SETI Strategy

The traditional, even the untraditional Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been going on now for over five decades; six decades if you include UFOs, and a century’s worth if you include listening for Martian radio signals. Of course, as we are all well aware, nothing has, to date, come from these extensive searches. Either there’s nothing out there worth searching for, or perhaps one is shooting at a moving target. A better search strategy might be to shoot at a stationary target(s). My suggestion is for an optimal static SETI target – the Moon.    

Traditional SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, uses a search strategy of looking for extraterrestrial radio signals broadcast by technologically advanced, well, extraterrestrials.  Alas, you don’t know in advance where in space the alien radio station is; what strength it’s broadcasting at; what radio frequency it’s using; how often it’s broadcasting or for what duration per broadcast. Further, the station is probably on a rotating planet, and we on the receiving end are rotating too and so the meshing of the two such that we face each other is dicey at best. It’s a search with all the odds stacked against it. That’s what I call SETI in motion. Static SETI has better odds in its favour, IMHO. What SETI needs is to eliminate the motion associated with possible ETI from the search. In other words, search for ETI via those artefacts of ETI that 1) pretty much stand still and 2) remain standing still for very lengthy time frames.  

TRADITIONAL SETI IN MOTION: The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Optical and radio wave SETI relies on some alien technological civilization pointing a radio or optical transmitter in the outward bound direction and letting briefly fly the photons in just the absolute right direction such that a terrestrial radio or optical receiver just happens to be pointed in that exact same direction at the exact relevant time frame later on down the track. The odds are not good that all these variables of motion will mesh together. I mean, what if you had one spinning terrestrial globe (globe A) with some random rate of spin and orientation (axis tilt), and another spinning globe (globe B) with another random rate of spin and orientation, both positioned at some random distance apart, what odds that say, one specific latitude and longitude on globe A would exactly match up in a straight line, allowing for the speed of light representing that straight line, with the exact same latitude and longitude on globe B?

UNTRADITIONAL SETI IN MOTION: Space Probes

We have sent out messages to ET in the form of plaques (Pioneer 10 and 11) and audio-visual recordings (Voyager 1 and 2), which have odds of success that even the most optimistic of optimists wouldn’t bet a nickel, far less the family farm, on achieving reality. That’s because space probes are very, very small and space is really, Really, REALLY, very, Very, VERY, big, as “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as so adequately pointed out and made that concept clear to us. Finding alien space probes: it’s the needle-in-a-haystack or perhaps the message-in-the-bottle carried to extremes.

UNTRADITIONAL QUASI-SETI IN MOTION: UFO SETI

The problem with trying to search for and pin down UFOs as an example of ETI is that UFOs will not stand still. They come and they go like short-duration will-of-the-wisps in a totally random way that cannot be forecast in advance. But the skies can be monitored 24/7, and they are monitored 24/7, and guess what, UFOs are spotted 24/7. Of course a UFO doesn’t automatically translate into an alien spaceship, and in any event, while the skies stand still in a manner of speaking, those pesky UFOs don’t.

TRADITIONAL STATIC SETI: Galactic Searches

External galaxies, like stars in our galaxy, sit still in the night sky. Unlike targeting individual stars in our galaxy, or rather the inhabited planets whizzing around them (orbiting and rotating) which is traditional SETI in motion, targeting entire galaxies at one go, assuming a reasonable number of ET civilizations are in that galaxy, suggests that something that’s of an EM nature (on a myriad of frequencies) emitted at random time intervals by someone(s) or something(s) is intersecting our local geography upon which sits our radio telescope 24/7. The fly in that ointment is that, as the introduction to “Star Wars” pointed out, external galaxies are far, far away. That means that while we’re getting some signal(s) from an external galaxy 24/7 just on sheer probability, it’s like trying to hear someone, say your ex, shouting at you from L.A. when you’re, alas, in N.Y.C.

STATIC SETI: Omnidirectional Signals

Omnidirectional electromagnetic signals would appear as a ‘light bulb’ that was always on, but the drawback is that it is a very energy intensive way of advertising yourself and saying “hi there” to the cosmos.

STATIC SETI: Dyson Spheres

We’re all for solar energy, and a really advanced extraterrestrial civilization could take the concept to an extreme. Only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the Sun’s output hits Earth, so even if all of that were captured and put to good use, it would still be just a tiny fraction of what’s theoretically available. But, if one could build a quasi-flexible sphere (of say colony space stations) around a parent star, then a large fraction of the star’s solar energy could be intercepted and put to a useful purpose. The light energy would ultimately be converted to heat energy, or infrared (IR) wavelengths. So, if we SETI by looking for anomalous infrared stellar sources, we just might detect or capture evidence of a vast extraterrestrial astro-engineering projects, known in the trade as Dyson Spheres. The trick will be to distinguish a natural IR source from an artificial one. Further complicating matters is that the search pretty much has to be conducted from above Earth’s atmosphere which is pretty opaque to IR wavelengths.

STATIC SETI: Pulsars

When pulsars were first discovered, they were immediately thought to be the SETI smoking gun, and were named LGM 1, LGM 2, etc. where LGM stood for “Little Green Man”. Alas, it quickly became apparent that in terms of SETI, pulsars were too much of a good thing, now numbering in the thousands, and a natural alternative explanation quickly came to the fore – rapidly rotating neutron stars. However, if author Paul LaViolette* is to be believed, pulsars are not naturally rapid rotating neutron stars but artificially constructed interstellar navigation and communication beacons – the product or creation of ETI. Fortunately pulsars stay put and thus LaViolette’s ideas can be tested.

STATIC SETI: Planetary Disequilibrium

Another possible example of static SETI is the search for planetary atmospheres in chemical disequilibrium – the search in all probability for bio-signatures. Earth’s atmosphere is in a state of disequilibrium; so apparently is Titan’s atmosphere. The ‘intelligence’ part comes in regarding the detection of unnatural pollutants, again in disequilibrium. A variation on that theme is to look for anomalies in a star’s spectrum, say for uranium, plutonium, radium, thorium, or technetium. Finding such would be suspicious – hey, what’s going on here? The answer being that a technological civilization used their parent star as a nuclear waste dump (quite a sensible idea); or to advertise their existence.

STATIC SETI: The Sun

As per above, there are some who have suggested that extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced technologies might deliberately ‘pollute’ their parent star with unnatural or anomalous elements, perhaps an exercise in radioactive waste disposal. The upshot being that the stellar spectra of such ‘polluted’ stars would give the game away that there was intelligence afoot since no natural process could account for such anomalous spectra. Now if such a strategy were used as a calling card by said extraterrestrials, perhaps they have artificially altered the natural solar spectra of our Sun. Alas, I assume by now our Sun’s spectra has been analysed and re-analysed and re-re-analysed with nothing anomalous discovered.

