If it takes 100 thousand years to reach any lifeform beyond our galaxy why do we keep trying to contact aliens?

I was seeing on national geographic who long it would take to reach another "possible" life form across the universe and thought to myself, why keep trying? It would take 100 thousand years to contact anyone and 100 thousand years for them to get back to us using sound only. Why keep trying that plan? Why not spend all of that money and all the resources to use here on Earth to help with the research of cancer and such? Or for the study of our own atmosphere? And now Obama said yesterday how he approves the mission NASA is taking on in getting someone on Mars by the year 2035! I just think that some things should be left to God, getting satellites up there is one thing but spending billions and billions of dollars when we are already trillions in debt is so rediculous to me. Money that should be spent on kids, teachers, the elderly, the sick, and responsible single mothers.



This just makes me thing about this scripture...



Ecclesiastes 1:1-18





1 The words of the congregator, the son of David the king in Jerusalem. 2 “The greatest vanity!” the congregator has said, “the greatest vanity! Everything is vanity!” 3 What profit does a man have in all his hard work at which he works hard under the sun? 4 A generation is going, and a generation is coming; but the earth is standing even to time indefinite. 5 And the sun also has flashed forth, and the sun has set, and it is coming panting to its place where it is going to flash forth.



6 The wind is going to the south, and it is circling around to the north. Round and round it is continually circling, and right back to its circlings the wind is returning.



7 All the winter torrents are going forth to the sea, yet the sea itself is not full. To the place where the winter torrents are going forth, there they are returning so as to go forth. 8 All things are wearisome; no one is able to speak of it. The eye is not satisfied at seeing, neither is the ear filled from hearing. 9 That which has come to be, that is what will come to be; and that which has been done, that is what will be done; and so there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Does anything exist of which one may say: “See this; it is new”? It has already had existence for time indefinite; what has come into existence is from time prior to us. 11 There is no remembrance of people of former times, nor will there be of those also who will come to be later. There will prove to be no remembrance even of them among those who will come to be still later on.



12 I, the congregator, happened to be king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and explore wisdom in relation to everything that has been done under the heavens—the calamitous occupation that God has given to the sons of mankind in which to be occupied. 14 I saw all the works that were done under the sun, and, look! everything was vanity and a striving after wind.If it takes 100 thousand years to reach any lifeform beyond our galaxy why do we keep trying to contact aliens?
Life's impulse to reach out to Life.
well why not?



i know i know most theologies (cough cough islamo-judeo-christian ones) discourage probing for knowledgeIf it takes 100 thousand years to reach any lifeform beyond our galaxy why do we keep trying to contact aliens?
Long distance relationships can be very fulfilling. We could just email for a while!If it takes 100 thousand years to reach any lifeform beyond our galaxy why do we keep trying to contact aliens?
Because they still owe us money %26lt; that was my joke answer ..

here is the real one ....because of mans lack of faith ... because he seeks another god other than god almighty ... He seeks to create an idol .. a god he has formed with his parameters and stipulations as to what right wrong good bad or any lack of judgement against himself or his own actions .. to justify his own sin man jumps wildly thru hoops made my himself or even satan .."did god say "..? Now becomes "my god wouldn't " ... or even "what god ??"



Aliens are and will be a way for Satan to confuse people as to who he is and who god is ...



A smokescreen for the coming deception ..



look at the liar VS. the truth..



One is a solid rock foundation that is firmly established ,unshakable ..

The other changing ,always coming up with a new excuse , unable to be pinned down ,adding a new and improved spin,Looking for something new ..



The gospel is an old message ,an unchanging message of gods love for man ..

Modern man loves the new , the hip , the shiney and shallow and avoids the deep things of god .
Dude, you argument is all over the place, eventually setting in on the talking point I've heard for 40 years, namely that we "have to spend the money on earth". OK. Did you know that more money has been spend on the war in Iraq than has been spent on NASA in its entire 50+ year history? The most NASA has ever spent in any one year was less than 35 billion (adjusted) dollars and that was at the height of the moon program in the 60's. NASA's latest budget is a little more than half of one percent of the total federal budget. And if you are looking for a tangible benefit, the aerospace industry employs half a million people.
“It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.” - Jonathan Swift



1. Your silly little bible quote has nothing to do with the topic of extraterrestrial contact.



2. They have discovered liquid water on the Moons of Jupiter and Saturn that may contain life, so "Finding Life" isn't as impossible as once thought.



3. Contact through information transmissions can take much less time than actually, physically GOING to the nearest Class M Planet. Radio Waves travel much faster than a ship can. A life form that has had a billion extra years of evolution over our species may have ways of finding energy form communication transmissions far faster than our current technological level allows. It is pure hubris to think that all other life must be on par or behind us in terms of technology.



4. We may be able to find a way around the limitations of E=MC2. Just because current physics dictates that in order to reach light speed, we would require an infinite amount of fuel doesn't mean that we won't, in the future, develop technology and techniques to work around, since we can't break, the fundamentals of physics.



