Dr. Edgar Mitchell for years has been a UFO proponent I don't see how that would change NASA opinion which officially is mute of the issue. I guess like Dr. Edgar Mitchell there are some NASA staff that hold the same advocacy as Dr. Mitchell.

Personally, I do agree NASA will in the future provide evidence or add evidence find that support life forms do exist in our solar system just not the same kind that Dr. Mitchell eludes to.

Frankly...what intelligent being would want with Earth and its inhabitance? I mean, if this intelligence mastered intergalactic voyages for any length of period no doubt they have categorized a fly-by (undetected) our solar system with Earth as a component not worth the expense-yet.

Besides would it be friend or foe? If it's as foe we aren't on the menu-yet.   

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 at 03:21, 2008-07-28

"...if their intent was hostile, then we would already have been defeated."

interesting tack...


Well... if in peaceful pursuit we must not be too high on their 'meet/greet' and reconnoitre list.

I guess there are two different issues here: 1) is the general idea of contact with other civilizations in the universe and 2) the specifics that Mitchell seems to be talking about.  Much of Ty's comments are directed toward the first.  Michell is clearly endorsing no. 2, i.e. the Roswell UFO senario that has develoed over the past 61 years.

If #2 is true...big if, then we have some idea of what is going on and it doesn't fit the reasonable concepts in case no. 1.  It's really an X-files type scenario of some sort.  One thing to consider it just how big an operation attack a planet is.  Certainly they kill up by the billions ...maybe even exterminate us.  Why do that unless they want to inhabit the planet?  Perhaps they are trying to improve us.  Certainly the case no. 2 implies a lot more than indifference.  It seems they really come to our solar system in large craft that then deploy small disk shaped craft that fly around and even bring some human specimens on board for examination.  And, this has been going on for decades. 

In this case what Mitchell is claiming is that the government (actually most governments) have decided to cover up what they know of these activities.  In this theory the ETs had an crash back in 1947 (and several more at later times) and the government recoved the debrits (and bodies).  So they really KNOW.  It seems to me to be a bit incredible that this could be kept secret for 60 years.  Of course it isn't really a secret as we are discussing it.  The secret is only that it is true (in this scenario).  Once this is released things that make good fiction are assumed to have a sea change effect how people react. It would really get to the human ego!

When I first saw a news article on this, I thought that Mitchell was saying that he had been officially briefed on UFOs by NASA as prepartion for his Moon mission.  After all if there was this big cover up NASA would want their astronauts blurting out in open transmission about a UFO, etc just in case they saw one up there.  However, what he is really saying is that some of the Roswell base officers involved in the 1947 even told him their stories in the 1980s at about the same time the UFOligists were told about it.  This reduces the stories credibility a lot.

On what I'm calling case no. 1 ...real aliens.  I think that it all depends on what the unknown laws of nature are.  That is unknow to us.  It seems to me that there is a plateau of knowledge somewhere in the future.  The question is are we near it or is it way out there?  Is faster than light travel possible or is the speed of light really the limit? Can we tap "zero point" energy or is nuclear fusion the final energy source?  Are "reactionless" space drive possible or as the just sci fi BS?  The answers to these questions and others world greatly shape our views on this.

For example if cheap and very fast FTL is possible then these older civilizations will have it and flying to Earth could be very easy.  ETs zoologists might study Earth life like Marlin Perkins studied the "Wild Kingdom"  or maybe even manipulate it like the hyper-advance aliens in "2001" did.  The point is just about anything could be true in that case.  If on the other hand there no really big physics discoveries left that will generate propulsion technology then we shouldn't expect any visitors!

Yeah, I see the little guy.  Do you think he is telepathically controlling  President Bush?  Perhaps that explains the halting speech pattern that is so often mentioned.

Mitchell was on Fox News tonight.  In addition to the Roswell Base people he claims to have spoken with a vice admiral at the pentagon on intelligence staff in 1997.  The admiral claimed to know nothing about a group working UFOs but promised to look into it.  Later he (according to Mitchell) reported that there was a group working on UFOs but when he tried to find out what it was doing, he was told that he didn't have a need to know. 

Mitchell seems to be on a campaign. 

Some of that I agree with, Dusty. Although, the resources needed to construct something like this depends greatly upon:

1) Their level of space industrialization and infrastructure. If their home system has asteroids like ours (not unreasonable to assume, I think) then their resource investment isn't necessarily all that great.

