Posts by Alpha-Geek

Re: Starting to put some actual numbers on the Drake equation

It's not a puzzle. Most people don't have any notion of how far a light-year is, much less 10 light-years. In cosmic time, the entire existence, from emergence to extinction, of a species like homosapien is hardly noticeable at all. The odds that such a species has the capability (intellectual capacity, thumbs not flippers, etc) to successfully achieve interstellar travel within that time frame are poor. Michio Kaku spells this out succinctly in his book, "Visions". So the reason they haven't stopped by for tea is two-fold: They didn't/don't/haven't exist at the same time as us, and they're too bloody far away to get here. Telepathy, and the convergence of thought/reality/energy/matter/time is another subject entirely, but bears mentioning because it may well provide more promise that conventional forms of physical space travel and propulsion.

I wish the media would stop making a fuss about the existence of "Earth like" planets. Oh, sure.. it's interesting, but the average person reading this stuff probably has the impression that ET lives next door or something. The closest star (system) is 4.37 LIGHT YEARS away. Do you have any idea how far a light year is? It's a long damn way, and suffice it to say we can't get there.

The fastest ship we have ever made maxes out at about 160,000 miles per hour. The speed of light is roughly 660 million miles per hour (it's actually a little more than that). Stretching the math even more, our fastest ship goes (almost) 2.5% the speed of light. So at maximum speed - full out, it would take almost 175 years to get to Alpha Centauri. And what about a planet? Yep. There is one and looks like it's only a bit larger than Earth.. with a surface temperature of (wait for it...) over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

I just hope our species lasts long enough to develop the technology required for interstellar travel. I worry about this though when we can't even balance a national budget much less come together as a planet. Sigh.