STATIC SETI: The Moon

If you want to leave a message or a calling card akin to “Kilroy was here” for someone unknown or unknowable in the future (whether near future or distant future is also unknown) what would you do, especially if you had some space-faring capability? Translate that scenario now and assume that there must have been some sort of visit to Planet Earth by ET(s) over the past several billion years (and Earth was inhabited even if only by microbes at that time) and maybe they left behind their equivalent of “Kilroy was here”. Well you wouldn’t leave your calling card on Planet Earth since Planet Earth is both geologically and meteorologically active and the ocean bottom isn’t much better. You wouldn’t leave it in high Earth orbit or at the Langranian Points since that makes your message a moving target and/or subject to dislodgment from gravitational forces say from a passing near Earth asteroid or a close encounter with a passing comet. Solar flares, etc. over the long haul could also disrupt any stable orbit. Positioning the message elsewhere in the Solar System is probably placing it too distantly away requiring too much power to sustain itself over the long haul – assuming ET supplied it with batteries – or placement would result in just too much real estate to have to cover for future recipients. What about the Moon as a repository for an alien artefact or two? Did Arthur C. Clarke get it right in “2001: A Space Odyssey”?

The Moon has and hasn’t for all practical purposes any dynamic geology or meteorology and certainly no ocean bottoms. The Moon is not, for all practical purposes a moving target as we tend to think of moving targets. Has the Moon ever been targeted by SETI? Not formally to the best of my knowledge.

If there was an EM beacon on the Moon broadcasting on our radio/TV frequencies we’d know about it. I imagine there must have been times when the Moon was in view or in the line of sight with radio telescopes doing traditional interstellar electromagnetic (radio) SETI analysis. If so, no dice resulted. I imagine the Moon (from space) has been looked at in the ultraviolet, infrared, and other parts of the EM spectrum not readily accessible from ground level. Still, I think a formal SETI attack on the Moon might not be a bad thing – if only to dot I’s and cross all the T’s.

QUASI-STATIC SETI: Transient Lunar Phenomena

For more years than you can shake a stick at - and that’s a lot of years - anomalous lights, glows, or luminescences have been seen and recorded on the Moon by astronomers, both amateur and professional. These enigmatic lights have been tagged with the general phrase Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP). They come and go with total unpredictability. The usual theory is some sort of volcanic activity, maybe a meteor impact, but to date they remain just one of those mysteries Mother Nature chucks our way. TLP’s require far more investigation, just in case they have a ‘Kilroy’ aspect to them.

STATIC SETI: Alien Artefacts

The ‘Face on Mars’ is probably the best known example of an ‘alien artefact’, and when first photographed by a Viking orbiting space probe it indeed looked like a human ‘face’. However, later photographs under differing lighting conditions just revealed a big rock that had to be lit just so in order to show a pseudo-‘face’. Though the ‘Face on Mars’ proved not to be a real ‘face’, the key point with respect to SETI is that the ‘face’ stood still to be photographed and studied another day under differing conditions. It stood still!

STATIC SETI: Ancient Astronauts

Many myths and legends, from ancient cultures around the world, especially surrounding religious figures of all-powerful deities, can often be reinterpreted in terms of flesh-and-blood aliens as opposed to supernatural gods and goddesses. Alas, while provocative, its marginal evidence at best for ancient astronauts. Engineering feats seemingly impossible for ancient societies are equally provocative, are bona-fide archaeological mysteries, but are again just marginal evidence for high-tech aliens, not smoking guns. However, if there were artefacts, images or equivalent, indisputably produced by ancient man yet which clearly exhibited a degree of knowledge they could not have possessed, that’s a different horse of quite another colour. As a hypothetical example, if there was an image or carving clearly showing the planet Saturn and satellites, all in correct proportionality, in say an ancient Egyptian tomb that would be more than just something provocative. Ditto the image of a kangaroo or a map showing Tasmania or Long Island (N.Y.). Even better would be a really real alien artefact with a “made in Krypton” stamped on it somewhere! Regardless, I suggest a detailed examination of ancient artefacts/images as viewed from the eyes and perspective of a physical, even biological scientist or geographer as opposed to a traditional archaeologist might be in order. Even    

STATIC SETI: Crop Circles

Crop circles stand-sit-lie still (as it were until farmers mow them down) but I’m not convinced they have anything to do with ETI, even if they are high strangeness. But if they do, have anything to do with ETI that is, they would a tempting SETI target.

STATIC SETI: Junk DNA

Some out-of-the-box thinkers have suggested that aliens might have left an internal message within us (as in terrestrial life) that ‘Kilroy was here’ the message being in the form of a coding within those parts of an organism’s DNA that isn’t particularly used for anything – junk DNA. The only problem I see with that is that even junk DNA can and will mutate and thus change the message, just like changing one letter in a word can render that word meaningless. 

CONCLUSION

Our Moon offers the best bet for uncovering evidence that aliens have been (and maybe still are) in our neck of the stellar woods. Since the Moon is close by, and can be observed 24/7 (we know where it is at all times) and is a logical place for aliens to have left evidence of any visitation, it should be the focus of SETI. Such evidence, by implication, would prove that ET exists, or at least one ET existed once upon a time.

*LaViolette, Paul; The Talk of the Galaxy: An ET Message for Us?; Starlane Publications, Alexandria, VA; 2000.



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part Two

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE CYBORG: ARTIFICIAL BODY BITS & PIECES

We’re already on the way with the merger of man and machine; the natural with the artificial.

Head & Neck: There’s dentures; teeth fillings; eyeglasses; hearing aids; the bionic ear; the bionic eye; speech synthesisers; metal skull replacement head plates, etc.

Waist Up: We’ve implanted pacemakers; heart valves; artificial hearts; arm prosthetics; artificial shoulder, elbow and wrist joints; artificial kidneys (via kidney dialysis); and the iron lung.

Waist Down: At the very least there are artificial hip, knee and ankle joints; leg prosthetics, peg legs; and leg braces.

General: You wear clothes (replacing fur, feathers and scales); you wrap yourself in a heating blanket; you ‘wear’ your car in that you wrap it around you (or bicycle, skateboard, roller skates, etc. – they become a part or extension of you); the mobile/smart phone is an obvious example of the merger of flesh and machine, and one where all too often it’s the technology controlling the user, not the user controlling the technology. People use walking canes/sticks; walkers; and wheelchairs, some motorized and some so integral or inseparable to their users or ‘wearers’ that they jointly appear to be a virtual cybernetic entity – think of the most famous or widely known case history cosmologist-astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his wheelchair come quasi-life-enhancing system, though that pales compared to the environmental suits worn by astronauts – moon walkers or EVA space-walkers – or deep-sea divers. Then there is plastic surgery.

What’s Next: Common in various medical situations are drips that via gravity ‘feed’ patients with their necessary drug, energy and other required vitamin/mineral supplements. That suggests to me that one can bypass the entire digestive system (teeth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine) by just having a one-way artificial valve that connects the outer skin surface with the bloodstream and that all body nutriments in the required amounts custom designed for the needs of any specific individual be injected directly into their bloodstream via this valve on an as-needed basis.

But the ultimate will be the desire or need to eliminate all flesh-and-blood bits-and-pieces, thus all diseases (including ageing) and injuries associated with flesh-and-blood, by keeping the only bit that’s really necessary – the mind – and recreating the wetware contents as software, downloaded into hardware within a nearly immortal plastic and steel ‘body’.   

