SETI, METI and the Fermi Paradox

Let's take a science break, looking upward at what might be ours someday, if we build a worthy, forward-looking civilization. Tantalyzing goals seem to be getting closer in some ways! For example, a “super Earth” about 6x our planet’s mass orbits a red dwarf  just 31 light years away at  the outer edge of its host star's "habitable zone," and hence, depending on atmospheric constituents, scientists believe that this super-Earth could have water on its surface.

In a model based on Kepler probe data, researchers estimate that “planet is very close to Earth in size, from three-quarters to one-and-a-half times the size of earth, with orbital periods ranging from 237 to 500 days, occur around approximately one in four stars.” This article is vague and I assume they are talking about sunlike stars. The bestiary of “habitable” worlds orbiting red dwarves would be very different.

Yeah, that puts even more of a burden on the Fermi Paradox. Which alas gets covered in much of the press with incredible shallowness.  See below.

== Is there life out there? ==

We keep refining our models of what it takes to have a “Goldilocks World.” For example, Earth skates the very inner edge of our sun’s Continuously Habitable Zone (CHZ) which will migrate outward past us in just a hundred million years or so, maybe as little as the 66 million since mammals got their big break. As is, Earth must reach a “Gaia balance” with only just enough CO2 to feed plants. Any more and we fry. And humans are supplying more.

Now scientists are considering other factors, like size: How small is too small? The critical boundary point seems to be about 2.7 percent of the mass of Earth. Any planets less massive than that would lose their atmospheres to space before liquid water could form on their surfaces, and any water that might be present would vaporize or freeze. For comparison, the moon is 1.2 percent of Earth’s mass and Mercury is 5.53 percent.  Here I’m skeptical.  But it’s a start.

Isaac Arthur has one of the best science-speculation podcast series. On Halloween 2019 he added a 4th chapter to his cluster about the Fermi Paradox… which I (back in 1983) labeled “The Great Silence.”  In this episode, he reviews the notion of “filters” that might be responsible for the apparent paucity of detectable tech civilizations out there.  

“The Fermi Paradox, the big question of where all the aliens are, has many proposed solutions focusing on what might lower the odds of intelligent species arising on another world, or what might end technological civilizations or cause them to go unseen by us and our SETI efforts. But what if intelligence rarely leads to technological civilizations in the first place? Could there be countless planets in our galaxy occupied by species who never came to value technology?”

== SETI advances… but there’s more METI foolishness ==

Should we be revealing ourselves to the cosmos? What if the first aliens to discover us do so thanks to our own transmissions, and, more disturbingly, what if those aliens are less than benevolent? On this week’s StarTalk All-Stars, astrobiologist and host David Grinspoon also tackles METI, or “Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” With co-host Chuck Nice, Dr. FunkySpoon invited David Brin, the Hugo award-winning science fiction author, scientist and NASA consultant who was on the committee that drew up the protocols for what to do if we do make contact with aliens.

You’ll learn why the “barn door excuse” – that we’ve already sent out radio and television transmissions that may have sealed our fate – is scientifically incorrect, but why new plans to use planetary radar like Goldstone (pictured above) to send focused beams into space would pump up the volume and increase the likelihood of being found. You’ll hear about the growing global discussion of whether the general public has the right to determine whether we broadcast our presence to the universe, or whether the “scientific elite” gets to decide humanity’s fate. 

Let’s set aside arguments over the narrow tech-window overlap… or the dismal insolence of those who would yell yoohoo on our behalf, without serious discussion of public or collegial concerns. (To read about that debate, go to davidbrin.com/meti.html) There is another, more specialized aspect to the specific “send everything” notion.

Plus, play along with David Grinspoon as he plays Chuck’s new game, “Brain of Brin or Dump of Trump,” and tries to guess whether a statement was first uttered by David Brin or Donald Trump. 

The Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center aims to fund research, host conferences, educate students, and grant doctorates in the general field of SETI.

== Shallow coverage in the press doesn't make us look "sapient" ==

WIRED carried an article about radio conversations with alien civilizations, that is simultaneously cogently interesting and amazingly wrongheaded. After covering some interesting aspects of communication methodology, the author concludes that all those efforts to develop clever math-linguistic protocols will not avail. Instead, we should (as recommended by the SETI Institute’s Seth Shostak) just beam forth the whole internet and let super-advanced aliens sort it all out. 

There is another, more specialized aspect to the specific “send everything” notion. That aspect is a phrase recently familiar: “quid pro quo.”

