Honestly, if we ever got a really credible answer, I’m sure we’d dramatically increase the pace of space travel research, to the point where we might innovate a way to get there. Maybe we do one of the space/time bending options, or maybe we find a way to punch a hole through spacetime or something like that. If there’s a will, we’ll put a ton of resources into exhausting every potential way to do it before giving up. It might even create multi-national unity in a way that we’ve never thought possible.
So please, if you’re an alien that’s been quietly listening to our broadcasts, please send an answer somehow.
I feel like the most disappointing answer but likely answer is that life is out there (and even if we do get some whisper of communication with them), but a method of travel capable of crossing the distance between us is downright impossible to make. Like “break the laws of physics” impossible.
Our understanding of the laws of physics is constantly changing, and there’s almost always some loophole to accomplish some seemingly impossible task by satisfying the requirements in some other way. For example, we know that information can’t travel faster than the speed of light, but we also know that the light bends around massive objects, meaning we can cause light to take longer to reach a given place by making the distance longer. If we can make distances shorter, we don’t need to break the laws of physics to travel seemingly faster than light.
We’re pretty good at innovating ourselves out of seemingly impossible challenges. We figured out how to split atoms and control it well enough to produce energy, we figured out how to heat a room by transferring heat from a colder room, and I think we’ll figure out how to make long-distance space travel possible by working around our current understanding of the laws of physics.
Honestly, if we ever got a really credible answer, I’m sure we’d dramatically increase the pace of space travel research, to the point where we might innovate a way to get there. Maybe we do one of the space/time bending options, or maybe we find a way to punch a hole through spacetime or something like that. If there’s a will, we’ll put a ton of resources into exhausting every potential way to do it before giving up. It might even create multi-national unity in a way that we’ve never thought possible.
So please, if you’re an alien that’s been quietly listening to our broadcasts, please send an answer somehow.
I feel like the most disappointing answer but likely answer is that life is out there (and even if we do get some whisper of communication with them), but a method of travel capable of crossing the distance between us is downright impossible to make. Like “break the laws of physics” impossible.
Our understanding of the laws of physics is constantly changing, and there’s almost always some loophole to accomplish some seemingly impossible task by satisfying the requirements in some other way. For example, we know that information can’t travel faster than the speed of light, but we also know that the light bends around massive objects, meaning we can cause light to take longer to reach a given place by making the distance longer. If we can make distances shorter, we don’t need to break the laws of physics to travel seemingly faster than light.
We’re pretty good at innovating ourselves out of seemingly impossible challenges. We figured out how to split atoms and control it well enough to produce energy, we figured out how to heat a room by transferring heat from a colder room, and I think we’ll figure out how to make long-distance space travel possible by working around our current understanding of the laws of physics.