Category Archives: space

Posted in space

Are We Alone?

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by Bob Sparrow

Just the Milky Way galaxy

Haven’t we all wondered at one time or another . . . are we alone?  Yes, you may very well be alone while reading this blog and hopefully you were alone when you went to the bathroom this morning, but the graphic gives us the real intent of the question: Are we the only people in the universe, in all of space?

If we include ‘all of space’, first we don’t even have a clue as to how big ‘all of space’ is, but what we do know is that just in our Milky Way galaxy, there are trillions of planets with many of them orbiting stars just like our sun.  And if you consider space beyond our galaxy, the odds are pretty good that there is intelligent life out there somewhere; and to complicate matters in our search for intelligent life, lately we’re not even sure we can find intelligent life here on Earth!

A comment from famous American-Italian and Manhattan Project physicist, Enrico Fermi, is one of my favorites when contemplating the mystery of intelligent life ‘out there’..  After hearing how vast space is and the probable odds of having life out there somewhere, he said, “Where is everybody?”  This is known as the ‘Fermi Paradox’.

The process of ‘looking for life’ out there, includes first looking at how life on Earth began, which we’re really not sure about; we do know approximately when life started here on Earth (about 4 billion years ago), but we don’t know how it started!  Which complicates things when looking for life elsewhere. It’s been said that “If we played Earth’s history again, the emergence of intelligent life as we know it, is actually somewhat unlikely.”

Apollo 12 astronauts

However, there is a story that claims that when Apollo 11 reached the surface of the moon, Armstrong expressed astonishment at finding two unknown spacecraft already present on the moon. Armstrong further described these UFOs as being huge and lined up on the far side of the crater’s edge observing the Earth.  The theory originated from NASA’s claim about losing transmission from Apollo 11 for roughly two minutes. Did Armstrong really see aliens during that time?  Apollo 10 astronauts, Stafford, Young, and Cernan heard a certain whistling sort of music while circling the moon. The music lasted for almost an hour and creeped the living daylights out of the astronauts.  The Apollo 12 astronaut, Allen Bean saw a mysterious shining object on the moon.  American astronaut Leroy Chiao was the commander of the International Space Station in 2005, after seeing a series of lights outside the ISS, claims he is 100 percent convinced he was visited by aliens.

These are well-respected, educated men who did not just take up space in school.  So, if we assume that we are being watched, let’s look at some of the theories of how ‘they’ may be watching us:

  1. The ‘Dark Forrest Theory’ says that the reason we can’t see these alien civilizations is because they’re all in hiding. Unlike humanity—whose radio transmissions have long echoed throughout our local galactic neighborhood—these societies have all concluded that it’s simply too dangerous to broadcast their location to potentially hostile neighbors.
  2. The ‘Snow Glob Theory’ says that yes, there are aliens, but they are so much more advanced than us, that they have no interest in watching us for very long. It’s like looking at a snow globe and every once in a while, you’ll turn it upside down to see something a little different, and then leave it alone.
  3.  3. The ‘Zoo Theory’ says that aliens can and are watching us with some interest, but are so much more advanced than we are, that they are really not bothering to interfere with our simple, mundane existence. It’s sort of like us watching an ant colony.
  4. The ‘Been There, Done That Theory’ This is believed by people who can’t otherwise explain things like the Great Pyramids, saying that aliens were here for a while, built some stuff, got bored, and went home.

Fermi, “Where is everybody?”

The fact is that the universe is so vast and the building blocks of life are so abundant in the cosmos, and the number of planets in the cosmos is so large that it’s very unlikely that life on Earth is the only form of life that exists out there,

Whether you believe any of this stuff or not, it is with us to stay.  Earlier this year, a former Air Force intelligence officer testified that he had been told that the United States is in possession not only of crashed spacecraft of “non-human” origin but also alien “biologics.”

I’ll probably continue to take up space in the future and keep you posted on any further discoveries of life in space or here on Earth.

 

 

 

Posted in space

Stuck in Space

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by Bob Sparrow

Butch & Suni – “See you next week” NOT!!!

Watching a spectacular moonrise on the evening of the ‘Supermoon blue moon’ a couple of weeks ago made me wonder about those two astronauts who have been circling the earth since June on a NASA mission that was supposed to last eight days.  NASA now says that they may not be coming home until February 2025!  So, eight days turned into eight months!  And you thought you had it bad when your last flight was delayed a couple of hours.  The two U.S. astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, left Earth in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.  Yes, Boeing, that’s the same company that had trouble keeping a door on an Alaskan 737 aircraft during a flight in January of this year.  I’ve since sold my stock in Boeing!  And while the door didn’t fly off the Starliner, the problem with their spacecraft seems to be that of helium leaks and thruster failure.   To dumb that down for you, if the spacecraft was a man, he would have gas and erectile dysfunction.

Men pushing Boeing Starliner to get it started

I initially imagined these two astronauts circling the earth at 17,505 miles per hour in their 15-foot wide capsule and having to figure out how they were going to survive for the next six months on what they brought with them.  It would be like planning a weekend trip to the mountains and being snowed in all winter – think Donner Party.   When I thought that was the case, here are some things that crossed my mind:

  • Did they pack enough food (and wine) to last that long?
  • Forget the wine, did they pack enough oxygen?
  • OK, don’t forget the wine
  • Who’s taking out the garbage?
  • What if the potty needs emptying?
  • How happy are their spouses with them spending the Christmas holidays in such close quarters with one another?

As it turns out, the Boeing spacecraft isn’t going to be their home for the next six months, as they were able to catch a passing Uber, in the form of the ISS (International Space Station), and successfully dock with it.

ISS Uber

However, the capacity of the ISS they boarded is seven people, and before Butch and Suni joined the party, there were already seven on board – six men, three Russian cosmonauts, an American chemist, an American physician, an American Navy test pilot, and one woman, an American aerospace engineer.  So, I’m guessing there was ‘no room in the Inn’ for these two stranded American astronauts.  We’ve not been told what they were doing to accommodate these additional freeloaders.  I’m hoping it wasn’t something like Russian roulette, where the Russians would seem to have a clear advantage.  With zero gravity, do the newcomers have to sleep by just floating in mid-air in the kitchen, or does everyone just float in mid-air all night when sleeping?  And the big question, is there enough wine to get the nine of them through Christmas and New Year’s, although the Russians probably brought their own vodka?

There is a precedent for being trapped in space, in 1991, Russian Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev was told that he could not return home because the country that had promised to bring him back home, the Soviet Union, no longer existed.  He eventually did get back to Earth after 311 days in space.

I’m sure NASA will figure out a way to get our astronauts back home, after all, they’ve got Boeing working on it right now!  Not!!!  Boeing has been fired; the astronauts will be coming home aboard a SpaceX capsule.

As I’ve thought about the pluses and minuses of being isolated in space until next February, I’ve concluded that the big plus is that they will miss out on all the political bullshit the rest of us have to endure from now until November 5th.

Where do I sign up to get lost in space for the next three months?