http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38985425
A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets.
In 1939, the year World War Two broke out, Churchill penned a popular science article in which he mused about the likelihood of extra-terrestrial life.
The 11-page typed draft, probably intended for a newspaper, was updated in the 1950s but never published.
[...] More than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets, he considered the likelihood that other stars would host planets, concluding that a large fraction of these distant worlds "will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort". He also surmised that some would be "at the proper distance from their parent sun to maintain a suitable temperature".
Churchill also outlined what scientists now describe as the "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone - the narrow region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life.
[...] In an apparent reference to the troubling events unfolding in Europe, Churchill wrote: "I for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilisation here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."
Also at Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/winston-churchill-s-essay-on-alien-life-found-1.21467
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @06:59PM
Sure, Winnie was a racist old bastard.
He was a product of the late victorian era, and as such was a man of his times. However, if you read his actual writings about his experiences, you can see that he was perceptive, open to the nature of the human condition, and quite capable of putting aside prejudices when they turned out to be wrong.
Sure, he was a hard drinker, a hard smoker, and in some cases wrong about important things (such as the gold standard) but he was also a very smart cookie, with an eye for the big picture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @09:17PM
Sure, Winnie was a racist old bastard.
As you state he was a product of his time so he probably was not more racist then any other randomly picked person from his age. Winnie was more likely a quite normal person for his age. If you define Winnie as a racist old bastard then pretty much everyone that has ever been alive is a racist bastard, old or not. It's ludicrous to apply your current view towards someone in the past and then slam them for not being as "enlightened" as yourself. Personally I don't have an issue with Winnie and his views but that probably just means I'm a racist middle aged bastard going on old.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @04:14PM
Today, the word "racist" has lost most of it's meaning. Before we can understand what you mean, you need to identify yourself as a Klansman, a Black Panther, a self-loathing white, a self-loathing black, an SJW, a socialist, a conservative, or whatever. Given some kind of context, we may understand what you mean to convey with such an accusation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Thursday February 16 2017, @07:52PM
The biggest proof of intelligent life out there is that they haven't contacted us.
We are at the point now were a manned mission to mars is barely a possibility... and even that would take a year plus mission. Our level of technology isn't even close to the point of letting us have manned missions to anything but a tiny portion of our own solar system, let alone trying to go farther.
While we have some interesting theories on how to travel outside our solar system, they are far from reality and will require a lot of time and money to advance science even to the point were it will become a reality.
IMHO, we need to have significant changes to society before we can truly tackle the challenges of space travel outside our solar system. While military spending does have impact of some of the things we need (missile research can help propulsion systems, armor research can protect a ship from micro-meteors) we truly need to be past the point of spending money on killing each other before we can come together as a whole world society and fund the research that is required.
Climate science must be improved too... If we do not fully understand how climate on our own planet works, how will we be able to protect our astronauts from the climate on other planets?
Humanity essentially needs to learn how to better handle itself and not treat other people like crap before we can learn how to go farther. And because we still kill each other, let a lot of the population starve regularly, or die due to minor medical issues across the globe; that is why IMHO other intelligent races across the galaxies have not tried to contact us.
When society evolves to the point of solving the issues on our current planet will we have the capability to research ways on getting to the next planet.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Interesting) by driven on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:19PM
I totally agree. We are all being held back from much greater things by the status quo and it's a shame. We're trapped by geopolitical boundaries, a monetary system, and human greed and quest for power. Considering our level of advancement, it's hard to believe that for most people just surviving day to day is still their main concern.
When I read stories about people like Elon Musk it gives me hope that things may change for the better within my lifetime or my children's lifetimes. That is, if we don't all kill each other first.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @04:07PM
I KEEL YOU!
-Achmed the Terrorist
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:40PM
You do not need a manned or lifeformed mission to communicate with intelligent life. Robotic probes could be sent instead.
We may have been blasted by signals that we weren't capable of listening for, for millions of years, or that were too full of noise by the time they reached us. There may be small alien probes in our solar system right now. If they aren't attempting radio communication with us and they communicate with their creators using a different or highly directional technology, then we wouldn't notice them. There are millions of undiscovered asteroids in our solar system that could be larger than any probe.
6 months two-way travel time will be possible soon enough.
What is the point of that? Not much unless you intend to build permanent human settlements. Science goals may be accomplished faster by having humans on the ground, but more advanced robots have better capabilities than predecessors.
As long as we don't destroy ourselves, we have plenty of time. Insurance against destroying ourselves completely should be available within a few decades.
Or we could develop cheap preventative regenerative medicine so we can eventually decrease spending on health care/Medicare, and allocate that to space agencies.
