Good point. Maybe we can convince DC to succeed?

More than one....

Who are they kidding! They are already here or is it out there? NASA must think the American People are stupid. By the time they get around to show us the proof it's going to be one big yawn.

I'll hold you to that--about the difference between fact and interpretation. I dare say many of my interpretations of certain facts on the ground, and in our solar system, would shake most members of this community to the core. For instance: the idea that the crust of this earth cracked open and let out an unimaginable torrent of water that not only washed out all of human civiliation, and all of humanity except eight people who built the most genius craft of all time, but also caused the earth to shed four percent of its then-extant mass in the form of anything from comets to subglacial oceans on Europa and elsewhere.

On the other hand, my research has led me to accept certain things as real, that others try to use to shake my particular metaphysical construct. Like finding microbial, or even more complex, life on bodies in our solar system other than earth. Life forms that modern man did not put there as part of any space program in this century or the last.

But what's the evidence?? And what you said implied the NASA people have had access to solid evidence that they've been withholding. What's your evidence for that?

Good points Temlakos. I am not going to lock myself into a specific limitation to space travel, in that, I point to the "If man was made to fly he would have wings" gang. For years, the idea of jet propulsion was an idea that was "impossible", and supersonic was going to destroy the plane. All based on what was percieved as scientific fact. That is what I like about Objectivism, it is based on your interpretations of the facts, and reality. I am going to allow that since we were wrong in the past, because of incomplete, or misinterpreted data, we can easily be wrong today in assuming we need multi generational ships, or that light is the top speed limit. Warping space is a sound scientific principle proven by Einstein, but even then our knowledge is imperfect because we cannot produce a Unified Field Theory that reconciles all differences. I would prefer to think maybe there are things I do not know, but have reason to suspect, may exist, and possibly can exist. Without proof though, it kinda becomes like religion, except we have a lot more proof to work with here. So much Sci Fi has come true, and is hard fact, that it is an accepted method of doing initial engineering studies for far out ideas. We are not beaten yet, just handicapped by certain elements of society that want to control all of us, rather than enjoying our natural freedom.

I don't think that's all that weird. I don't see anything in what you describe, that I could not conceive.

Here's the problem, and I don't see any way around it: any extraterrestrial civilization must also be extrasystemic. Now you're talking either about a generation ship--meaning a gigantic floating city, or even a group of them--or else a ship able to fly faster than light.

Even an amateur astronomer, with a telescope you could buy in a store, ought to have been able to spot a generation ship or generation fleet. And FTL travel? One mission would consume the total mass-energy of the planet Jupiter. Either way, you would expect to see the expeditionaries in orbit around either Jupiter or one of the Galileans--probably Callisto.

So where are they?

And the kind of ground effect I'm talking about? How about total gravity manipulation. The dream of the flight sciences. Any civilization capable of jumping the gap between stars, would have this. Count on it.

Ok, who says they have not? Our government, being known for it's openness and honesty, surely would have told us? In casae you didn't see it, the Navy has fielded a couple of Lasers that destroy drones and small boats, and screw up some ship sensors just this year. Isn't it a bit weird we just sort of stumbled from vacuum tubes, to silicon, transistors, then IC, then microprocessors, to today where Intel just announced a 147 Petaflop supercomputer for 2016 for the government? The question cannot be answered because we do not have truth, and facts. There are rumors by the bazillion, but what you say is entirely possible...or not, depending on how you want to interpret history and what "facts" you can find.

Why, then, has not one of those scouts made a direct contact with someone--if not the UN or even the USA, at least with one or more captains of industry? Can you imagine the kind of technological advancements a trade expeditionary might offer? Can you imagine what the Boeing Group, or Airbus Industrie, or General Dynamics, or Israel Aerospace Industries, might give to get their hands on ground-effect hovercraft, directed-energy weapons, and the like?

I still think Jack Nicholson would have been a great President, he was corrupt right up front, smarter than BIll and sneakier than Hillary.

Ack.ackity.ackack..ackk.

VAPORIZED!!

I make parody over the attempts by media to manipulate every situation with buzzwords and button pushing. Any good Progressive propagandist would be able to take Mars Attacks and milk it for many, many hot button topics, ignoring the fact it was a farcical movie to start with. They would expound on the "mean treatment" of the Martians who came looking for peace because the evil conservatives are racists bigots etc..etc.. The movie was not racist, or anything else, just a silly, kinda messy movie with no real message I could ever discern. But soon, we will all suffer the ignominy of accelerated screaming and yelling as politics cranks up and falsehoods fly...right next to the pigs..I believe. Excuse me if I was not clear..I tend to babel on sometimes. Chronic disappointment is such a burden...

What is racist in Mars Attacks????

I think it is wrong to write off another intelligent race able to travel through space in some manner. We constantly find new things out that are hard to explain. Go look up "The Man who calls Aliens", while there is a lot of controversy and cries of "fake" a lot of the various films and pictures are hard to explain. With billions of possible locations in the spiral arm that could have evolved life, it is irresponsible to not allow for something more advanced to be there. A lot of sci-fi postulates they contact the "government" but with ours, that may be a big mistake. Not that there are many others better, it seems the idea of government universally decays into a dictatorship of one form or another.

And promptly leave it as a total write off, they will never comprehend derivatives...

Oh boy... just go look for the movies on you tube that claim that, they have the red slit eye thing down pat..looks pretty good too. He ought to consider contacts..

Just possible..and our glorious leaders would never have a clue something was wrong. They just mix it all up with their misleading propaganda and make everyone doubtful as to what is real.

Oh boy, open a can of worms and read "We have Never been alone", it takes that theory and provides a lot of circumstantial evidence across a whole bunch of disciplines to make that claim. I thought it was a good alternate interpretation of a lot of "facts".

Are we referring to that right wing racist movies Mars Attacks that put our poor underprivileged neighbors in such a bad light?

True

One of my favorite parts is when the old woman laughs and says.''Hahahah they blew up congress hahahah."

The aliens will say they are going to fix global warming but instead will terra form our planet for them.