EXPLANATIONS RELATED TO ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS AND UFOs

What might extraterrestrial robotics help explain when it comes to ancient astronaut theory and the UFO phenomena? A few items come to the fore.

Dragons are universals in human mythology. All cultures have dragon-lore. Anytime there is a concept that cuts across all societies, one needs to sit up and take notice. Dragons, for example, aren’t a one-off, confines say to ancient China. Dragons are frequently represented as the go-between the ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts or extraterrestrials) and humans. Given their ‘fire-breathing’ nature and ability to fly, it’s not inconceivable that dragons were really real, but not flesh-and-blood creatures but high-tech extraterrestrial devices of an aerial nature.

Hybrids, either human-animal or animal-animal (like dragons) are another example of a universal in human mythology that needs some coming to grips with. Though I’ve postulated that mythological hybrids, like say the Sphinx, might have been products of alien genetic engineering, it’s not that easy to say graft on a pair of wings on a horse (i.e. – Pegasus) and have it fly. There’s a lot of anatomical infrastructure that needs to be addressed and redesigned in order to make that happen. If these hybrids were mechanical or robotic, that avoids a lot of messy genetic mucking around with flesh-and-blood.  

UFOs and the Greys: So, might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence (ETAI)? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ETI. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to robotics or artificial intelligence (AI), including their outward appearance.

One other factor in favour of the UFO being a representation of ETAI instead of ETI is that some UFOs have been observed, eyeball and radar, to make manoeuvres that no squishy flesh-and-blood body could withstand but would be of little consequence to silicon chips. 

SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a logical evolutionary development that supersedes Natural (biological squishy) Intelligence housed in wetware. Once AI takes the reins, there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle and AI just goes from strength to strength. Assuming technological civilizations can last relatively lengthy periods of time, odds suggest most of a civilization’s timeline will be of the software variety relative to the wetware variety.

Though there’s no theoretical impediment to wetware crisscrossing, exploring and colonizing the galaxy, there’s even less, way, way less theoretical impediment to software doing the same, especially if software supersedes wetware relatively quickly and thus has a greater timeframe in which to accomplish this. If they don’t find you coming from one direction, they will find you coming from the opposite side since the odds are great that there are lots of advanced robotic civilizations out there.  

Since humans are the new boys on the old galactic block, we’re way, way, way more likely to have been discovered (probably hundreds of times over) by extraterrestrial civilizations hundreds, thousands, even millions of years our seniors. The odds are vastly in favour of such a discovery or rather discoveries by alien others, especially robotic alien others since robots are more likely to have a long-term existence and ease in boldly going.

Thus, there is quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of ancient visitations by ancient (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. That being the case, there is also quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of modern visitations by modern (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. There are some facets of the ancient astronaut and the modern (UFO) astronaut hypothesis that are better explained by robotic software than flesh-and-blood wetware.



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part One

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

When it comes to UFO entities, ancient astronauts, and aliens in general as depicted in sci-fi films and television; even short stories and novels, for the most part they presented as normal squishy flesh-and-blood organisms, even if they have green blood, pointed ears, antenna, or are living rocks, like “Star Trek’s” Horta. Even “Doctor Who’s” Daleks are partly squishy; ditto the Cybermen also of “Doctor Who” fame.

However, I suggest that for the normal picture of all things extraterrestrial substitute flesh-and-blood (natural CHON – Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen – or related) for artificial constructions made from silicon and steel. Call them robots or androids or just plain artificial intelligence; call them Data (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) or HAL (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) or V’Ger (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) or Gort (“The Day the Earth Stood Still” – and by the by, in the original short story, it was the robot that was the master and in charge, not the flesh-and-blood alien Klaatu). And who can forget R2-D2 or 3CPO (“Star Wars”). So, IMHO, if you have an up close and personal encounter with an ET, it’s not going to be with biological intelligence but with technological or artificial intelligence.

Extraterrestrial or terrestrial, our sci-fi films are full of intelligent machines or robots, from “I, Robot” to “Futureworld” and “Westworld” (where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong) to “Cherry 2000” to “The Stepford Wives” to “Saturn 3” to the “Bicentennial Man” to the entire “Transformers” series. Today it’s sci-fi; tomorrow it’s science-fact.

Several reasons suggest why.

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE MACHINE

Any scientifically advanced alien society will sooner or later invent the computer or equivalent. Once invented, you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Machines are gaining the upper hand here at Terra Firma and have been ever since humans came up with the idea of a tool. If you doubt this, ask any typical teen/young adult to do without their mobile/smart-phone and/or tablet; ask a housewife to forgo the programmable microwave oven, her vacuum cleaner or programmable dishwasher; ask a househusband to hand over the remote or the keys to his new red sports car with state of the art GPS and other computer programmable accessories (necessary therapy for those suffering from male menopause). And where would NASA be without all those robotic space probes to the Moon and planets (some of which have to have a rudimentary degree of intelligence since radio commands from Earth can take quite some considerable time to reach the planetary rover)?  Even if one excludes non-programmable ‘dumb’ machines and machine technologies like clothes dryers, coffee makers, lawn mowers, and radar, the number of ‘smart’ machines – super computers, PCs, tablets, smart-phones, etc. is getting damn close right now to the human population. One can even buy today robotic toys, ‘pets’ and even companions for the very sick, elderly, outcasts or lonely. Can sex with robotic partners be far behind?

Computing crunch power increases by order of magnitudes faster than biological wetware crunch power (Moore’s Law). Human intellectual capacity hasn’t increased very much, if at all, over the past 50,000 years or so – our IQ has flat-lined. Machine intelligence, though off to a slow start all those 50,000 years ago, is however increasing at an exponential rate. The lines have to cross eventually; sometime. The crossover point is tipped for the not too distant future and probably within the lifetime of most viewers reading this. Computer programs can already beat you every time at chess and a host of other games besides. 

Unlike humans, computers can link up to form a super-computer (recall the film “Colossus: The Forbin Project”) otherwise known today as the Internet. Or, in other words, eventually an artificial intelligence can merge with another artificial intelligence to create a mega artificial intelligence, which in turn could merge with another mega artificial intelligence, and so on.

As noted above, there will come a time when machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, surpasses biological or wetware intelligence. That will become a point where computers will become intelligent and self-aware enough to pass the Turing Test – that’s where someone cannot tell the difference between a human or a computer answering questions in an interview type of scenario.

Once wetware becomes dependent on software, intelligent self-aware machines call the shots and they are in control. Whether this human-machine relationship remains a symbiotic one or not is not that relevant since the relationship will not be 50-50. Recall the “Terminator” films!

The increase in artificial intelligence will ever increase faster and faster, especially when intelligent machines can themselves design their own next generation and the generation after that all in a matter of days, hours, and minutes. And reproduction is not an issue. ‘Asexual’ robotic reproduction is a given – one machine builds a copy, or more likely as not, a better copy of itself, and as many as deemed necessary, especially if they are sent out into the cosmos to ‘boldly go’ where probably lots of other robotics probes from other civilizations have gone before. See below.