Only a few Earthly animals exhibit inter-species altruism, but most do seem to grasp some degree of commerce or trade: “You do something for me and I’ll do something for you.” Or give me that in exchange for this. Among advanced civilizations, separated by vast gulfs of empty space, the chief items of exchange will be in the form of information. Artworks, ideas, inventions, music and so on.

But these “beam everything!” fools seek to give away all of our trade goods straight from the start! Every famous painting or symphony or poem or patent, poured forth in exchange for nothing. “Thanks for the terrific free samples!” those uber-beings out there may reply. “Now what do you have to actually trade?” And if you doubt that scenario, despite trade being prevalent across all times and cultures, are you so sure that you’d bet our future without the courtesy of even discussing it?

Should we let fools rush to impoverish us? That’s not the behavior of scientists. It’s a cult.

== And harmless silliness ==

AstroGrams – helped by Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke - offers people worldwide the opportunity to inscribe a small metal plaque with their name, and a message and send it into space – either on a suborbital flight or orbital flight, to the International Space Station, to lunar orbit and perhaps even to Mars or beyond — with costs starting at just $99. Silly, yes, but harmless compared to fools who want to pour coherent blaring “yoohoo” radio messages out there.

Finally...A sense of scale from XKCD. Voyager 1 isn't even at the event Horizon.

Space News - is Planet X a black hole? And those Russian rocket explosions... and more...

Planetary Radio gives you an hour-long podcast on solar system news! Especially glimpses of the weird and wonderful projects we’re funding at NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts program (NIAC). Plus a tribute to Alexei Leonov. Matt Kaplan is a terrific and engaging host…. and the projects truly are worth your tax dollars! (Well, most of them ;-)

Separately, at the recent Starship Conference in San Diego, Matt Kaplan, the Voice of the Planetary Society, interviewed me for Planetary Radio.  

Need more Brin-blather about what might be going on out there? Let’s move out from the mere solar system. “Should we be revealing ourselves to the cosmos? What if the first aliens to discover us do so thanks to our own transmissions, and, more disturbingly, what if those aliens are less than benevolent?” On StarTalk All-Stars, astrobiologist and host David Grinspoon also tackles METI, or “Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” With co-host Chuck Nice, Dr. FunkySpoon invited David Brin, the Hugo award-winning science fiction author, scientist and NASA consultant who was on the committee that drew up the protocols for what to do if we do make contact with aliens. 

You’ll learn why the “barn door excuse” – that we’ve already sent out radio and television transmissions that may have sealed our fate – is scientifically incorrect, but why new plans to send planetary radar focused beams into space would pump up the volume exponentially. We discuss whether the general public has the right to determine whether we broadcast our presence to the universe, or whether a “scientific elite” gets to decide humanity’s fate. 

One proposed theory explaining the "Fermi Paradox" is that civilizations reach a "competence limit," especially if they do what elites always do in feudal-oligarchic-despotic societies -- crush the corrective light of criticism.  Want a daunting example? Here's an interesting dissection of the kinds of "nuclear rocket that Russians may have been testing in Archangelsk, before that recent, horrific explosion. And yes, such desperation plus incompetence combinations are really scary.

Note also it was one of three disasters just that month! Watch this amazing footage from the munitions dump going off in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. And then ponder how that gangster mafia is on the verge of ruling the world.

== Planet "X"?  Or a hole? ==

A new paper suggests the gravitational pull that we’ve long associated with a missing Planet X could come from a primordial black hole – a type of small singularity that scientists have theorised formed during the Big Bang. "We advocate that rather than just looking for it in visible light, maybe look for it in gamma rays. Or cosmic rays."  Or else maybe the distortion of background stars? Or Hawking Radiation? 

On average, the mysterious body is calculated to orbit the Sun 20 times farther than Neptune, every 10,000 to 20,000 years, versus Pluto's 248 years. Far-out!

Another possibility…. A wormhole gateway? For alien lurkers? Or waiting for us, as in the Expanse

More mundane (slightly.) Scientists have discovered what could be the largest neutron star on record.  Starting at  around 1.4 solar masses, more recent measurements have revealed increasingly huge examples.  This one is estimated at 2.14x solar mass and 20 km across. Once a star reaches 2.17 times the mass of the sun, that star is doomed to collapse into a black hole. This suggests that J0740+6620 is "really pushing that" limit, providing an amazing laboratory for gravity radiation and stellar evolution, plus the possibility of something dramatic.

  

The second verified interstellar visitor object is more active than ‘Oumuamua. It’s cometary activity will be visible for months, allowing analysis of many elemental/chemical traits. Astronomers will attempt to compare C/2019 Q4's shape to the (arguably) cigar-like structure (or even odder) of 'Oumuamua, which looked different from anything we've yet seen in our solar system. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, expected to come online next year, should be able to spot large numbers of interstellar objects as they fly through our solar system.

