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What would be the impact of discovering sentient alien life?

Background For a number of years, we have been impacted in popular culture by speculation that sentient life forms have found our planet. We were bombarded with stories of flying saucers; alien bodies, kidnapping of humans etc., etc. Serious amounts of time and money have been spent on researching reported events. All for naught – no definitive proof was uncovered that aliens have visited earth. During that period, very little effort was expended on explaining how these aliens got here. Popular theories were that aliens used a time-space warp drive, were put in some type of suspended animation (e.g. cryogenic freezing); or their space ships traveled faster than the speed of light. The subject of aliens is not in the popular press as it used to be.

Currently, there has been an increasing interest in determining if sentient alien life exists in the universe. Articles on this subject appear almost daily in the popular press and there has been an increase in the number of academic articles on this subject. Areas of research and discussion include: 1) determining the probability of existence of sentient alien life, 2) developing ways of locating and searching for planets that could support life like ours. 3) listening for these aliens trying to communicate with us; and 4) sending messages that we exist. Suppose that these efforts were successful and life was discovered on a planet close to ours. What would be the effect on our everyday lives? This short paper posits that there would be little change except for a lot of media buzz. This is for two basic reasons. First it would be very difficult to communicate with that civilization independent of any language differences. Second, it would be near impossible to visiting their planet or even meeting somewhere in space.

Difficult Communications. Let us suppose that a sentient civilization exists as an exoplanet orbiting around our nearest star. The planet near that star in known as Proxima b. This planet is located about 4.22 light years from earth. Therefore, It would take about 8 and a half years for one round of communication. It would take a large number of rounds of communications to establish a meaningful dialogue. If the alien civilization was even further away – e.g. 1,000 light years; communication would be very difficult. Our civilization has vastly changed in the last 1000 years. Further during a 2000 year communication cycle we would have no way of knowing if their civilization ceased to existed and they would the same about us. If this civilization were even further away, meaningful communication would become even more problematic.

Difficulties of Space Travel. If the citizens of earth determined that we should visit this civilization on Proxima b, it would be very difficult to do, maybe impossible. There are several solid reasons for this claim. First, is that would take several human lifetimes to get there, even if the distance is only 4.22 light-years. Our current fastest outward-bound satellite travels at about one thousandth of the speed of light. Therefore, considering the need to accelerate and decelerate, it would take about 9 centuries to get there. If we were able to develop the technology to go at a hundredth of the speed of light, it would take more than 900 years to arrive. Therefore, the spacecraft would have to support many generations of humans. The size of the spacecraft and the energy required to propel it would be enormous. Added to these facts would be the cost of such an expedition. Solar wind would only get us to the edge of our universe. Nuclear power is not feasible because of a limited amount of material. A current popular idea is to use steam produced by water mined from planets in our solar system. This idea would greatly increase the time to get to Proxima b (Slow down to orbit the planet, set up a mining operation, etc.) Even then, the use of steam would only get us to the outer edge of our solar system.

New Technology A lot more can be said in the area of new technology solving the above difficulties. There is a lot of speculation about worm-holes (white-holes) and time warps. The first step would be to confirm that they exist. Then in the case of worn holes finding one that exists at an astronomical location close to our solar system. Second, to develop a probe that could prove that it was possible for humans to use them to distant locations. Realistically, such a worm-hole or time warp would need to be very, very close to our solar system.

Summary Because of our narrow limitations (environment, technology, life span, etc.), humans are insignificant when it comes to the size and complexity of our universe. The answer to the question posed by this paper is that there would be little or no impact by the discovery of other sentient civilizations in the universe. If other sentient creatures exist, we are isolated from them; therefore, we are alone. Space research should continue. But for now it really does not matter, but it is nice to know.