their spaceships ever have reached Earth? By the law of averages, the nearest inhabited worlds might be at least 100 light-years away, and more likely over 1,000 light-years.
A light-year, of course, is the distance light travels in a whole year at the fantastic speed of 186,300 miles per second, making a total of just under 6 trillion miles. If light is the “fastest thing in the universe” (according to Einstein's relativity), then starmen would require 100 or 1,000 or even 25,000 years to get to Earth. Such trips would, in short, occupy lifetimes .
This seems to make the Earth-colony concept untenable, but only at first glance. If the light-speed barrier cannot be broken, let us list some of the possibilities:
The starmen are long-lived, with lifetimes of 1,000 years or more. (Why not, if the Bible lists its Methuselahs living for centuries on end?) In that case, a trip from a star within 100 light-years would take only one-tenth of their lifetime, comparable to some of the years-long sailing trips unhesitatingly made by Magellan and others to explore Earth.
The starmen put themselves into “hibernation,” or suspended animation, for the bulk of the trip. Thus, they could lie blissfully asleep for a century or even 100 centuries and wake up only upon arrival on Earth. And remember, such a major project ascolonizing another distant world would call for those or similar heroic measures.
The “time dilation” angle to Einstein's relativity points out that the closer the spaceship gets to lightspeed itself, the more time “slows down” for the crew aboard. There have been many examples given in literature of how space travelers going at 99 percent of the light-speed would only age ten or twenty years, while the planet of departure would experience ages going by. Though a rather unsatisfactory solution to long-range space travel, with the penalty of returning to their home planet to find it an age ahead, determined starmen could be willing to come and colonize Earth under those conditions.
But the answer may be far simpler than that, if the light-speed barrier of unknowing Earth science is fallacious.
And just as scientific orthodoxy at one time rather recklessly said that aircraft could never fly, that the sound barrier could not be broken, that rockets could never reach to the moon, so today the science establishment opposes the possibility that the light barrier can be broken.
It would, however, seem safer to say that a world of sciencetechnology a million years old could have found the golden way to speed through space at fantastic rates measured in multi-lightspeeds and reach any world they wish.
We will drop the matter there as too nebulous to pursue. If the starmen have been and are here, does it matter how they got here?
However, making it possible for starmen to go faster than light in their vast planet-hopping project is of interest only if the starmen truly exist. And that brings us back to the question of whether there is life, and particularly intelligent life, in the universe. A question that may soon be solved.
There is a sort of “exobiology race” going on today. Exobiology is the embryo science of extraterrestrial life, or life anywhere else in the universe than on Earth. So far, it is almost entirely theory, with little empirical (experimental or material) proof.
The radio-astronomers are racing to pick up the first provable intelligent signals.
The space-cloud bioastronomers are seeking to nail down the existence of life molecules between the stars.
The meteorite specialists are attempting to clinch the fossil evidence of life in stones from other parts of interstellar space.
And the planetary scientists are striving to detect the first true signs of nonearth life on the planets of our own solar system.
We will take up this last category in the next chapter, for it may furnish us the first thrilling proof that life can spring up – in whatever fashion – on another world than our
A light-year, of course, is the distance light travels in a whole year at the fantastic speed of 186,300 miles per second, making a total of just under 6 trillion miles. If light is the “fastest thing in the universe” (according to Einstein's relativity), then starmen would require 100 or 1,000 or even 25,000 years to get to Earth. Such trips would, in short, occupy lifetimes .
This seems to make the Earth-colony concept untenable, but only at first glance. If the light-speed barrier cannot be broken, let us list some of the possibilities:
The starmen are long-lived, with lifetimes of 1,000 years or more. (Why not, if the Bible lists its Methuselahs living for centuries on end?) In that case, a trip from a star within 100 light-years would take only one-tenth of their lifetime, comparable to some of the years-long sailing trips unhesitatingly made by Magellan and others to explore Earth.
The starmen put themselves into “hibernation,” or suspended animation, for the bulk of the trip. Thus, they could lie blissfully asleep for a century or even 100 centuries and wake up only upon arrival on Earth. And remember, such a major project ascolonizing another distant world would call for those or similar heroic measures.
The “time dilation” angle to Einstein's relativity points out that the closer the spaceship gets to lightspeed itself, the more time “slows down” for the crew aboard. There have been many examples given in literature of how space travelers going at 99 percent of the light-speed would only age ten or twenty years, while the planet of departure would experience ages going by. Though a rather unsatisfactory solution to long-range space travel, with the penalty of returning to their home planet to find it an age ahead, determined starmen could be willing to come and colonize Earth under those conditions.
But the answer may be far simpler than that, if the light-speed barrier of unknowing Earth science is fallacious.
And just as scientific orthodoxy at one time rather recklessly said that aircraft could never fly, that the sound barrier could not be broken, that rockets could never reach to the moon, so today the science establishment opposes the possibility that the light barrier can be broken.
It would, however, seem safer to say that a world of sciencetechnology a million years old could have found the golden way to speed through space at fantastic rates measured in multi-lightspeeds and reach any world they wish.
We will drop the matter there as too nebulous to pursue. If the starmen have been and are here, does it matter how they got here?
However, making it possible for starmen to go faster than light in their vast planet-hopping project is of interest only if the starmen truly exist. And that brings us back to the question of whether there is life, and particularly intelligent life, in the universe. A question that may soon be solved.
There is a sort of “exobiology race” going on today. Exobiology is the embryo science of extraterrestrial life, or life anywhere else in the universe than on Earth. So far, it is almost entirely theory, with little empirical (experimental or material) proof.
The radio-astronomers are racing to pick up the first provable intelligent signals.
The space-cloud bioastronomers are seeking to nail down the existence of life molecules between the stars.
The meteorite specialists are attempting to clinch the fossil evidence of life in stones from other parts of interstellar space.
And the planetary scientists are striving to detect the first true signs of nonearth life on the planets of our own solar system.
We will take up this last category in the next chapter, for it may furnish us the first thrilling proof that life can spring up – in whatever fashion – on another world than our
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