In the timeline of any technologically advanced alien society, odds are great that the bulk of that timeline will be represented by artificial intelligence relative to wetware or biological intelligence.

Most alien societies will be not just dozens, hundreds, thousands of years in advance of human society, but hundreds of thousands to millions of years more advanced. That is to say, most alien societies will be artificially intelligent societies; robotic societies if you will.

When it comes from getting from somewhere out there (wherever that is) to here (Planet Earth), robotic ‘life’ forms have all the advantages.

They have, for all practical purposes, robots or intelligent computers or artificial intelligence (for lack of a better word or phrase) would have a lifespan measured in such timeframes as to make any interstellar travel equivalent to humans taking a leisurely stroll around their local park. There’s no need for energy intensive interstellar velocities even remotely approaching the speed of light. The galaxy has been around long enough to allow for exploration (and colonization) hundreds of times over at even expansion rates one percent light speed. 

They (robots again) have no need for all of the cumbersome and weight enhancing luxuries of what humans or biological entities would require for interstellar journeys: life-support basically in the form of artificial gravity, an atmosphere, heating, food and water, waste recycling technologies, privacy requirements, sex, entertainment, etc. Any saving in weight is a saving in energy. Robotic ‘life’ forms could cross the galaxy (or just go from star A to star B) in what for all practical purposes one could describe as shutdown or sleep mode.

Why would artificial intelligences (AI) boldly go in any event? Any intelligences designing AI must exhibit a mastery of science and technology. In order to achieve that they must exhibit that trait we call curiosity. That trait, instilled into AI, or intelligent wetware downloaded into silicon chips, would exhibit curiosity. What’s over that hill translated into a cosmic setting is what’s beyond that star and the one beyond that, etc.

One flaw in advocating a pure form of robotic intelligence boldly going is that one could argue instead that it’s the original biological entities who need to boldly go, but that’s easily accomplished if their wetware in an organic housing (i.e. – their skull) could be downloaded as software in a metallic housing. That humans could download their mind into a computer has been suggested and advocated by many as a technologically feasible way to achieve virtual immortality. By the by, that human wetware downloaded as robotic software, that feasibility has been suggested as being possible within this century, not millennia down the track.

We’ve made a start already!

To be continued…



First Contact: ETI vs. ETAI

Science fiction and predictive science ‘fact’ scenarios about human-alien First Contact are usually based around flesh-and-blood meeting and greeting flesh-and-blood, even if the blood colour is red meeting green. For the sake of thrilling sci-fi audiences, First Contact is often depicted as meeting and beating (to a pulp) flesh-and-blood by flesh-and-blood. There are far more sci-fi and predictive science ‘fact’ scenarios that explore alien invasion relative to a friendly and diplomatic “take me to your leader”. However, a way more likely First Contact scenario is alien silicon-and-chips meets/greets/discovers human flesh-and-blood.

Thanks to the movies, we probably all know what ET stands for. Then there’s ETI which is ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. I’m going to introduce here a new acronym, ETAI, or ExtraTerrestrial Artificial Intelligence. 

Any and all assumptions about extraterrestrial intelligences have to be based on terrestrial intelligence, since we don’t have any sample, to date, of ETI. I’m going to ignore ‘ancient astronauts’ and the UFO issue (for the moment) in the context of this essay since not everyone reading this will be comfortable with that being evidence for actual ETI. 

Human intelligence (HI) has been around for several millions of years. Modern human intelligence, as per Homo sapiens, has been around for only some 200,000 years. While there’s little doubt human IQ has increased over those millions of years, it certainly hasn’t improved much more over the past 200,000 years. Translated, increases in brain power, neuron connections, IQ, grunt grey matter processing power, problem solving abilities, call it what you will, while maybe sure, is also damn slow! Biological evolution doesn’t tend to operate in the fast lane.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has only been around several generations, if that, but increases in artificial ‘brain’ power, neuron (silicon chip) connections, robotic IQ, grunt silicon chip  processing power, problem solving abilities by machines, call it what you will, is equally a sure thing, but damn fast, in fact exponentially fast. Biological evolution is not applicable here.

The unavoidable upshot is that sooner or later, the two lines, slowly increasing levels of human intelligence and very rapidly increasing levels of artificial machine intelligence, are going to intersect. You can bet the family farm on that. It’s a sure thing. In fact the current intersection or crossover date is projected to be on or about the year 2020. However you attempt to define artificial intelligence, the grunt processing power of silicon chips, well it’s doubling roughly every 18 months or so. Translated, your PC, or laptop, in 2013 is way more powerful and ‘intelligent’ than the computers and computing ‘intelligence’ that served the Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Interesting questions start to come to the fore immediately after those two lines, HI (human intelligence) and AI (artificial intelligence) intersect and thereafter. That Chinese curse about ‘interesting times’ may well make itself felt. HI is not likely to be comfortable when AI starts making off with the Nobel Prizes.

One question that comes to mind is whether or not AI will start to direct its own AI evolution, or will AI remain in HI hands?

That most obvious question is who will be in control once AI surpasses HI and keeps surging ahead by ever greater leaps and bounds? Let’s be optimistic and say that humans will retain control over their machines, a scenario that runs counter to many a sci-fi scenario, even some non-fiction futuristic projections.

Okay, so AI will do the bidding of HI. One, of many, AI applications, already well and truly demonstrated, is that AI can boldly go where no HI can go, at least in the foreseeable, even relatively long-term future. We launch AI probes and rovers to Mars and elsewhere in the solar system, not HI. Why? Several reasons come to mind that reflects among other factors NASA’s mantra of “cheaper, faster, better”. Space maybe the final frontier, but it’s also a very dangerous frontier as Apollo 13 adequately demonstrated. There were mishaps and anxious moments as well with both the Mercury and Gemini space programs. Space is also a very deadly frontier as we saw with several Space Shuttle disasters. Russia has suffered human loses too in its space program.

Space is a realm with extremes of temperature, radiation, and gravity; space flight has relatively slow velocities required for the distances needed to be covered, and long durations of voyages all conspire against sending HI deep into space relative to AI. AI just doesn’t need expensive and massive life support (temperature, water, food, waste disposal, etc.) systems, in space or anywhere else for that matter, and if AI crash-lands and bites the dust, well that’s way more acceptable than the demise of a human(s) who tried to boldly go.

Economics frequently rule the roost, and it costs just a fraction to send AI out there in boldly going territory relative to HI. That applies equally well to interstellar voyages of exploration as it does to interplanetary exploration, which is what our generation is concerned with. But, there will be human generations to come, the stars will beckon, but since the difficulty of sending HI to the stars relative to AI is massive, well the initial (at first) envoys to the stars will be terrestrial AI.

