Science Fiction — HabitableZone

Science Fiction » in reply to Re: Prometheus, Continued

Re: Prometheus, Continued
ER — (archived)

Intelligent, tool-making species capable of spaceflight are possible.
After all, we're already batting a thousand there.

But whether they are likely or not... we have no clue. For example, civilizations on water planets may never invent fire, or evolve grasping appendages, or electricity. A species on a cloudy planet, or one with two suns, may never develop astronomy and Newtonian Mechanics. A Silicon-short planet may never invent telescopes and microscopes. They may have advanced greatly in other areas, but they might not have spacecraft or radio telescopes.

A world surrounded by meteoroids may be protected by a thick atmosphere, but will never go to low orbit. We have accomplished a great deal becasue of a lot of lucky breaks. But who knows the stuff we've never done because, say, our sense of smell is so bad.

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