US Military pays for SETI to check out Kepler-22b

[Candlelight]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/06/seti_checks_out_kepler_habitable_exoplanets/

The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has announced that it is back in business checking out the new habitable exoplanets recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to see if they might be home to alien civilisations. The cash needed to restart SETI's efforts has come in part from the US Air Force Space Command, who are interested in using the organisation's detection instruments for "space situational awareness".

"This is a superb opportunity for SETI observations," said Jill Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research, in a statement issued yesterday. "For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems - including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analog in the habitable zone around its host star. That's the type of world that might be home to a civilization capable of building radio transmitters."

NASA has just announced the discovery of many exoplanets orbiting other stars by its Kepler spacecraft, inclusing the world Kepler-22b - described as Earth's "twin" by the space agency - which orbits a Sun-like G type star some 600 lightyears away at such a distance that it could well have liquid water on its surface and thus be home to life along Earthly lines.

They'll be paying them to send nukes next. You know, just in case.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Luckily, in real life, there's no possibility of interstellar war.

But this is certainly a very interesting development-- I'm glad SETI is getting some funding again and has some good prospects to look at.

 

[The Castellan]

Luckily, in real life, there's no possibility of interstellar war.

But this is certainly a very interesting development-- I'm glad SETI is getting some funding again and has some good prospects to look at.

Why is there no possibility?


Anyhow, I don't see why the military has to be involved...hell, it was the military doing the Clementine mission that mapped the moon, why do we need the military to do that when a purely scientific group could do it instead?

And I feel SETI is useless, I highly doubt that alien life out there, especially with millions, if not billions, of years ahead of us, our sun is the new kid on the block amongst a bunch of far older stars, even use something as primitive as radio? I mean if I sent a radio message, or aliens sent one to us, it will take at least a 150 years to reach anywhere near each other.

And if they find something, I doubt the military will tell us, especially since NASA is a military organization, not a civilian one, they answer to the pentagon first, then themselves, and lastly us. And with Brookings, it makes it even worse.
I trust our military as much as I do the government.....and I quit voting 7 years ago.

 

[RJDiogenes]

NASA is not a military organization.

Interstellar war is impossible because it would take thousands of years, at least, for a single attack to occur.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

Why is there no possibility?

Anyhow, I don't see why the military has to be involved...

The military is involved because they're paid to come up with things like that. Considering that they had plans at least as late as World War II (and I'd be surprised if not later) for invading Canada, it makes sense for them to want to know if there is anything living out there.

Interstellar war is highly unlikely, but not impossible. A civilization that can pump a ship to 1G acceleration for one year can reach a very high fraction of the speed of light and, if they're patient, very, very long lived, or desperate, reach pretty much anywhere in the galaxy in a few thousand years of ship time. If they can keep accelerating (which would be difficult) they can get close enough to lightspeed for time dilation to make travelling the galaxy possible in a few years of ship time.

I would be more concerned about ET showing up after a one way trip then if he could go home whenever he felt like it. If we could find another truly inhabitable world and had the means of going there, we would.

Since humans throughout history had the bad habit of declaring very populated but very distant lands to be "empty" so they could claim it, why would another species have the problem declaring us to be a pest or even part of the local wildlife that can be ignored.

Again I'm not saying any of this is likely. I'm just saying that the military could easily think this and if they want to fund space exploration let them. Its not like they're going to give any of their billions back to the schools anyway, might as well use it for a good purpose.

 

[ares93]

NASA is not a military organization.

Interstellar war is impossible because it would take thousands of years, at least, for a single attack to occur.

Also, war is when to opposing factions fight each other. This would be more along the lines of them shooting and we getting our asses handed to us.

Considering how late we humans evolved opposed to how old this planet is, my bet is if there is life out there, they're more advanced than us. Its a bad idea to piss em off.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The military is involved because they're paid to come up with things like that. Considering that they had plans at least as late as World War II (and I'd be surprised if not later) for invading Canada, it makes sense for them to want to know if there is anything living out there.

Yeah, I've often wondered if life exists in Canada as well.

As for War Plan Red, I doubt that there is any real likelihood that FDR or even Truman would have enacted it even if WW2 hadn't happened. It might have stimulated production, but the USA would have lost a lot of face internationally.

Planning and even preparing for unlikely contingencies is what the military do to avoid having to paint stuff or clean latrines instead. The current build-up of US forces in northern Australia in response to perceived Chinese expansionism is another example, of course.

 

[The Castellan]

NASA is not a military organization.

Interstellar war is impossible because it would take thousands of years, at least, for a single attack to occur.

NASA IS a military organization, gotta read the charter


And why thousands of years? The stuff I seen in the skies, they can move a LOT faster. And the speed of light being THE speed limit of the universe is not a stated fact.

