Europa's Ocean is Oxygen Rich

[Alcibiades]

No, you don't understand.  Finding any non-terrestrial lifeforms that is not flying in a space ship is extremely bad.  It means that life is more common.  The more common life is the chances of actual extra-stellar travel decrease.  The Galaxy is really, really big.  It's got alot of stars many of which are much older then our Sun.  How ever, you'll notice there is a lack of alien space craft bothering us on Earth.  Some factor is preventing this.  What this factor is isn't known. It could be that suitable planets are very rare.  It could be that life is very rare or even unique.  It could be that tool building species are rare.  It could be that it's impossible to reliably travel between stars.  As a species we have moved past most of the these factors.  If the factor is that space travel is very hard or impossible then we are screwed.  If the factor is that life is rare we might be in the clear.  The discovery of life in outer space would reduce the number of possible factors limiting the number of spaceships in the Universe.

I dont think people really understand how just mindblowingly large the universe is.  There are millions of galaxies...MILLIONS.  There are hundreds of billions of stars!

In addition to how large the universe is, that sheer distances between us and even the closest star is unimaginable for us really.  39,900,000,000,000 Km to the closest star....4.35 light years.  LIGHT YEARS.  We can't go anywhere near the speed of light, and wont be able to for....ever? 

The sheer distances involved are why we haven't met other life.  It's pretty much impossible that life hasn't evolved elsewhere throughout the galaxy, let alone universe.  Just by the sheer numbers of stars and planets involved. Life on our planet is far from unique.

[The Brain]

Human civilization must dominate this galaxy, now and always.

[KRonn]

I think this kind of shit is awesome. Keep posting it Tim.

Agreed.   

[DGuller]

Why are scientists looking for life on other planets anyway?  Is the life on earth not good enough for them?

[Malthus]

Why are scientists looking for life on other planets anyway?  Is the life on earth not good enough for them?

Green space babes are awesome. Or so TV teaches us.

[Ed Anger]

Why are scientists looking for life on other planets anyway?  Is the life on earth not good enough for them?

We need a place to fling Tim at .99c.

[Warspite]

Why are scientists looking for life on other planets anyway?  Is the life on earth not good enough for them?

I think the problem is that we haven't really found intelligent life on Earth either.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

That's rather a stretch in both cases, to call those countries "developed." They each have a smallish educated middle class and a billion paupers living in slums or traditional villages.

I said developed, not well-developed.  Regardless, you're talking about 2 billion paupers, nearly a third of the world's population, without either means or wherewithal to use contraception.  In particular, India's suffering from the same kind of rural population explosion that China had issues with not so long ago, with the government trying all kinds of incentive programs to curb the birth rate.

and yet birth rates have fallen all over the world barring just a few exceptions. I'm not sure but I think the economist had a special report on it a while back.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Exactly.

It was human level intelligence that was the stumbling block, civilization followed pretty quick.

Actually, no.  Civilization has only occupied the last 5 percent or so of time since the emergence of the human-level intelligence (and that is allowing for civilization in about 8,000 BC, or about 3,000 years before anything we have found to date).

8000BC is stretching it a bit but 7000-6000BC is a good time for the beginning of civ. It is after all the time in which çatal hüyük existed, and that one lasted for about a 1000 years

[DontSayBanana]

Replacement level fertility rate is roughly 2.1 children per female.  According to the CIA World Factbook China's rate in 2000 was 1.82, in 2008 1.77.  Rates vary slightly depending on source, but they are all about at the 1.7-1.8 mark, and they are all unanimous that the rate is below replacement level, not well above.  Many Western countries have roughly the same rate and few even higher.

The problem with China's numbers (that I've read, anyway) are that some of the areas are so remote they can't get reliable numbers on births.  TFR 's only as reliable as the birth reporting and personal history records in a given country.

[The Brain]

If human-like intelligence develops in the oceans instead it is hard to build a civilization.

[Syt]

Why are scientists looking for life on other planets anyway?  Is the life on earth not good enough for them?

Green space babes are awesome. Or so TV teaches us.

Or blue.