I find the the unnecessary use of "uncensored" to be offending.
The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
31–40 of 126 posts
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#32I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince the public and scientific community that it was an alien probe so much as is he trying to show it could have been. I think is agenda is to get the community looking for these things more often, perhaps out of some disappointment that if it had been an actual probe (a la "Rendezvous with Rama"), we'd already have missed it. Whether it's worth bending the sci…
His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your…
You’re putting a lot of words in his mouth. He did an AMA on reddit yesterday where he had every chance to say such things if that’s what he thinks, but he did little more than list his accomplishments and link to his books and articles.
https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/l6xl3d/askscien...
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#33Dr. Loeb was just a guest on the NPR show "Science Friday" last week, explaining that Science has an obligation to explore these questions instead of dogmatically refusing to explore the possibilities. Interesting listen:
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
He was interviewed for the Kotke Ride Home podcast. He has a book coming out about Oumuamua. I will probably buy the book because Loeb is apparently brilliant. His evaluation of Oumuamua is very interesting. BUT the data about Oumuamua is really really tiny. The science of interstellar objects is nascent. Other than to say "If it is a natural object it is super-strange" I am not sure what else there is to say. In the…
My concern is that we aren't going to get much more than what was said in the articles already. I think the beneficial outcome of all of this is that we can identify what to look for next time, and hopefully get funding to do that. I also wonder if, as our tracking tech gets better, it would be relatively cheap to land a bunch of sensors on these and have them go on a ride somewhere in space for much cheaper than lau…
If you can intercept an interstellar object to land something on it you can by definition also just launch the thing to the same trajectory.
Unless your payload is advanced enough to use the mass of the object for something (fuel, radiation shielding, construction materials, etc.) there is not much benefit in landing on an interstellar object if you just want to launch an interstellar probe.
Maybe actually if you wanted to send a really long range message it could help to put it on an interstellar asteroid - much more likely someone would notice a huge mountain flying through their system than a piano sized piece of metal, even if both hold the same message.
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#35Whatever the thing is, it's clearly an interesting object and the only sane response is to build a big rocket to go chase it. But we don't have our shit together civilizationally and have to wait (and hope) that there's a next one.
This is one reason that I'm such a big fan of robot probes vs. human space flight. If your space program is about flinging tiny cameras into the remotest reaches of the solar system, it's easier to pursue the occasional alien asteroid on short notice than if you're all about getting a can of primates to the next planet over.
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your…
You’re putting a lot of words in his mouth. He did an AMA on reddit yesterday where he had every chance to say such things if that’s what he thinks, but he did little more than list his accomplishments and link to his books and articles. https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/l6xl3d/askscien...
Note that I said "his battle" rather than "his words". He is but one voice in the fight against the particular scientific bias I described. Had Oumuamua not come along, he would have attached to any number of other vehicles (eg BLC-1) to make basically the same points.
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#37Whatever the thing is, it's clearly an interesting object and the only sane response is to build a big rocket to go chase it. But we don't have our shit together civilizationally and have to wait (and hope) that there's a next one. This is one reason that I'm such a big fan of robot probes vs. human space flight. If your space program is about flinging tiny cameras into the remotest reaches of the solar system, it's…
It was already moving away too quickly once discovered, even if we there had been some kind of craft ready.
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#38I'd gotten the impression that Loeb isn't trying to convince the public and scientific community that it was an alien probe so much as is he trying to show it could have been. I think is agenda is to get the community looking for these things more often, perhaps out of some disappointment that if it had been an actual probe (a la "Rendezvous with Rama"), we'd already have missed it. Whether it's worth bending the sci…
His battle is only partly about Oumuamua. That is just a vehicle for his arguments. The real issue is the bias against life detection experiments generally. Want to sample soil on mars and measure oxygen absorption? Great. We will put your sensor on the next rover. Want to pour nutrients on that soil and see if anything eats it? Go away you crazy person. Want to detect methane in an exoplanet atmosphere? Here is your…
It's a political problem because basic research on these matters still requires money that mostly comes from the US government.
Space stuff exists because it's a jobs program in the South. The search for life starts crossing lines because it raises awkward questions that challenge politically meaningful people.
End of the day, you don't bite the hand that feeds.
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#39How do we jump to the conclusion of aliens with so little information? Why not God sent it?
If it comes flying in on an asteroid sized spaceship...what’s the difference?
Re: The Uncensored Guide to ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, and That Harvard Astronomer
#40How hard is it for people to just admit that we probably have inadequate evidence to reach a solid conclusion. This was the first object of its kind and we had very limited observations of it. From what I've read, none of the hypotheses regarding the measured acceleration (e.g. outgassing vs manufactured solar sail) can really be backed up in any substantial way. So it seems disengenuous to get into vitriolic argumen…
The reason we have inadequate evidence is the relatively low priority of SETI compared to other science.
SETI has literally been living off financial scraps for decades. If a couple of billionaires hadn't funded efforts with very generous personal donations there would be almost no SETI at all.
And if SETI had been funded properly - which would still be a drop in the ocean compared to other government spending, nationally and internationally - we'd have more observations to draw on from other sources.
This is all quite strange considering how much of a game changer and scientific motivator evidence of ETI would be.