Humans in near or deep space may still be popular fare in the cinemas and sci-fi novels, but the romance has gone away when it comes to reality and the general public who has to foot the bill. Contrast all those utopian visions from the 50’s, 60’s even 70’s of humans living in space by the year 2001 – massive space stations (O’Neill Colonies); colonies on the Moon even men on Mars. Contrast the ‘futuristic’ space settings of “2001: A Space Odyssey” (the movie) with what became 2001’s reality. No contest. You’ll see that the idea of humans in space somewhere along the line went down the gurgler. Were it not for the geopolitical and military rivalry between the USSR and the USA (the Cold War), there probably to this very day would not of have been lunar exploration other than by remote controlled unmanned probes and rovers. Near Earth orbit would have been as far as humans had boldly gone. I mean just as soon as America had proven it had won the space race to the Moon, the plug was pulled and the final three Apollo Moon missions abandoned. It was a case of buying the Rolls Royce then keeping it in the garage because you couldn’t afford the gasoline for it, or rather the taxpayers didn’t want to pay for the additional gasoline. After the first couple of Moon landings, the public complained when their daytime TV soap operas got interrupted to cover the later Apollo Moon missions.

The initial hype about the Space Shuttle proved to be just that – hype – and now even the Space Shuttle is gone. So, it’s little wonder we’ve turned to cheaper, better, faster space probes with (at this stage) rudimentary AI. If aliens experienced a parallel scenario, perhaps they turned to AI as well, especially when interplanetary voyages morphed into interstellar ones and the difficulty factors increased exponentially.

So in keeping with parallels between humans and ET, we have to assume that ETI will also be developing ETAI and that ultimately ETAI will eclipse and surpass ETI and ultimately ETI will instruct ETAI to be their envoys to the stars since ETI will face the same interstellar obstacles that HI does.

One other point, HI has only been around for about 200,000 years, several million if you wish to acknowledge human intelligence before Homo sapiens were evolved in Mother Nature’s philosophy. Now contrast that to the age of our galaxy which is at least ten billion, up to perhaps thirteen billion years old. What odds that HI is anything other than the new intelligence on the galactic block? Translated, ETI is way more likely to find us, than we are of finding them, or, more likely as not, for reasons noted above, ETAI will find us first.

The final part of the equation is that there’s more than enough time for any one of ETI’s ETAI to be anywhere and everywhere. ETAI can be mass produced. ETAI might even reproduce themselves using natural resources found in space. There could be dozens of ETAI probes around each and every star in the galaxy, and billions more between the stars just cruising and boldly going. The time it would take ETAI to explore every nook and cranny of the galaxy, even at a crawl (say 1% light speed), is just a tiny fraction of the age of our galaxy. Lastly, why Earth? Earth is interesting real estate since Earth has a biosphere, bound to attract the attention of an ETAI probe, and of course Earth doesn’t have a Star Trek cloaking device so we can’t hide from any potential ETAI surveillance.

So, if aliens come knocking, might they actually be an ETAI instead of a flesh-and-blood ETI? 

Now I’ll continue to ignore the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue since none of us were around back when ‘ancient astronauts’ were alleged to have been around, but we’re all a part of the UFO generation; those bona-fide unidentified UFOs that have been associated with ETI for well over six decades now. Perhaps, given the above logic, they should be identified with ETAI instead, since it’s just about inevitable that if you accept even one ETI, and then you accept their nearly inevitable ETAI, and given that HI are the new boys on the galactic block, then… Well you can easily fill in the ‘then’ for yourselves, but it boils down to the fact that humans are way more likely to be the discovered than the discoverer.

So, might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an ETAI? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ETI. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. As hinted at above, natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to AI, including their appearance.

Now there’s one obvious objection to our generation being the UFO generation. It’s that it would be a super ultra extraordinary coincidence that our generation would be the generation to be on the receiving end of a First Contact visit from ETI or ETAI. But there’s nothing that actually requires that. ETAI might have been hovering around our solar system for untold millions of years. Perhaps there was an initial ‘First Contact’ between ETAI and the dinosaurs, which for obvious reasons went unrecorded in terrestrial geo-history. Rather thwarted in getting a reasonably intelligent response from T-Rex, out ETAI just cooled their silicon chip heels and waited, and waited. Then humans turned up (somewhat interesting) and eventually those humans came up with really advanced technologies (very, very interesting).

So, in conclusion, all up it’s probably going to be way more productive to do SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) in the near Earth environment if for no other reason than they (ETAI) are just as likely to be around here as ETI will be lounging around their home stars, and searching near here is searching in a lot less space, and as we all know from the inverse square law, the closer your object, the stronger the signal you’re likely to get. Less is more; stronger is better.

The Colonization of Space

We have seen via the Fermi Paradox that without any violation in the laws of physics, and given even modest technological assumptions, that the time that it takes to explore and colonize our galaxy (The Milky Way) is but a small fraction of the age of the Milky Way Galaxy. So where is everybody? Where are our cosmic neighbours? Let’s now assume that there is no everybody, or anybody, or neighbours, just us. We’re the proverbial “It” and the galaxy beckons as our cosmic playground. So what happens next? Do we boldly go, or do our machines?

UFO sceptics would have you believe that interstellar space travel is at best highly improbable, and at worst impossible. Therefore, UFOs cannot represent the technology of a space-faring race of extraterrestrials. Hogwash! Unfortunately for the sceptics, fact number one is that one doesn’t need any wormhole or theoretical ‘warp drive’ or other ‘Star Trek’ type techno-babble to explore the galaxy and boldly go where no alien has gone before.  Sure, space is really BIG! Planet Earth was really BIG to human society many centuries ago, but that didn’t stop the planet being explored from pole to pole, even if individual journeys took many years. And bacteria, insects, birds, and other life forms preceded us in exploring and colonizing Planet Earth. Terrestrial analogies aside, what if you have an alien race with life spans way, way surpassing ours?  Then there’s a possible likely alternative, a bit of the old genetic engineering to increase life expectancy? Or there’s the likelihood of enhanced bioengineering (part flesh; part machine) to accomplish the same goal. What if an exploring race were to adopt those old stand-by sci-fi concepts of suspended animation or a multi-generation interstellar spaceship?

But when crunch comes crunch, sure space is really BIG, but it is also very old. There’s lots of time available to explore and colonize starting a few light years outward at a time. Consolidate, and then expand some more. Repeat as often as required. The time it would take to explore and colonize the Milky Way Galaxy (that is, via interstellar travel) is but a small fraction of the age of that galaxy even if a race of ET’s never travelled at more that say 1% to 10% the speed of light. Such velocities, while pretty fast by our current abilities, shouldn’t be beyond the means of a technologically advanced race. Consult any elementary astronomy text for the relevant distances and volumes and ages and do the calculations for yourself if you doubt this.

And once here (within easy reach of, or in our solar system), having a nearby base of operations as it were, one can easily have a whole plethora of UFOs visiting Earth on a regular or routine basis.  It’s not a case of one UFO taking ten thousand years to visit, then returning home taking another ten thousand years in the process, and having hundreds or thousands of such alien spacecraft doing the same. If you want to explore the South Pole over the long term, you don’t make a daily commute from Sydney or New York – you set up a long-term base camp near or at the South Pole! 

