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How did plate tectonics do that? Whenever I see a space show I wonder at the logistics of building a ship. There is no such thing as a perfect airlock, the air must be constantly replaced. That means significant energy to smelt oxides and produce free oxygen and a neutral part like nitrogen...

Of course, there is always another possibility -- if (from pure conjecture) some Captain Nemo in Earth's history figured out how to build an interstellar Nautilus, it would be entirely within reason to imagine crashing a few thousand comets onto a suitable "Goldilocks Candidate", either...

I heard something on tv yesterday, went surfing and found this article: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/earth-may-be-a-1-in-700-quintillion-kind-of-place I'm sorry it's a subscription site, when I viewed the page they said "one free article left without subscription". But it's an...

Perhaps. :) Yes -- and they carried enough food and water in their tiny module for all three. And then there were all those trips to the outhouse... :p

Gee Louise -- and something I've never seen addressed in scripts is the radiation danger. The highest radiation danger vocation in America is airline crew; they tell me above 25,000 feet a geiger-counter really gets active. Next time I fly I'll take along one of my cigarette-pack-sized counters...

That's a great question. From IMDB: ...on the morning of 4 Jan, NASA readies the spacecraft Capricorn One On 14 May ...Capricorn One ...has landed on Mars On 19 Sept, Charles, Peter and John are on board the Learjet flying to the capsule's landing site in the ocean. So travel time out a...

I wonder why you would ignore it? Truth doesn't need any of us; whatever is, is, with no regard to who objects. :) Roddenberry of course was a "naturalist", so those themes are common through all of the series. Even though contradictions are blatant (one episode of TNG had life originating in...

Anyone in the mood for a story? Physicist soldered in the last part, plugged in the board -- grimmaced and switched on power. Good, no smoke. He thought for a moment, leaned over to the microphone and said, "Root beer." The machine went, "Whirrrr" -- and a foaming puddle was on the receiver...

They have to have somewhere to go. Our current ships (well, as far as we know), have to return frequently to refresh their air. Clearly true -- no one could handle six to eight months in a tiny box. But if there really is an Alcubierre faster-than-light drive, a tiny ship would work. For...

Who confirmed it? And what does your family album look like? :D (...heh heh heh...)

Really. How can oxygen exist without life? It's not a stable material. I would think that entropy would push it towards oxides. Unless there were also no other reactive minerals; but Earth is rich in a variety of elements, what formation process could supply abundant oxygen but sparse things...

Well, about "evolution" -- we've never actually seen an increase in complexity, not in the lab, not in archeology, not anywhere. But if life "evolved" on more than one planet, kids between peoples would be (statistically) impossible. Spock was a Vulcan/Human hybrid; making me think, "...not a...

What does "Earth-like" mean? They're using that term for "the Goldilocks zone" (a planet around a seemingly friendly star, speculating the orbit may be a reasonable temperature); but that doesn't mean 75° and white sand and balmy ocean breezes blowing through palm trees. I've watched virtually...

Well, it was asking about Star Trek's representation of real life. Per the show, there are lots of "M-Class" -- and I was wondering if that was likely? Clearly Star Trek has influenced a lot of things; fans succeeded in getting one of the shuttles renamed "Enterprise". If we build an...

Well, terraforming is intriguing -- that's desirable for exploration. But "ancient races" gets back to the original question, "how many M-Class planets could there be?" Suppose Earth got hit by a meteor that stripped us of atmosphere (this is a concern of something called "Globalism", which...

Wow -- you think there could be 50,000,000? It's not just that a planet is in the "inhabitable zone"; Jupiter protects us in our system, do you remember a few years back when comets hit it? Better Jupiter than us. :eek: Orphalesion said, "considering how many factors need to be juuuust...

Real life. :) Thanx for the reply -- let's focus on your "one in a million" idea. Is that valid? Diffuse galaxies are more common, but don't have planets. "Life" may not be water-based carboniferous as we experience, but by definition it has complex molecular processes. Radiation is known...

:) Hah hah hah! :D Fifty six, in all the planets around all the stars in all the galaxies???

Absolutely agree. In the movie, "The Martian", they used a ship that had a spinning section, so they would experience gravity. But I really think we have no business going to other planets unless we solve three technologies -- electro-gravitic propulsion, ftl travel, and the power to run them...

In so many Trek episodes they land on "oxygen/nitrogen planets", usually with lush vegetation (and often with very human-like inhabitants, even though many sport latex and putty facial features). And inhabitants conveniently speak modern English (sometimes explained by the "universal...