Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Fermi Shmermi

re: Fermi Shmermi
ER — (archived)

I've heard that same argument before, and I admit it has some merit, but neither can we count on it. We have no guarantee that any species will continue expansion indefinitely. Space resources (sunlight and matter) are very plentiful and are pretty much the same on every stellar system. Once a culture is convinced it is safe (through dispersal)from any disaster that might befall a particular star, it will have little incentive to colonize other systems. Even after plundering a solar sytem of all its resources, all they have to do is move on to the next one, there is no justification for a geometrical expansion.

It is true, humans have aggressively expanded into almost every environment on our planet, but they usually refuse to move unless they either are out of resources or are forced out by rivals.

Even under the most liberal assumptions, civilizations in the galaxy are so separated by both space and time, that it is highly unlikely that two will ever find themselves at the same place at the same time. The biggest possible payoff of space exploration, knowledge acquired by another species, can be communicated much easier, cheaper and safer by long range communications devices than by direct contact.

Even if I am only partially correct in this assessment, we simply haven't been around long enough, in astronomical terms, to have had a fighting chance of meeting or hearing from anyone else. The galaxy is 13 billion years old, earth is 4 and a half billion years old, humans have been around for less than a million years, and its only for the last few hundred years that we would have been able to distinguish an alien visit from a supernatural event. In the cosmic scheme of things, a millenium is just a heartbeat.

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