RE: Space Ships

[Chad Cooper]

I just read a book that discussed something similar. Assuming that sentient beings can populate a galaxy in 10 million years, the idea was presented that non-sentient life could spread throughtout a galaxy within 1 billion years easy. Considering that we may very well have rocks from Mars that may have contained life, and other recent studies that point to the possiblity that bacteria may be raining down upon us everyday from space, leaves me with the following assumption (no matter how weak): If you assume that it takes 1 billion years for life to form, and 4 billion years for sentient life to form,   10+ billion years ago the U was formed, 9 Billion years ago the universe cooled down enough for stars to form. 8 billion years ago life appears in this galaxy 5-7 billion years ago first set of stars start to supernova blowing out this life like a big sneeze into other regions. 5 billion years ago, our sun is formed, presumably with this contaminated stuff. 4 billion years ago, life either starts on Earth, or the Earth is 'infected'.   This suggests that the initial life evolved perhaps very far way, but quickly "infected the Galaxy, therby preventing or at least slowing down 'sprouts' of foreign life. Sentience should have followed behind this proliferation by 4 billion years.   This does not answer if there is other sentient life out there, but it does suggest that the galaxy is full of life - in fact, With our many catastrophic collisions with meteorites, life could have easily (I assume) been blown away from our planet into space.      Anyone care to speculate if it would be possible that bacteria could have been launched into space from Earth?     Nerd >From Hell         -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Schlichtenmyer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 10:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Space Ships Doug wrote:   >I personally find it hard to believe >that life is rare. I also think its a bit presumptuous of us to declare the >universe devoid of life because we can't detect it.         I recently read a fascinating article in the April issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact entitled "Galactic Society". In it, one of the speculations that the author makes about galactic civilization (and I stress, only a speculation)is that colonies of bacteria might possibly be a form of nanorobot(!). He uses the argument that terrestrial bacteria have adaptions for surviving the hard vacuum of space, the temperature extremes, the radiation, and the ability to go into extended periods of dormancy that would be required for interstellar travel.   Hoping to instigate a discussion, Patrick ;-)   Patrick Schlichtenmyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?" -J.R.R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring