As our attention returns to space...

With the end of fossil fuels looming over the horizon and a glumness about the states of economy our attention has returned star ward. This time it's being looked at in a more serious manner, as both a destination and a place to discover. With things like the X-Prize, privet wealth and imagination are driving a push to space. It is now no longer only the hands of governments to choose when and how we go.

Since the 90's life has been discovered on earth in the most inhospitable environments; like in caves 2miles beneath the earths surface where microbes live in and produce sulfuric acid, in fact there is so much organic energy in some of these caves strange fish swim in Ph 0 fluid. Or 10 foot tube worms living around hydrothermal vents 8 miles under the Atlantic ocean, where also small bacteria use a process (in absolute darkness) called kemosynthesis to make energy in a Ph of 11. Or the bacteria living in the lakes under the frozen antarctic. However these most extreme environments represent a pleasant average of other worlds.

I personally feel life is a natural progression of the complexification of matter (ie. hydrogen> helium) and intelligence follows on from that. But then i am a tooth fairy agnostic. What i wonder then is how will theological dogma on creationism hold up to the seeming inevitably of finding life everywhere we look hard enough.

there's methane on mars don't ya know proof of life
the astronauts shouldn't have packed quite so many baked beans

religion will flex and re-write itself as it has to everytime science shows more and more of it to be childish superstition.
I'm a microbiologist/molecular virologist and have pretty inappropriate hard on for extremophile biology and space science.
But the lack of public interest and government investment in space exploration seriously depresses me. That said the cassini hygens mission crushed my mind as i watched the footage of the lander coming down on titan.
I recently got through to the last 700 applicants (out of 10,000) for a place on the ESA astronaut training program. I was gutted but unsuprised when i didnt get in!

@ cernan
Re-apply, and tell the interviewer that you're on lfgss, and you can arrange for him to get a BJ........cheap.

That should work.

^
indeed!
5 years time til the next round of selection. 5 years of sweet treats for the selection panel and its low earth orbit here i come!

bump

Well done.