oh noes! the aliens might eat us!

so, there’s been a bit of a stink this past weekend over Alexander Zaitsev. if you don’t know who he is, Zaitsev is a Russian astronomer who is interested in extraterrestrial life – and he’s been sending radio spectrum messages into outer space.

the complaints i’ve heard have mostly boiled down to “We don’t know whether the aliens are nice or not – what if they come attack us?”

well, gee, i think it’s too late to worry about this now. we (the human race) sent a radio message out using the Arecibo antenna almost thirty years ago – Zaitsev has only been broadcasting since 1999 or so.

it’s also been over a hundred years since Tesla and Marconi began playing around with radio – since then, we’ve been emitting like mad. should we just turn everything off now and hope nobody noticed?

personally, i’m once again reminded of the Fermi Paradox.

and i’m coming to the opinion that nobody cares.

no, not here (though i’ll get to that in a minute) – out there.

it’s not that nobody’s listening because there’s nobody to listen – it’s that they’re not interested.

i base this on the fact that nobody here cares, either. how hard is it to get funding for things like modern reusable spacecraft or space stations? yep, pretty hard. because nobody (and yes, i realize i’m generalizing more than a bit) can be bothered to look past their navel.

why would aliens be any different?

quote of the day:

“Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?” – Private Hudson, Aliens