If there are no advanced extraterrestrial races out there, and that’s a possibility that has to be considered, then eventually we’ll reach that hypothetical level of technology that we current assume aliens might have. Now while such significant, but still subluminal velocities are beyond the capacity of the human race today, eventually, perhaps 1000 years from now, maybe more, maybe less, we’ll advance towards and attain that level of technological sophistication. And 1000 years (give or take) is but a nanosecond in terms of cosmic and galactic time frames. Recall the level of technological sophistication humanity had 1000 years ago! Leaps and bounds have been made since then, and then some. What will another 1000 years bring?

[Note that intergalactic space travel (one galaxy to another galaxy) is quite another can of worms. The distance from one side of our galaxy to the other is tiny relative to the vast distances to our neighbouring galaxies. Even Star Trek stayed within our own galaxy, and they had warp drive!]

When viewing what exploration of space we’ve achieved to date, we note that the first pioneers weren’t the right stuff, flesh-and-blood human beings, but devices composed of hardier stuff, like metals and plastics. An orbiting metallic Sputnik preceded any journeys by Russian cosmonauts. The unmanned lunar surveyors preceded Project Apollo. Unmanned space probes have landed on Mars, Venus, Titan, boldly going where no human has yet even remotely ventured. And so that will probably be true as well as humanity extends its reach beyond our solar system.

Way back when, human society was mainly a rural one with manual back-breaking existences, not only for man, but animal as well. Then came the industrial revolution and labour got easier and machines took on more and more of the burden. Our mental burdens got easier too. We don’t have to read anymore as we have radio, TV, talking books and DVDs. We don’t have to add and subtract – calculators do it for us. We don’t need to spell as our PCs come equipped with spell checkers. Our technology isn’t just making our muscles less necessary, but our brains as well. And while human muscles and the human brain haven’t increased much in strength or potential intellectual capacity over the past multi-thousands of years, our technological muscles and brains have. It’s been pointed out that the average home PC today has vastly more ‘brain power’ than the computers used to guide Apollo to the Moon. And how many of us could beat a computer at chess, or checkers? Silicon chips are becoming ‘intelligent’ at a vastly faster rate than the brain stuff we are made out of - CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen & Nitrogen). Silicon’s ‘brain cells’ or computer chips, and the software to utilize them are becoming ever more sophisticated and at a rapid rate of knots. We’ve all seen a sci-fi robot, android, whatever. The phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ has entered into common usage.  How much longer before science fiction becomes science fact and silicon software replaces carbon wetware? 

The question has been posed whether or not artificial intelligence is the next logical evolutional step. And while humans may remain in control (or maybe not), they will be dependant on that technology, of that you can be assured. So, the question arises, why send CHON flesh-and-blood into space when silicon chips and software will do, and do better? It’s been argued that artificial intelligence can make the trip to the stars on our behalf. They don’t need life support – food, oxygen, a narrow range of temperatures, sleep, gravity, or as much protection from radiation, etc. They can exist on a minimal energy source, nuclear most likely.

It’s been postulated that artificial intelligent space probes could explore the cosmos, land on suitable abodes and using the local resources found there (minerals, metals, available energy supplies, etc.), ‘reproduce’ themselves from internal programming given before the fact, and thus spread throughout the galaxy. Such probes are called von Neumann probes, after the famous mathematician who advanced the idea.  Meantime, while they do all the dangerous dirty work, we humans just continue to inhabit Terra and live the good life.

Two objections can be raised to a galaxy filled with space travelling artificial intelligences. Firstly, it’s going to take a lot to extinguish the human spirit of exploration. We want to experience the cosmos, and exploring via a surrogate isn’t going to cut the mustard in the long term.

Secondly, I find it difficult to visualize a space probe, however artificially intelligent, that can somehow reproduce itself from scratch using the raw resources of another planet. I find that a pretty tall order.  Just visualize the various technological processes that would require. It would have to be able to mine, perform smelting operations, manufacturing, fine detailed precision work, all at various locations etc. I won’t say it can’t happen, but I somehow doubt it will happen.

All up, while silicone and steel might be the pathfinders, CHON, even if it’s alien CHON, will ultimately explore, colonize and rule the galaxy. Again, for the purposes of explaining the Fermi Paradox, there exists no extraterrestrial CHON, only terrestrial CHON, so that explains the ‘where is everybody?’ question.

Artificial intelligence apart, human beings have taken control of their own evolution, it’s no longer just natural selection, but artificial enhancement. For quite some considerable time now, we’ve augmented our flesh-and-blood with artificial materials and devices, cosmetic and life enhancing – plastic heart valves, hearing aids, artificial joints, wigs, dentures, etc. And while not quite artificial in terms of non-organic materials and devices, we now have artificial selection in the sense of genetic engineering, the era of the designer baby.

So, sooner or later, humanity’s flesh-and-blood, assuming we’re still flesh-and-blood and not composed mainly of sturdier materials (CHON plus iron and silicon and plastics and ceramics, etc.), we will desire to get away from it all (Earth and our solar system). That’s true even if we have evolved into something more akin to a hybrid of the biological and the artificial, and/or evolved ourself into a race of quasi-supermen (and women). 

But desire is one thing. Might there be something even stronger forcing us to ‘boldly go’?

So what’s that other more seriously driving incentive to ‘boldly go…’? I mean scientific curiosity is all well and good, but it’s going to be expensive to satisfy that curiosity. Wanting to vacation on some idyllic planet around another star system is fine, but extra-solar tourism is a luxury, not a necessity. There is another incentive, a far more powerful one, and that is survival. No star lasts forever. Sooner or later, our star is going to make our existence a misery. In fact, sooner or later, our sun will be the death of us all. If humans are still around when that peril makes itself apparent, we’ll need to escape to another star system. Finding a suitable one is going to call for us to be ‘boldly going…’! Of course other earlier disaster scenarios could force us to flee sooner – the threat of a swarm of killer comets dislodged from either the Oort Cloud and/or the Kuiper Belt heading our way or the likelihood of a nearby star going supernova would give us incentive to get the hell out of here!

Further readings:

Gilster, Paul; Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration; Copernicus Books, New York; 2004:

Macvey, John W.; Interstellar Travel: Past, Present, and Future; Stein and Day, New York; 1977:

Boldly Going: Part Two

Rather than having a spaceship carry a passenger, have the passenger be an actual part of the spaceship!

Okay, so you want to boldly go. The problem is, you’re not small and you’re not light and you require life support like oxygen and water and food and a bed and artificial gravity and things to keep you occupied and psychologically sound and healthy over hundreds to thousands of years spent travelling. But, again, on reflection, ultimately the only part of you that actually needs to boldly go is your mind. Why bother taking your big toe along for the journey, or your wisdom teeth or for that matter the rest of the biological you along for the ride? All those body parts are just going to age and create health issues and complicate things. They get in the way of efficiently boldly going. You can see where this is leading I’m sure!