I tried talking about UFO's and ET life, as well as hyper dimensional phyiscs on this forum, but I learned NEVER discuss these topics on a Star Trek forum, since no on wants to listen, and often get really immature about it, which is ironic.

Wanna learn interesting stuff? Stop using television as one's educator and current events provider.

So before I give you folks any more amusement at my expense, I still feel SETI and NASA needs to stand aside for a real space agency to do the job, and not with military involvement, they are getting too much of our money already.

 

[Squiggy]

Interstellar war is highly unlikely, but not impossible.

Yes it is. It would be a very quick invasion...not a war.

NASA is not a military organization.

Interstellar war is impossible because it would take thousands of years, at least, for a single attack to occur.

NASA IS a military organization, gotta read the charter

That would be news to everyone at NASA, which is run by a civilian. But here's the Space Act of 1958. What are you referring to?

 

[CaptMurdock]

Luckily, in real life, there's no possibility of interstellar war.

Call me an unscientific romantic, but I still don't believe FTL is utterly impossible. A thousand reasoned opinions on the pool temperature is no substitute for diving in and finding out. Nuff Said.

And frankly if there were E.T.'s the last thing we would want to do is throw nukes (or anything lethal) at them. Likely as not, their stage of development would be higher than ours. Even if it's by a relatively small amount, our ass would be grass.

But this is certainly a very interesting development-- I'm glad SETI is getting some funding again and has some good prospects to look at.

Very true.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

We will declare war for the sake of our planetary honor, but we really just want their unobtainium.

I tried talking about UFO's and ET life, as well as hyper dimensional phyiscs on this forum, but I learned NEVER discuss these topics on a Star Trek forum...

Sane people who are interested in real science don't want to talk about flying saucers.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I tried talking about UFO's and ET life, as well as hyper dimensional phyiscs on this forum, but I learned NEVER discuss these topics on a Star Trek forum, since no on wants to listen, and often get really immature about it, which is ironic.

No, you word vomited a War and Peace-length tome copy-pasted from other's arguments on conspiracy sites like Enterprise Mission or Above Top Secret and expected people to pick and choose a topic from one of the 900 tangents you raised in your multiple tl;dr posts; each one filled with factually-challenged comments like the "NASA is a military organization" gem you posted above.

You didn't get shut down by THE MAN because you were hitting a little too close to home, you didn't get shut down because this site doesn't allow talk about UFOs and ETs, you got shut down because you posted an unfocused spammy clusterfuck of a thread that might have violated someone's copyright for all I know. Here's a hint: when you hit the word limit on your nine posts leading off the thread and you still haven't raised a coherent point or have a solid premise to build further discussion on, you should reconsider the structure of the thread and focus on a specific topic. Christ, people were posting "tl;dr" comments before you even finished your nine-post OP, which has to be a first.

It's also telling that you don't even have enough confidence in the veracity of your arguments to raise and defend them in the Science and Technology forum where they would probably be subject to a more detailed examination by the membership there. I'm sure RobMax will be thrilled that I'm sending you his way, but I owe him one as payback (he knows what he did ). You can still post here if you want, but regardless of where you post, the spamminess and copy-pasting pages worth of arguments and articles isn't going to fly, and isn't going to get serious commentary from anyone, because it's not a serious post worthy of discussion.

 

[Squiggy]

I've been informed by management to shut this thread down.

 

[ares93]

I've been informed by management to shut this thread down.

And you're what? Bloody CIA?

 

[Candlelight]

I've been informed by management to shut this thread down.

Who are you? Bloody Apple Inc?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

He's NASA, the military, THE MAN, the Men in Black, Majestic-12, the X-Files, Project Blue Book, Blue Man Group, the Stargate Project, Stargate Command, MKULTRA, and Ultraman, all rolled into one. They just change names every few years to throw people off.

 

[Kemaiku]

Must cost them a fortune on letterheads. No wait they blank those out anyway...

 

[RJDiogenes]

NASA is not a military organization.

Interstellar war is impossible because it would take thousands of years, at least, for a single attack to occur.

NASA IS a military organization, gotta read the charter

I'm familiar with it. It's civilian.

And why thousands of years? The stuff I seen in the skies, they can move a LOT faster. And the speed of light being THE speed limit of the universe is not a stated fact.

Even if you saw something real, it wasn't moving anywhere near the speed of light.

Luckily, in real life, there's no possibility of interstellar war.

Call me an unscientific romantic, but I still don't believe FTL is utterly impossible. A thousand reasoned opinions on the pool temperature is no substitute for diving in and finding out. Nuff Said.

There's certainly a non-zero possibility that FTL is possible, but even if it is then it's got to be prohibitively expensive in terms of resources. Otherwise, all it would take is one civilization to populate the galaxy to a very obvious level in a very short time, relatively speaking.

 

[ares93]

One of me physics teacher's favourite sayings is, much to me dismay, "Just because you cant do something, doesnt mean its impossible"