Some thoughts on the Fermi paradox
Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:48 am
Hallo!
I wish to share some thoughts on the Fermi paradox here. The question is basically, "If extraterrestrial civilizations exist, where are they? Why haven't they colonized us long ago?" I have repeatedly thought about this, and here are some points that occured to me.
1. Interstellar travel may be utterly infeasible. Space travel, we all know that, is expensive, and there is an awful lot of space to traverse to reach the next star. Estimations of the cost of an expedition to Alpha Centauri tend to yield figures that exceed the world's annual GDP by a few orders of magnitude; of course, more advanced civilizations will also be more prosperous (but to which extent? Planetary resources aren't infinite, and even with us, the ceiling is already in sight in some points). And that doesn't even take FTL travel into consideration. Some physicists say that things such as "wormholes" or "warp fields" were theoretically possible in this universe, but apart from knowing nothing about how to create them, we don't know whether they were actually useful - they seem to require immense amounts of energy, and the conditions inside them appear to be too extreme for a spacecraft to survive them.
2. Planetary biospheres are probably incompatible. There is little reason to assume that the kind of biochemistry we have here on Earth is the only one possible. So even if a group of settlers somehow manage to reach a habitable planet of a nearby star, they'll probably find that the local lifeforms are utterly inedible to them, and even crops they have brought along won't thrive in the alien soil. Thus, their colony would never become viable.
3. Terraforming probably won't work. A planetary biosphere is a very complex affair; we don't understand our own one enough to build one on another planet. (At least, Biosphere2 failed.) Of course, more advanced civilizations will understand theirs much better than we do. But there is a second problem with terraforming: Any inhospitable planet is inhospitable for some kind of reason, and most of these reasons (such as wrong distance from its sun, or insufficient mass to keep up a substantial atmosphere and magnetic field) should lie beyond what even a highly advanced civilization could fix. Hence, a colony on a previously lifeless planet won't become viable, either.
What do you think? Are these problems really so insurmountable? Or is my entire logic tarnished?
I wish to share some thoughts on the Fermi paradox here. The question is basically, "If extraterrestrial civilizations exist, where are they? Why haven't they colonized us long ago?" I have repeatedly thought about this, and here are some points that occured to me.
1. Interstellar travel may be utterly infeasible. Space travel, we all know that, is expensive, and there is an awful lot of space to traverse to reach the next star. Estimations of the cost of an expedition to Alpha Centauri tend to yield figures that exceed the world's annual GDP by a few orders of magnitude; of course, more advanced civilizations will also be more prosperous (but to which extent? Planetary resources aren't infinite, and even with us, the ceiling is already in sight in some points). And that doesn't even take FTL travel into consideration. Some physicists say that things such as "wormholes" or "warp fields" were theoretically possible in this universe, but apart from knowing nothing about how to create them, we don't know whether they were actually useful - they seem to require immense amounts of energy, and the conditions inside them appear to be too extreme for a spacecraft to survive them.
2. Planetary biospheres are probably incompatible. There is little reason to assume that the kind of biochemistry we have here on Earth is the only one possible. So even if a group of settlers somehow manage to reach a habitable planet of a nearby star, they'll probably find that the local lifeforms are utterly inedible to them, and even crops they have brought along won't thrive in the alien soil. Thus, their colony would never become viable.
3. Terraforming probably won't work. A planetary biosphere is a very complex affair; we don't understand our own one enough to build one on another planet. (At least, Biosphere2 failed.) Of course, more advanced civilizations will understand theirs much better than we do. But there is a second problem with terraforming: Any inhospitable planet is inhospitable for some kind of reason, and most of these reasons (such as wrong distance from its sun, or insufficient mass to keep up a substantial atmosphere and magnetic field) should lie beyond what even a highly advanced civilization could fix. Hence, a colony on a previously lifeless planet won't become viable, either.
What do you think? Are these problems really so insurmountable? Or is my entire logic tarnished?