If you want to boldly go, without all that additional biological baggage, just download the contents of you mind into your spaceship’s computer. Because that’s not quite feasible today, I’m assuming that this takes place in the future, albeit not that distant future relative to human history – say just 200 to 300 years distant. You and associated spaceship – call it the Enterprise is you wish to – boldly go, molasses style, into the cosmos, seeking out – well new worlds, even if not new life and new civilizations. You get to explore and colonize new extraterrestrial real estate. 

Of course for the sake of the reproduction apex, you’d need to have low weight, small sized; no real life support needed, eggs and sperm on board. Under your guidance, you get to play stepmother and father and raise a new generation, which, ultimately, in turn, will download and boldly go!

Throwing around the idea of transferring the contents of your mind from brain to computer needs a bit of rationalization and explanation. It just seems to me that if you can build a machine (a computer say) and give it artificial intelligence (AI), then you can build a machine (perhaps a futuristic quantum computer) and give it an existing human intelligence (the mind – same difference) by downloading it directly from brain to machine.

So, let’s compare and contrast your ‘mind in machine’ vs. your ‘mind in the brain’ options with respect to boldly going.

Mind in the brain: Your brain has a fixed/limited capacity. Your brain is subject to aging, disease and injury. Your brain is not replaceable. Your brain is one copy only.  Your brain has in coming to terms with sensory input a rather limited range (you can’t see ultraviolet (UV) or infrared (IR) for example and thus that range is denied to your brain and thus mind). Your brain needs to sleep, or at least rest a bit. Your brain has a lifespan of about three score and ten years.

Mind in the machine: The machine has a near unlimited capacity – there’s lots of room for your mind to keep on absorbing things. The machine will experience no loss of essential sensory input (audio and visual), and in fact be able to accommodate an expanded range of same (detect UV and IR for example). The machine can be hooked up to other machinery that will provide mobility. The machine is less subject to aging and injury and in any event it is easier to repair and replace as necessary. The mind in machine option means there can be more than one copy of your mind in existence (and let’s leave the ethics of that aside for future philosophers). If you wish to reproduce, your biological eggs or sperm could be separately stored for use on a rainy day (not that you have rainy days in space) – if you wish – but you don’t get unlimited reproduction out of that of course, but then again you don’t have that option in a biological body either in the here and now. The mind in the machine has no need of sleep, but you’d have the option of an ‘off’ switch if you wanted. The mind in the machine may not provide you with immortality, but certainly something a lot longer than three score and ten, and probably long enough to boldly go for hundreds to thousands of years.  

Assuming this scenario actually happens, we note that at this point humanity has split into two ‘species’ – the biological composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (CHON), and the artificial of iron and silicon. Actually, what I suspect might eventuate is that you start off with eggs and sperm, flesh and blood, until your inevitable biological termination nears – then you download your mind into your iron/silicon equivalent and live to think and do another day.

An interesting scenario is that those initially boldly go, be they flesh-and-blood or mind-in-machine or a combination of the two – half-flesh and half artificial parts like bioengineered cybernetic organisms of which current humans are already bona fide examples  - well might these ‘humans’, when they get to their destination, be greeted by their great, great, great, great grandchildren? It’s possible, indeed probable, that advances in propulsion technology might increase the initial molasses-in-Antarctica style of boldly going astronautics to a more water-in-the-tropics rate of flow. If initial velocities are some 1% to 10% light speed, then 200 years later 20% plus the speed of light becomes achievable, then despite the original boldly goers having a long head start, later generations could overtake their slower ancestors and arrive first!

Let’s now turn the tables around – flip the coin. Will aliens boldly go, and in the manner I’ve outlined for humans? Actually, given that we’re the new boys on the block, that’s actually ‘have aliens already boldly gone’?

Aliens could have seeded Earth, either via remote probes with microbial payloads, or perhaps in a more up-close-and-personal manner all those billions of terrestrial years ago. There’s no way we could really ever know, but it can’t be ruled out that our ancestry might be traceable back before our solar system even existed.

Extraterrestrial equivalents of our Von Neumann probes might be in our solar system right now, mining say asteroids and reproducing like mechanical rabbits. They wouldn’t be large enough to be detectable out there. An interesting question, might they be programmed to ‘seek out new life forms and new civilizations’ at a distance, say by monitoring planetary atmospheres for telltale signatures like the presence of oxygen or methane, or in fact be scanning the solar system for, say radio or microwave electromagnetic radiation of an artificial nature. They could transmit their findings back to home base. Maybe that might result in an eventual visitation and first contact by the parents of extraterrestrial Von Neumann machines. It would be a relatively inexpensive way of exploring the galaxy for life.

Maybe, apart from Von Neumann machines, the aliens are here – here being in our solar system, including not only the near Earth environment, but Earth itself.

Let me ask this, could the UFO itself actually be the alien?

In the very early days of the UFO (nee Flying Saucer) phenomena, one suggestion was that UFOs were alive – space critters that inhabited our solar system but now and again entered our atmosphere. These critters weren’t an intelligence, just an alien animal type organism.

Apart from the contactees, claiming to meet with purely human appearing extraterrestrials, all blonde and blue-eyed hunks and beauty-queens, the actual flesh-and-blood aliens are fairly rare in the UFO literature – with one exception. Before we get to that, only a relatively few UFO close encounters feature occupants – like for example the Lonnie Zamora, Socorro, New Mexico (1964) encounter, and the second to third hand reports of bodies, in say the Roswell (1947) incident.

The main reports of actual alien beings rest mainly with the alleged UFO adduction phenomena, which should not be dismissed out of hand without due research and investigation. If abduction reports are taken at face value, then there’s little doubt that these extraterrestrials have boldly gone in the flesh-and-blood. Well, the very fact that they are here, or could be here, suggests that they must, of necessity, be technologically superior to ourselves, and thus have achieved interstellar travel at somewhat better than the 1% to 10% light speed velocities I’ve postulated. Of course we can’t judge an alien’s lifespan based on our own. For all we know, a journey of dozens to hundreds of light years, at molasses-in-Antarctica velocities, could be to them a big yawn.

Of course we haven’t actually dissected an extraterrestrial being (Roswell perhaps an exception) so we really don’t actually know if these alien beings are really flesh-and-blood. Appearances can be deceiving, or, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. Perhaps they are robotic with realistic skin covering (androids) or cybernetic beings.

Anyway, if UFOs are extraterrestrial sorties into our environment, there’s no evidence to rule out the possibility that they are under the guidance of, what I’ve suggested above, an iron and silicon housed intelligence, which may, or may not, have been CHON initially.

The UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) is controversial at best, so perhaps extrapolating to what the exact nature of the potential alien’s boldly going is, is best left to the imagination – for now.

Boldly Going: Part One

Rather than having a spaceship carry a passenger, have the passenger be an actual part of the spaceship!

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise: its five year [ongoing] mission; to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man [no one] has gone before.”

Who can forget those immortal words from the TV shows Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation? But, will humans somehow ‘make it so’ in a Star Trek envisioned universe? I suggest it’s unlikely at best; more likely near impossible.