The concept of military spending isn't even the problem. It's wasteful military spending which has everything to do with human greed, government failures, and the military-industrial complex rather than inherent human aggression. See the F-35 program. The U.S. could easily quadruple NASA's annual budget and still have over $500 billion in military spending. And more of that mil spending can be made dual-use like you mentioned. Even if we increased NASA's annual budget to about $200 billion from the current $18-20 billion, we could still spend $400 billion per year on the military.
With space suits and contained space habitats, since even "habitable zone" objects like Mars are deadly without them?
If it's terraforming of other worlds that you want, do you also want geoengineering of Earth to counteract climate change?
It's a nice opinion, but unfounded until we actually meet some advanced aliens that knew of us first.
"Society" has actually made tremendous strides in solving issues of hunger, disease, and war. And we will continue to do so while at the same time pursuing scientific endeavors like space travel.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday February 16 2017, @10:00PM
The biggest proof of intelligent life out there is that they haven't contacted us.
I would disagree with the idea that the absence of contact is evidence of intelligent life in the universe beyond ourselves.
While we have some interesting theories on how to travel outside our solar system ...
IMHO, we need to have significant changes to society before we can truly tackle the challenges of space travel outside our solar system. ...
Are you in a hurry to get there? I'm fairly sure we'll get there eventually. We are closer today then we have ever been in the history of human kind. Tomorrow we'll be another step closer and so forth.
But in your mind it seems space exploration, and conquest, is only possible as a total planetary effort? I somehow doubt that to be true. IMHO we'll have people permanently on other planets long before we eventually stop killing each other, if that ever happens -- which is highly doubtful. Instead of going for some space-hippie-dream we could just go all military. Everyone that doesn't agree could just be killed off, everyone left will be in agreement and working together towards a common goal then.
I don't really see what earth climate science improvements have to do with colonizing other planets. Unless they are just like earth it probably won't be that useful. We have non of those planets within easy reach as far as I know. We already know enough in that regard in how to build structures and equipment that protects us from the harshness of space, and the harshness of our own planet. We probably have a fair understanding on the basics of how our planet works and what we need to survive. We just don't know how to fix all the problems yet. But we'll get there. We know more today then we did 100 years ago, in another 100 years we'll know even more.
Humanity essentially needs to learn how to better handle itself ...
We are living in an age that has most likely never been better. Less people are starving today then ever before in history. Less people today are dying of common illnesses then ever before in history. We probably won't eradicate starvation or disease anytime soon. Man won't stop being shitty towards man anytime soon either. As I said I believe we'll be permanently in space and on other planets long before your "Star Trek":esq fantasy of a one world planet hugging government and population ever comes true -- unless one super power just conquers the entire planet.
How come in these ideas we are always the backwards planet and race? Perhaps we are the supreme being in the universe? Perhaps all the others, if there are any, are living in some kind of stone age utopia (or hell) and just don't give a shit about us. Perhaps they seen us and think we are awesome and they are now in the process of implementing our way of life on their own planets. Perhaps they didn't answer because they are so alien we don't even register on each others radar as life. Perhaps they learned all they wanted to learn from anal-probing and abducting cows. That or they just don't give a shit about us cause they have their own problems ... or their space fleet of Doom is already heading towards us to annihilate us in a first strike attack.
When society evolves to the point of solving the issues on our current planet will we have the capability to research ways on getting to the next planet.
I'm certain we'll get there long before we solve all our issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @10:53PM
They are already here, waiting for the ice caps to melt so they can be freed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @01:02AM
We killed most of the hungry bastards, the rest we are dealing with it now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 17 2017, @04:39AM
>we truly need to be past the point of spending money on killing each other before we can come together as a whole world society and fund the research that is required.
Someday, probably long after I am dead, the major trading partners should recognize just how utterly screwed they all would be if they stopped trade with each other, and then go on to realize that they are seriously overspending on their military because: what's the point?
Actually, looking at military spending per capita throughout the world, there's only one major player who doesn't seem to have gotten this through their heads yet... ironically, the same player that has put people on the moon, returned them home safely, given up on any serious efforts at going further, yadda, yadda....
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @10:57PM
Wonder what Sir Winston would have thought about transsexuals?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @11:59PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by butthurt on Friday February 17 2017, @03:33AM
Yes, a few sex-change operations were done in the early 1930s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Elbe#Lili_Elbe_x_Dora_Richter:_the_first_sex_reassignment_surgery [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:44AM
...or, does anyone know when it will be released? It sounds like it might be an interesting read
I also like his alternate history essay, "If Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg," [unz.org] from Scribners (Dec. 1930, pp. 587-96), reprinted in If It had Happened Otherwise (J.C. Squire, ed, 1930, Longmans) and If: or, History Rewritten (1931, Viking).