Another spectacular new ‘eye’ (among many) is , the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Mayall Telescope in Arizona, is a huge leap in our ability to measure galaxy distances – enabling a new era of mapping the structures in the Universe. See the amazing new map of the filamentary nature of our universe.

Dust from a huge asteroid collision out there might have obscured enough sunlight to trigger the Kirschvink or Iceball epochs on Earth, about 466 million years ago.

== A few curiosities ==

The mass of the proposed superheavy gravitino lies in the region of the Planck mass—that is, around a hundred millionth of a kilogram. That’s immense. In comparison, protons and neutrons—the building blocks of the atomic nucleus—are around ten quintillion (ten million trillion) times lighter. Their large mass means that these particles could only occur in very dilute form in the universe – “one actually wouldn't need very many of them to explain the dark matter content in the universe and in our galaxy—one particle per 10,000 cubic kilometres would be sufficient.”  This has another effect. It means these particles needn’t be invisible to EM interactions… they could interact with light and matter relatively normally and still not have been detected till now.

If so, interplanetary space contains them sparsely but everywhere. Might 4.6 billion years of collisions with Earth left ‘tracks’ in old rocks? (Much as my gravity laser beans do, in Earth?) Might these present obstacles to fast ships, and hence help to explain the Fermi Paradox?

And finally... Though almost desperately fluffy, the “In Search of” shows can be amusing and occasionally interesting. Here’s one about aliens where I go along… 

Heh!  NIAC has even funded some Mach Effect studies.  I think just to keep a reputation for openmindedness that keeps the better minds hanging around. 

Wonders from space... and beyond

Naturally, I'll have much to say about the Mueller Report, but not today. (Well, maybe in a coda, at the end.) For now, let's boost our spirits by...

... looking toward space!  Starting with...

A stream of terrific shadow selfie images from Japan's Hyabusa-2 probe touching down on  asteroid Ryugu, then getting blown back as it fires a bullet to kick up sample material. 'If all goes according to plan, these three samples will come down to Earth in a special return capsule in December 2020.” And this after deployment of three mini-landers.

This seems a perfect partnership with NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex probe, sampling another asteroid. Below, I'll discuss how the U.S. and Japan plus a few tech wizards should go do these treasure rocks (where the vast wealth is) while letting China, Russia and all the other Apollo-wannabes scamper to sterile-useless Luna for their coming-of-age rites. 

And yet.... we now find that incoming asteroids may be harder to break than scientists previously thought. 

== It's quiet out there... maybe too quiet ==

My paper on the ethical, logical and theological  bases for METI – Messaging to ET Intelligences – is now in the journal Theology & Science. ‘The “Barn Door” Argument, The Precautionary Principle, and METI as “Prayer”—an Appraisal of the Top Three Rationalizations for “Active SETI.”’ Yes, so far it is restricted by subscription. But let me offer you the abstract:

“Proponents of Active SETI, or METI, defend their messaging-to-aliens agenda with fallacious arguments like the Barn Door Excuse, that technologically advanced extraterrestrials must have already listened to our radio leakage, (e.g. “I Love Lucy”), hence more direct beaming will not betray Earth’s location. 

"Further, they claim that sending pinpointed, collimated messages will only lead to positive outcomes. In fact, laser-like “messages” are far more powerfully detectable at great distances than old-time television, and concerns about potential downsides should be appraised by scientific risk-assessment. It is argued that METI is psychologically driven as a version of the ancient human practice of prayer.”

Yes, there truly was a reason it got published in Theology and Science.

== Yes, humanity should keep exploring the moon ==

We’ve learned so much from lunar bits, especially taken by the Apollo missions. This Apollo14 sample apparently formed deep under the crust of the Earth, then got blasted to Earth’s surface, then blasted to land on the Moon, got buried and modified, then got blasted onto the moon’s surface to be plucked by an Apollo14 astronaut. How do we figure all this? We’ve learned to track an amazing suite of physical and chemical and isotopic clues thanks to … well, science.  Federally funded R&D that propelled half of our economy, since WWII.

And yet...  Come see a screed of utter-drooling nonsense –  declaring that China is “winning the new space race‼!” Oh, no! They just put a tiny solar rover on the Moon!  "The stakes are high: Who will be able to obtain the vast resources in space, for example, water/ice, iron, titanium, platinum and nickel; secure the routes of trade; and write the rules of space commerce such as trade in energy propellant and precious metals."

Sigh. I am forced to get repetitive. The moon has what? It has absolutely none of those things except possibly some buried water as a source of propellant, at the difficult to access poles. And even that is likely to be eclipsed by vast amounts of water available in asteroids... along with actual, rather than make-believe gold, platinum etc. 

