Our sun is just a star, a medium-size one at that. The next closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri - one of three in the 3-star system called Alpha Centauri (A and B being the other two). Let's for a minute, just for perspective, imagine our sun as a grain of sand on the kitchen table. Proxima Centauri is another grain of sand but it will neither be on the same table nor within the same kitchen. In fact, it will not be out in the yard either. It will actually be four miles away. Our home planet earth, which is one millionth the size of the sun, would be the size of a virus going around - orbiting - that grain of sand.
By resorting to that analogy we had just put into perspective what it is like to imagine a distance of 25 trillion miles. That is how far the nearest star is from us. Our planet earth will then be invisible to anyone, if there is anyone out there around our nearest neighbor-star. Beyond that, from a scattering of six to a dozen stars "nearby", if there are observers from there, our solar system will be viewed by them from 50 to 100 trillion miles away. We, as they are to us, will indeed be even more invisible from one another. And, more significantly, by the sheer vastness and emptiness of space in between, earthlings and ETs will never meet. We might as well be all alone. Why?
This is not philosophical pessimism but a belief that by just its incomprehensible vastness the universe simply precludes the tantalizing idea that we will ever see ET come by to visit us. Likewise, which is even more humbling, we too will never get to visit another world either. It is true that the possibility of life somewhere else in the cosmos would seem like a statistical foregone conclusion; however, physical contact between interplanetary inhabitants would remain technically infeasible if not utterly impossible. And, even more so, we can forget intergalactic excursions as well.
We can only realistically imagine it from our perspective because to see it from an extraterrestrial's point of view is pure speculation. However, the conditions we face are the same to confront ET since the laws of physics should be the same anywhere else in the cosmos. In other words we and ET will face the same insurmountable barriers that separate us from one another; primarily, gravity and distance.
Any spacecraft, ours or ET's, must first overcome the gravity of its home planet before it is able to leave to travel from points A to B anywhere in the universe; then it must carry enough fuel for a long sustained journey and, critically, enough fuel to slow the craft down before reaching a chosen destination. So, distance will determine how long it would take to get to any interstellar location depending on how fast any spacecraft can manage.
Let's take a look. The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) launched in 2018 was the fastest space vehicle ever to leave earth and it was sent to study the sun. It attained a record speed of 430,000 miles per hour. That is very fast, considering the fastest aircraft - the North American X-15 - could only do 4,520 miles per hour or about 6 times the speed of sound.
Fast indeed, but the Solar Space Probe will have taken 61,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, if it were directed to travel towards it.
Light, the fastest thing in the universe, travels at 186,000 miles per second. The Parker Solar Probe by comparison traveled at a snail's pace, at a mere 119 miles per second. However, as fast as light is, it still takes 4.24 years for it to travel from Proxima Centauri to us.
But let's be ambitious and say that we are able to build a spacecraft that can travel at 10% the speed of light. That's 18,600 miles per second! 10 % the speed of light might seem like a relatively low target but reality is the biggest spoiler. It took 1.5 million pounds of liquid oxygen propellant to lift the Delta 18 rocket to send the Parker Solar Probe, a mere half the weight of a compact car, on its solar journey. Imagine how much energy will be needed to send explorers on a suitably large spacecraft towards Proxima Centauri at 18,600 miles per second. Imagine the stresses the human body or any biological organism larger than a cat can withstand in order to reach 10% the speed of light.
But let's imagine that we've done that. It will take a spacecraft speeding at 18,600 miles per second 43 years to reach Proxima Centauri! For the safety of the astronauts, gradual acceleration and deceleration (upon reaching the vicinity of the destination) would be necessary so that the total trip could conceivably take over 60 years one way. Therefore, we can forget a round trip. Astronauts with an average age of 35 to 40 years old at launch date, will all be centenarians by the time they get to Proxima Centauri if they survive the trip.
Between our solar system and Alpha Centauri is empty space. There will be no stopovers and no turning around. At the halfway point, communicating at the speed of light, it would still take one year for a message to reach the spacecraft and another year to get a response back and vice versa. It would take two years to complete a single conversation of merely asking a question and waiting for a response. Let that sink in for a minute.
So, even if we've managed to overcome gravity, distance and time are eternally unforgiving. And to fund such a trip will require perhaps all the resources of the entire planet's economy. We earthlings, who live in a world divided by culture and ideology, a history of constant conflicts, wars and distrust between nations, face an almost insurmountable challenge to embark on such an endeavor that will require a staggering amount of expenditure and sustained interest across one or two generations of the population.
Enrico Fermi, one of the distinguished physicists involved in the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb towards the end of WWII, asked in 1950 the now well known question, "So, where is everybody"? He asked that of his colleagues over lunch one day as they were discussing UFOs, extraterrestrial beings and their potential visitations to earth. That question became the principle behind the Fermi Paradox. It is worth reading up on it if the reader is so inclined.
Indeed, to this day, scientists and researchers have not come up with any credible evidence of UFOs and UAPs. Here is a quick thought. We have a sophisticated system to detect asteroids lurking around the solar system that could pose potential dangers to earth. An asteroid tracker is posted and regularly updated by NASA that cover all near-earth objects or NEOs. There are multiple trackers as well from smaller organizations and private individuals. Asteroids the size of cars and school buses have been detected and identified.
Notice that grainy videos and photos presented as evidence are all about UFOs or UAPs already flying around "here". How come, none have been detected before they entered our atmosphere? If indeed they came from outer space, ground based military radars that watch out for ballistic missiles on re-entry would have detected any extraterrestrial crafts or motherships of interstellar travelers streaking across the sky just like meteorites do. NORAD and other ICBM detectors have been operating since the 60s. Such alien visitors would have been detected as near earth objects even long before they enter our solar system.
Perhaps, the Fermi Paradox is right about the idea that the great filter that inhibits contact between interstellar beings, if there are others aside from us, is the vast distances that separate everyone. So, Enrico Fermi may have been right to ask, "So, where is everybody"?
It is as if The Creator meant for the universe where every star, every solar system, every galaxy, exist far enough away in their own individual worlds, separately from and independently of each other. Why? That we cannot know. At least, not yet.
The reader may want to read the previous musing to this - "Second to the Last Word on UFO" - for another perspective, albeit a whimsical alternative to space exploration.
Also, on UFO https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2021/04/ufo.html
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