Re: No Confirmed UFOs Ever So Far - perhaps long lived

On 6/10/2020 5:49 AM, Porcospino wrote:
> On 2020-01-05, casagiannoni  optonline.net <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Not surprizing, even considering that intelligent apace faring species must
>> abound throughout the universe,  considering the vast interstellar distances.
>> Even at near light speed, which is extreemly unlikely, travel times would be
>> prohibitively long.
>>
> 
> Would they really be 'prohibitively' long, however? We know that
> propulsion systems capable of reaching the nearest stars within a human
> lifetime are possible (e.g., nuclear pulse as in Project Orion, or laser
> sails). Given the age of the universe there may be civilizations
> who have existed for billions of years: even travelling at a fraction of
> the speed of light that's more than enough for a civilization to cross the
> Milky Way several times, albeit at a slow pace and over many generations.
> 
> Nothing in physics or engineering prevents it, more so for a spacefaring
> civilizations which, you'd assume, can command enough energy to do this
> at little relative expense (without any breakthrough in physics). Time
> and propulsion systems are no obstacle, unless you believe that a
> closed-cycle life support system capable of working for centuries is
> impossible (not just from the perspective of present human technology
> but for everyone in all circumstances), or that no living being can
> adapt to prolonged life in space (even within envisioned settlements
> such as O'Neil cylinders) and thus cannot be away from a planetary
> surface for more than a few years.
> 
> Setting aside the 'UFO' question, towards which I'm a skeptic, I think
> it's easier to explain the Fermi paradox in terms of not having observed
> long enough. We have not been around (or been paying attention) long enough
> to claim that no intelligent species capable of interstellar travel /ever/
> existed.
> 
Yes.
 From the point of view of most humans, the travel time
to get to other inhabitable planets seems 'prohibitively' long.
Perhaps a very long lived and very developed alien species
is out there, and has for quite some time been exploring
the universe.  Perhaps it last checked in on our solar
system and found interesting life 10,000 of our years
ago.  Perhaps they have a follow-up inspection planned
in 10,000 more years.

Or, perhaps it was 100,000 years ago, and not again
for another 100,000 years.  There are just so many interesting
and challenging places to check out!

But our attention span (and perhaps species life span)
seems too short.