The whole premise for the exploration and colonization of space, in the Star Trek universe, rests on warp drive – faster than light (superluminal) travel. Without that, all that boldly going at faster-than-light velocities, comes pretty much down to a rate that molasses flows in Antarctica. Unfortunately, Einstein and generations of physicists after him all sing the same song. Superluminal travel is a big no-no. Also a big no-no for the sake of this essay are the common sci-fi ‘cheats’ of travel through wormholes and other hyperspace scenarios. While they have some theoretical underpinning; the obstacles for practical use are so high that I don’t see them as viable interstellar travel options. I also rule out velocities close to the speed of light because the energy required propelling an object ever faster and faster and closer and closer to near light speeds increases even faster. It does you little good to go from 90% light speed to 91% the speed of light if your energy requirements double or triple! And light speed itself is unobtainable because you’d need an infinite amount of energy to achieve it, and no starship can carry an infinite supply of energy on board.

However, it’s amazing what even sub-light speeds can achieve relative not to a human lifespan, but say to the too date lifespan of the human species. I other words, think thousands to tens-of-thousands, even hundreds-of-thousands of years duration. Is that thinking way too long term? Not when compared to the age of our own solar system, far less the age of our Milky Way galaxy!  Humans could, molasses style, explore and colonise the galaxy, with interstellar velocities physicists would be able to coexist with, in roughly the same order-of-magnitude time frame as it took humans to explore and colonize the Earth.

Faster-than-light (superluminal) propulsion is one of the main things glossed over in the various sci-fi space operas that have been on display, of which Star Trek is an obvious, but only one of many, examples. Where the spaceship’s gravity comes from is obviously another. You see all these Hollywood, etc. spaceships zipping around obviously providing artificial gravity for the occupants, but the ‘how’ is never really adequately explained. The relevant physics is probably even more glossed over that superluminal propulsion. The only way we know to provide a sense of gravity is to rotate your vessel or space station. 2001: A Space Odyssey got that bit spot-on, but it was the exception to the rule. Have you seen the Starship Enterprise rotate? Why don’t Kirk, Spock, Bones and the rest of the Enterprise crew float around the ship? Of course it might be possible to bioengineer humans to withstand zero-G for decades on end and then land on a high gravity planet or in a high gravity environment none the worse for wear, but that’s a pretty big ask. 

Propulsion or gravity aside, that’s not to say humans won’t ever boldly go, it’s just not likely to resemble anything seen on our TV screens (or the silver screen either, for that matter).

Why boldly go at all? There might be some economic benefit to be had in exploiting the resources (mineral and/or energy) of our solar system, maybe settling on the Moon, Mars, or some other real estate in the solar system, maybe just establishing space stations as colonies within a reasonable radius of the Sun. There’s enough real estate and/or space, to keep us confined to the solar system for millennia to come – and then some. There are little economic cost-benefits to be had by exploiting the resources of extra-solar solar systems. If you live in Sydney, why journey to New York for your food shopping when there’s a supermarket across the street!

As for seeking out new civilizations, well that’s what terrestrial SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) is trying to do. SETI is a heck of a lot easier and cheaper than fuelling up the Starship Enterprise!

As a kick-off point, let me suggest three apexes of a triangle than will propel us to eventually boldly go.

Exploration and colonization is in our genes. It’s what we do.

Reproduction is even more in our genes – it’s what we have to do.

Survival, the third apex of this triangle, is also in our genes and collectively is something we must do and must do well (even if all individuals eventually fail to survive and go kaput). Collectively, it’s unwise to put all ones survival eggs in just one real estate basket (Planet Earth). Bad things can happen and if they do you’d better be out of harms way. That one real estate basket also eventually includes our entire solar system, for Mr. Sun isn’t going to last forever. When Mr. Sun goes kaput, we go kaput.

So exploration/colonization, reproduction and survival are linked. Since one can reproduce more individuals per unit of time than die, to avoid ultimate crowding, there’s a need to find new virgin real estate territory. How do you do that? Exploration! The more spread out you are, the less likely something bad is going to cause a mass extinction of a species. Survival! So boldly going is ultimately more about reproduction, and spreading out and colonization, than pure exploration just for the sake of exploring. We’re not going to boldly go and just explore for the hell of it.

So how do we boldly go without faster-than-light Star Trek warp drives? Well, we do it the molasses-in-Antarctica way. Slowly! By slowly I mean somewhere between 1% and 10% light speed (which obviously is a tad faster than the flow of actual molasses in Antarctica).

One way to reproduce and survive is to send our ancestors to the stars, meaning our microbial ancestors, who are still around. If you’re going to boldly go, it’s unlikely that cost will be no object. Size and weight matter when it comes to boldly going. Microbes are small and light. Send out rocket after rocket after rocket filled with microbes that lie dormant in the cold of space (no life support needed). Send them towards the stars. Like the seeds of a plant, 99.9% fall by the wayside. But, every now and again one, eventually, will find a suitable extraterrestrial home; then another and another. We’re seeding other worlds, the shotgun hit or miss method. By the way, the ethics of this need not concern us, any more than a plant seedling has scruples about sprouting and out-competing other plants already established where it lands and takes root. Sending microbes to the stars would distribute and reproduce life-as-we-know-it, but that strategy wouldn’t of necessity end up producing clones of the human species.

A second way is to attach a bit of intelligence to what you send out, yet still keeping things small and light. Nanotechnology and miniaturisation of not carbon, but silicon is an option. It’s artificial intelligence in mankind’s image. So, we send out to the stars, molasses fashion, intelligent probes; the sort of probes that can make decisions about ultimate planetary destinations when they reach those stars. They chose real estate where they can land, use local resources to make copies of them, and boldly go onto another destination. These are known as Von Neumann probes. Note that again, no expenditure of life support resources is required. The drawback here is that Von Neumann probes spread out and colonize what amounts to our intelligence, but not our biology. Whether of not Von Neumann machines would evolve on their own would I guess depend on what sort of artificial intelligence they were programmed with initially.

The one huge drawback to boldly going by proxy, whether microbial or Von Neumann probes is that you get to stay at home. You don’t want to do that. You too want to boldly go. The only real incentive for starting out on a journey is to be there at the finish – journey’s end – even if the journey is fairly lengthy and time consuming like travel was back in the days of sailing ships and covered wagons. Still, you were there at the finish line. That’s why the idea of multi-generation space colony starships, the sort where migrations from one stellar system to another that takes hundreds to thousands of years, just doesn’t strike a responsive chord. You don’t finish what you start. The exception would be if the survival of mankind was in immediate jeopardy, say like the Sun going nova within a hundred years. If there’s no other option, it’s escape that matters, not the destination. You just gotta get out of Dodge by sundown, or else.

The alternative is hibernation for those hundreds to thousands of years the journey takes. Hibernation is akin to an eight hour overnight sleep. Sleep is like a sort of time travel where you journey to the future instantaneously. One minute it’s 11 pm; the next it’s 7 am! The problems here are 1) perfecting the required hibernation technology; 2) you still need minimal life support infrastructure; 3) you still got to expend energy to transport that near worthless big toe of yours. The only part of you that really needs to get from point A to point B is your mind. 

To be continued...