elvis is still alive.

[Brit1]

Of course Elvis is alive the wife says she saw him going into the grocery store last week. ( I'm not going to argue)And while were 'on message'the Americans never landed on the Moon and NORAD tracked Santa Claus travelling at faster than light speeds on Christmas Eve.

Happy new year.

[Bat_Chemist]

they will dip us in a honey mustard sauce"

Is that from "To Serve Man"?

[Rodney King]

i thought i just made that up but perhaps is subconciously stole it from somewhere.

[Bat_Chemist]

LOL, "To Serve Man" is an book in an old B&W Twilight Zone episode. As it turns out, it's a cookbook.