E=MC2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass–energy…

The equation E = mc2 indicates that energy always exhibits mass in whatever form the energy takes.[3] It does not imply that mass may be “converted” to energy, for modern theory holds that neither mass nor energy may be destroyed, but only moved from one location to another. In physics, mass must be differentiated from matter. In cases where matter particles are created or destroyed, the precursors and products retain both the original mass and energy, which is unchanged. Mass–energy equivalence also means that mass conservation becomes a restatement of the law of energy conservation, which is the first law of thermodynamics.



5. Just because it is hard or time consuming doesn't mean the effort shouldn't be undertaken. If we used the cop out of "It's HARD!" for every new situation or idea, we would still be naked in a cave eating carrion.



6. The consensus of most of the 35,000+ sects of Christianity is that the concept of extraterrestrial life does not contradict your little fairy tale.



7. When it comes to the 'Money' argument... When we have theistic, nutters representing the people, we end up with Pork Barrel Spending like how a few years ago a southern state demanded money to "Fight Goth Culture". We have cops out ticketing teeny-boppers for having their underwear showing instead of fighting CRIMES like rape and child molestation... When it comes to what our government and, more to the point, the theists we ignorantly voted in to office, spend OUR money on, I would rather see them spending the cash on advancements in science, medicine, and technology... pissing it away on "Looking for Aliens"... than finding ways to "Fight Goth Culture" and keep kids from learning about condoms.



? Can Congress Be Embarrassed into Ending Wasteful Pork-Barrel Spending?

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports…

In early February, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels escalated his war against wasteful pork-barrel spending by announcing at a press conference that Congress's practice of earmarking location-specific spending requirements in annual appropriations bills "has gotten out of hand" and that "Congress ought to moderate its appetite for these programs."1 With tax revenues depressed by an economy briefly knocked down on September 11 and the war against terrorism consuming billions of dollars of resources to ensure America's security, Daniels' concern is well placed. At a time when it is critical for America to focus its resources and energy on security and economic stimulus initiatives, many in Congress have embarked instead on a record-breaking effort to pander to special interests by larding the budget with wasteful spending mandates.2

Last year alone, Congress added an all-time high of 7,803 pork-barrel earmarks worth about $15 billion to this year's 13 appropriations bills.3 Included among these nearly 8,000 earmarks were novel proposals to extend federal responsibility to such projects as:



? A tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo County, California ($50,000);

? The Fort Union Trading Post Bike Trail in North Dakota ($500,000);

? The Center on Obesity at West Virginia University ($2 million); and

? An effort to combat "goth culture" in Blue Springs, Missouri ($270,000).4



One can only begin to imagine what possessed a majority in Congress to believe that spending more than a quarter of a million taxpayer dollars to help a prosperous Kansas City suburb confront an infestation of alienated teenagers dressed in black and posing as spawns of Nosferatu is an essential responsibility of the national government. More curious is how Congress could believe this at a time when the federal government is confronting an international terrorist assault that has already murdered 3,000 Americans.5
In point of fact, we have no idea how far away other species are -- it might only take 10-20 years for a message to be heard and answered.
1) If it takes 100 thousand years to reach any lifeform beyond our galaxy why do we keep trying to contact aliens?



Well...because we *primarily* are trying to contact intelligent life in our *own* galaxy - and such life could be decades away rather than thousands of years.





2) It would take 100 thousand years to contact anyone and 100 thousand years for them to get back to us using sound only.



Well - it seems that you may not have thoroughly understood what they were saying, or that they were talking about a single search for extragalactic intelligence rather than the more common search for intelligence *within* our own galaxy. Some stars are only a few light years away - the closest **known** just over 4 light years away. If intelligent life existed in that solar system, we could communicate by radio wave with only a 4 year delay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closest_sta…





3) Why not spend all of that money and all the resources to use here on Earth to help with the research of cancer and such?



In fact, far more $ is spent (by the U.S. government) on cancer research than is donated to SETI, which is by far one of the most economical astronomical programs there is. The U.S. government does NOT fund SETI.





4) And now Obama said yesterday how he approves the mission NASA is taking on in getting someone on Mars by the year 2035!



You should read that as Obama saying, "I'll be long gone before anyone has to spend any serious $ on that - so no one can possibly blame me." The planning stage (putting it on paper) is by far the least expensive.





5) spending billions and billions of dollars when we are already trillions in debt is so rediculous to me.



On this, at least, we agree. The national debt is outrageous, and the government should take serious measures to pay that off. Canceling a few multi-billion-dollar projects is not going to do it, though. We're now adding well over 500 billion dollars a year (with a trillion projected for LAST year). Instead, *widespread* cuts in federal funding need to take place. The problem with that is our system: one of the *major* reasons that politicians get re-elected is based on how successful they are at getting government funds directed to their constituency. That means that NO politician wants to cut government funding to their constituency.



Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com