If an super advanced civilization wanted to investigate the Milky Way it seems like they could send a fleet of craft that could move from star system to star system, building new craft when the resources are available. Within a reasonable number of centuries there could be a fairly rapidly growing swarm of robotic craft fanning out, where the craft aren't dependent on labor or resources from the original site.
So what are you claiming? The vast majority of scientists do not think there is any realistic chance that we are alone in universe. It is a virtual impossibility. Your answer sounds more like religion than scientific objectivity.
It would take 100,000 years to explore the Milky Way even with nanobots That is actually very fast lol
Good point! This galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter and about 1,000 light years thick. Covering that area with self replicating satellites would take some serious time - even with technology that could rapidly build more self reproducing satellites as it went.
I dont believe human will ever achieve a Galactic Empire, but we can achieve human civilizations in nearby Solar Systems. That is the best we can do and that is pretty great. Having hundreds of human planet in nearby Star Systems within 100 light years from Earth. Maybe this will be a dream in several centuries or longer
You need AI to achieve planet conquest as Humans are not built for SPACE Robots will set up the colonies and cities. Robots will transport Human Civil. Robots will mine and build. We can laser beam Human DNA to robot factories that will download that DNA and create human bodies. Thinking of Star Trek is not going to ever happen. That is not how it works as the energy output of a space ship of that size is insane
Well, the closest star resembling our Sun is about 12 light years away. That's 12 X 6,000,000,000,000 miles. Our fastest spacecraft travels at 1,500,000,000 miles per year. So, at the rate of our fastest satellite it would take ~50,000 years to get to the nearest star that's like ours. 50,000 years ago was the middle paleolithic. Homo sapiens were starting to make more artefacts - stone tools, etc. In another 5,000 years they would arrive in Europe! They would be outcompeting Neanderthals. Had they launched a satellite to our nearest star that is like our sun, it would be arriving now. If we could figure out how to travel 100X our current fastest speed, it would take only 500 years! Those arriving would have lived in space for 17 generations. And, any questions they might ask Earth would take 24 years to travel to Earth and back.
Ya, I have been imagining something similar. I have been trying to imagine what an exoplanet close to earth conditions would be like. Maybe .9 gravity or 1.5 G. Covered with shallow seas and few mountains. Would the seas have fish? If so, what kind? Crayfish or shrimp or crayshrimp? Cattle or Buffalo? Dinosaur or even Amphibian as highest life forms? The microscopic life.... deadly to us or harmless? The imagination goes wild... at least for me.
I wouldn't care to guess how things will work out if we continue to advance. We may learn to warp space or cross dimensions. But it is obvious that we are not an an alien species. And they may not be able to escape their own gravity. Or may not consider space travel at all. They might not be a predator race and would try to avoid all contact with us as mentioned. Or interstellar travel may not be possible and the stars are just too far away.
I can remember when Venus was a world covered with vegetation and the planet was probably ruled by Dinosaurs. But Mars probably didn't have Canals. And before they launched Voyager all those planets and Moons were frozen solid. I don't recall any mention of the fact that gravity could heat a planet. But now we know things are different. My imaginary planet has shallow plains of water just inches thick with deeper pools here and there plus beaches and forests. My imagination my rules.
Don't be limited by modern physics anymore than Newtonian physics limited Relativity. The New Physics is Coming @Quasar44 Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(Star_Trek:_Enterprise) The Vulcans came among us in the mid fifties at Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania.
An article at space.com, "Interstellar science: Is wormhole travel possible?", indicates that it isn't. https://www.space.com/27845-interstellar-movie-wormhole-travel-feasibility.html I copied a portion of that article. While wormholes are possible according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, such exotic voyages will likely remain in the realm of science fiction, said renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who served as an adviser and executive producer on "Interstellar." ['Interstellar': A Space Epic in Pictures] "The jury is not in, so we just don't know," Thorne, one of the world's leading authorities on relativity, black holes and wormholes, told Space.com. "But there are very strong indications that wormholes that a human could travel through are forbidden by the laws of physics. That's sad, that's unfortunate, but that's the direction in which things are pointing." The major barrier has to do with a wormhole's instability, he said. "Wormholes — if you don't have something threading through them to hold them open — the walls will basically collapse so fast that nothing can go through them," Thorne said. Holding wormholes open would require the insertion of something that anti-gravitates — namely, negative energy. Negative energy has been created in the lab via quantum effects, Thorne said: One region of space borrows energy from another region that didn't have any to begin with, creating a deficit. "So it does happen in physics," he said. "But we have very strong, but not firm, indications that you can never get enough negative energy that repels and keeps the wormhole's walls open; you can never get enough to do that." Furthermore, traversable wormholes — if they can exist at all — almost certainly cannot occur naturally, Thorne added. That is, they must be created by an advanced civilization.
I don't believe that Einstein's special theory of relativity will ever be overturned. It will always require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate any mass to the speed of light. It is unlikely that interstellar space travel beyond the speed of light by manipulating space will ever be practical. Interstellar space travel at a speed much less than the speed of light is possible but that would be a very expensive venture and the benefits could be of little value. It makes no sense to me. We haven't made contact with extraterrestials and that could indicate that they don't exist nearby or they don't have the resources to send out a message. I don't think that we should be afraid of extraterrestials because they probably have no way of visiting us. Likewise, they would not be afraid of us for the same reason.
In Newton's time, nobody foresaw the coming of Einstein's theories. Likewise now we should not discount a possible future discovery that supersedes the limitations of relativity. Assume the aliens have already beat us to it. There's plenty of zero-point energy in empty space. Nullification of mass allows superluminal travel. UFOs must be able to do it else they wouldn't be able to do the observed right angle turns at 10,000 MPH without killing the occupants. A woman who experienced abduction remembered being levitated right out thru the closed and barred bedroom window by two alien greys who took her into their spaceship for examination. Two security guards outdoors in the neighborhood saw it happen and documented it in a report.
When aliens visit our solar system, they ... 1) managed not to destroy themselves. 2) have no interest in us.
That the belief that aliens exist is a religious belief, not at all based on any science. I simply found it odd that a thread about aliens was put into the Science section of the forum. Science is not a consensus. So some scientists are expressing their religious belief? Meh... No, my answer is rooted in logic.
Newton oriented said the same of Relativity, no doubt. And Einstein didn't like Quantum Mechanics. THE NEW PHYSICS IS COMING. Beware: Extraterrestrial's germs. Remember Euro diseases on the natives.