Why pretend to justify joining the Apollo-wannabes with faux claims of lunar 'resources' that don't exist? Even the normally smart and cogent Isaac Arthur breaks his arms desperately waving away any need to justify that claim with actual numbers. Oh, and here’s another cock n’bull story about moon mining and Helium 3 mythology, without a hint of due diligence on actual numbers or plausibility.

The only way that China wins any "space race" would be either militarily (as in the first chapter of Ghost Fleet; and yes, be wary) or else if the $%$#! Republicans force us into a "united/international consortium to go back to the moon." In that case – a lose-lose for the U.S. -- we'd have to transfer all our technology, boosting the Chinese and Russian while gaining nothing. 

Show us the "ores" you blithely armwave to be on the moon! Show us clear charts how it would be a 'way-station" to Mars. You can't. Oh, but with no one else apparently calling out this insanity, with a sigh, let me reiterate. 

The moon started out resource depleted because it came from Earth's crust, after most metals sank into our planet's core. Then the newborn-molten moon fractionated again, sending most of what was left settling into it's own core! As for what remained, there were no water processes which concentrated most useful ores on Earth. 

True there's aluminum and silicon and smidgeons of titanium in Luna's crust... and all of it is in super tight oxygen bonds that will take truly major energy input to separate -- possible, but hugely non-trivial. A little scattered meteoritic iron might get collected by dragging magnets endlessly through dust. Or we could go where it came from...

In contrast, half of the asteroids seem to have come from a shattered proto-planet. Some of them come from its carbon-volatiles-water rich outer crust. Some from the stony middle and many of them from the purified metal/iron/gold etc core. Pre-refined metal! 

Again, the only resource advantage of the moon is purported Helium Three. And please show it to me. Show me a customer. Hold me back from strangling the next cultist raving "Helium Three!" 

Yes, I do think we should keep exploring Luna!  Humanity is going back there, no matter what. And that's fine, Chinese and later Indian, Russian and Saudi and European and billionaire tourists will skip about, planting footprints in that dusty, useless, utterly resource-free plain. (And the U.S. should sell them services, maybe landers! Indeed, we might send a few small robots to explore some of those lava tube tunnels, partly to prevent the Chinese from claiming them all. But joining their mad rush for footprints? Why?)

Their surface reasons will be 'scientific,' but we all know it will be tourism and national pride. Having their Bar Moonzvah (“Today I am a man!”) 

Mazel Tov. The Americans and Japanese and Diamandis-ovs and Musk-ovites should transmit congratulations. Let's blow them kisses from the asteroids where we're getting spectacularly rich, doing things that only we (with our fellow true modernists) can do.

Wake up and smell the platinum.

== More news about deadly rocks ==

Fascinating evidence suggests that two of the super-Earths orbiting very close to a Kepler studied star may have collided in the past and that one of them is so dense it might consist only of the stripped iron core of an earlier, larger version.

Evidence suggesting that the rate of asteroids impacting the Earth-Moon system actually went up, starting about 290 million years ago, and the rate probably rose by 2.6x.  Perhaps a major asteroid broke up around then. In any event, all the more reason to support the B612 Foundation’s work, helping count and study potential impactors and concocting plans to deal with them.

Meanwhile, the theory that Earth’s volatile elements arrived through the steady bombardment of ancient meteorites during the Late Heavy Bombardment has been challenged by those who propose that a catastrophic collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object, sometimes referred to as Theia, some 4.4 billion years ago --- which many believe created Earth’s moon – may have delivered those volatiles.

== Go-go! ==

In preparation for it's first potential test fire, followed by hover trials, SpaceX had moved Elon's Starhopper suborbital vehicle to a launch pad at its Boca Chica test site near Brownsville, Texas. 

== And finally ==

Ah, but then there’s the Chinese orbital tracking station in Patagonia, operating without the slightest supervision by Argentina’s government or public. One more highly… assertive… international action. Only note that Patagonia is also where some of the world’s oligarchic elites have been buying up whole mountains for their post-apocalyptic retreats. All based on their weirdly smug assumption that we all won’t know exactly where they’ll be, when we decide to get mad.

Can you see patterns under the patterns? If Alien meddlers wanted to ensure our failure... or get hilarious reality TV ... the perfect plan is is to use their agents -- (Rupert? Vlad) to craft what we see right now. Oh, but let's not get all science-fictional!  Not till next time.

Contemplating the Cosmos: From NOVA to SETI

Have a glimpse of the episode of NOVA that I’ll be on (briefly) this Tuesday/Halloween - re: “Monsters (black holes) in Space!