2) Mission duration--i.e., longer mission times will necessarily require bigger vessels. If suspended animation or hybernation is not possible, then years-long or decades-long trips will require city-sized vessels (or larger): i.e., you send a colony and not just a crew. Consequently, the mission may be considered one-way. However, whether or not they can leave is entirely dependent upon how much infrastructure they have brought with them. If I was designing a mission, the vessel would be large enough to exploit any resources found within the destination system so that repairs, refits, and refueling can be accomplished and the mission either continued, or a return to the home system could be accomplished. Of course, this depends upon THEM thinking like US: we value the individual enough to place the crew's well being and survival high enough to think in terms of safety and survival. Insects may not place such value on the individual, and may see an individual as completely expendible.

3) It seems reasonable that given the necessity of considering the physical limits imposed by the known laws of the universe, such a mission would in all likely hood: be nuclear fusion powered; travel slower than the speed of light: probably around 0.2c or less; be large enough to support a small colony of individuals; would bring enough industrial infrastructure to support resource exploitation at the destination system, and support the necessary manufacturing and fabrication base to provide for necessary repairs, refits, and refueling operations as needed; and be armed, if only lightly. If they value the individual as we do, then it seems reasonable that minimal defensive efforts would be made if only to ensure the survival of the temporary colony...

So, given these considerations, I would imagine that such a vessel constructed for human habitation, designed to sustain its inhabitants for a mission distance of say 10 light-years, or something a little more than 50 earth years in duration one way would require the support of several thousand or so individuals. The number of individuals needs to represent a good, healthy cross-section of the original population if they are to remain healthy upon arrival. I don't think 10,000 individuals is out of the question--this is about the population of a small town...

This is a space colony sized population, and would require a space-colony sized ship. The ship will need to rotate to provide simulated gravity for the well being of its inhabitants, so something like a Stanford Torus ought to do well. So we are talking about a ship with a diameter of around 6 km already. Mission part of vessel will be several hundred million tons. Now toss in fusion fuel for acceleration and deceleration and cruise power generation, and we're talking an easy billion tons or so.

It would require decades of sustained effort, but this is not unreasonable for a civilization with fusion and space solar power and space resources to tap. It only requires the will to do it...

Any reasonably technologically advanced species could do it. We aren't quite there yet ourselves, but we can imagine it; and so we aren't really that far away ourselves...





-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 18:10, 2008-08-02

   Yeah, I see the little guy.  Do you think he is telepathically controlling  President Bush? 

I don't think 'they' would need to.

The alien would suffice to explain directly to president Bush that they could manufacture events or cause events to happen that would aid in presenting a favourable historical light on U.S. gov't or to him individually.

Show me a gov't or gov't leader that would turn down a proposal like that.

But I think this happens 24/7 with or without the Lil alien dude.

It's called arrogant power projection.


 ..They got here using a starship that took the resources of their homeworld and centuries to construct! IE Its construction would have been an act of desperation not curiosity!

If anything they would have gotten to our solar system with the old fashion reasoning. They either were looking for resources that needed to be found for necessity or wealth creation. It wouldn't necessarily be because of just desperation.

How they got to our neighbourhood?

-They learned a long time ago that being able to survive is hardwired into their consciousness.

-They're an organism (genes) able to adapt to any condition and survive.

-They're able to work in cooperation with anyone or individually.

-You don't need a generational spacecraft to accomplish colonization (it would help). You do need to live, breed and thrive off of different environments (interstellar habitats).

-No doubt they worked at investigating and implementing ways of manipulating their physics to a purposeful advantage: real interstellar transportation.

Each of these points are interchangeable with humans.

Any successful alien species that propagates itself the most and has the most colonies and the space infrastructure system to support it-wins.

My idea is if humans really do support a celestial infrastructure system our chances of coming in contact with real ET's will happen in the process of constructing this celestial infrastructure. The chances are less if we 'sit on our ass' on earth doing nothing and expecting contact by default. 

  
  Besides, first contact is less risky for the species as a whole when it is done at a remote outpost.

 

Yup...I agree with you Ty we just can't see it happening any other way.

The scenario you describe is plausible.


In fact check this [article] 

"Weekend press and blog reports have claimed that NASA representatives have briefed the White House over the space agency's plan to announce major new discoveries concerning the Phoenix Lander's discoveries for the potential for life on Mars."


The sooner the myth the solar system and Universe is a vacant lot and no life can exist beyond Earth is dispelled the more apt a public would be to at least entertain possibilities exist beyond earth.