Alas. It appears I’m only allowed on TV once a week! The History Channel has postponed the prime time debut of "The ArchiTECHS." I’ll announce if/when they re schedule this bold new show -- with its handsome cast (!) taking on futuristic technological challenges. Keep eyes open for the Humvee Episode... and further adventures - brainstorming problems of the 21st Century!

Okay, now hold on through a few more misc items to reach the Scary Story...


==Galactic Warnings==

The Lifeboat Foundation has been busy. See a reprint of my article Want to Live Forever? about life extension.

The same site has posted a humorous and yet thought provoking essay illustrating GALACTIC WARNING SIGNS - following the yellow triangle motif - but dealing with biggie threats like antimatter, chaotic systems, black holes, bad-memes and so on. A cool ranking of potential existential dangers and way cool for game contexts.

Veering into the past, for a humbling allegory about prediction. Some of these predictions they got right, and some they ... um ... didn't. On the other hand, there was some real wisdom in this 1950 Pop.Mechanix view of the year 2000.

Referring back a bit, to the looming return of traditional human class warfare, have a glimpse of the new world of air travel for the very rich

And, as part of the same trend, see “trickle down” at work. “Sure, Warren Buffet wears cheap suits and noshes burgers at the local diner, but other folks with mounds of moola like to spend, spend, spend. Alas, some confused millionaires need a hand in unloading their dough. Thankfully, for muddled magnates looking for that first helicopter there is a glittering orgy of luxury goods for VIPs and "the political, administrative, business and cultural elite." Yahoo Millionaire Fair. (At least they don’t put a pretentious “e” at the end.)

Those of you who haven’t seen the epochal evening when UCSD honored its “Sci Fi Author alumni” -- Gregory Benford, Vernor Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson and David Brin, should have a look!

Again re the future! See some of the fantastic renderings of computer graphics images that have already been made for Greg Bear’s EON, in the latest CG Challenge. I’m jealous as heck!


Had enough? But there’s more. I have saved the best (or scary-worst) for last.

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a specialized radio telescope now under construction by the SETI Institute and the University of California Berkeley, will be about a hundred times faster than any previous radio search, and will simultaneously pick up all cosmic static between 0.5 and 11.2 gigahertz.

Good luck to them! I have long been a fervent supporter of the passive SETI listening program... while opposing recent efforts to start garishly TRANSMITTING from Earth to howl for attention from the cosmos.

Alas, momentum is building toward the commencement of some aggressive “Active SETI” programs aiming to deliberately shout into the cosmos at a time when we know absolutely nothing about the situation out there.

For an example of this idiocy...

Mexico's Teotihuacan, once the center of a sprawling pre-Hispanic empire, is set to become the launch pad for an attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life. Starting on Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world will have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message.

Oh, but this is the tip of the iceberg. There are sober and tenured radio astronomers who plan to do what amounts to the same stunt, or to cooperate with such efforts, without even telling their funding donors.

Are any of you saying Whaaaaa? I don’t recall this being discussed, or my opinion being solicited, when a few dozen jerks decided to start screaming into space without even consulting anybody else to see if - maybe - it might not be such a good idea?

Fortunately, grownup attention is being drawn to this rash trend. A recent editorial in NATURE presented a capsule summary of the problem that I have recently spent considerable time on. More than I'd like. The Nature issue is still closed, but the openminded Seti League (not to be confused with the Institute) has posted a pdf of the essay.

Want to learn more? All right then, in order to give you the creeps on Halloween, I crafted a summary of how a few dozen arrogant science neocultists seem determined to scream into outer space: “Yoo Hoo!” on our behalf... just like the cliched naive-stereotype in some cheap horror movie, without having even a sliver of evidence to support their blithe (if unsupported) assumption - clutched religiously - that the universe is automatically benign.

If you share my suspicion that this is a really, really dumb idea, or simply want to learn more, see collected articles on SETI --with a lot of relevant background material, or see my article: Shall We Shout to the Cosmos?

An added note: we dissenters tried hard to do this sub rosa and in dignified quiet, offering mediation. We have been stonewalled by the insular and narrow community that (alas) some parts of SETI have rapidly become. Deadlines for mediation have now passed. Science journalists have grown aware (see that Nature editorial) that the debate is NOT over whether or not to shout into the cosmos...

...but whether the scientific community - and the public - will even be allowed to know that this is being done! Or whether we’ll be allowed to discuss it in the open, like citizens who have some voice in our own destiny.

For follow-up: See more on the SETI vs METI controversy: http://www.scoop.it/t/seti-the-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence