Another Earth?

by JASmius



Being an astronomy buff - why else do you think I inject Star Trek into the radio programs at every opportunity? - I may be aware of something at least some of you may not: Did you know that NASA is the biggest and most egregious violator of the (extra-constitutional) principle of "separation of church and state"?  How do I know this?  Why else has what's left of the entire U.S. space program that hasn't been pissed away on "climate change" and "Muslim outreach" become justified by the timeworn phrase, "Are we alone in the universe?":

NASA on Thursday will announce "major new discoveries" from its Kepler space telescope mission, including "another Earth," according to news reports.

Kepler began its effort in March 2009, the Independent reports. Its goal was to search out and map the universe, seeking out Earth-like planets that could be inhabited because they are the ideal distance from a star.

The space telescope detects planets by measuring the light from stars, which dims when a planet passes before them. This detection requires a very precise measurement....

"Today, and thousands of discoveries later, astronomers are on the cusp of finding something people have dreamed about for thousands of years — another Earth," the space agency said.

I love the Kepler Project.  For a Trek geek like me there is nothing more....well, fascinating than the discovery and mapping of exoplanets, alien solar systems.  Sure, it would be even cooler to be moving out into the galaxy and exploring it in person, but doing so "from home" is the next best thing, as we take these first baby steps into the galactic surf - and a new frontier.  And the discovery of other Class-M (Earth-like) planets - heck, even Class-O (Pelagic, or "water worlds"), Class-P (Glaciated, or "ice worlds," and Class-Q (Variable) - would be the essence and "Holy Grail" of this new frontier.

But for future colonization, not "the search for life".  Whether it was the government-run technocracy of the United Federation of Planets or the privatized and decentralized human galactic civilization of Robert Heinlein's "Future History" or the Foundation of Isaac Asimov or the Galactic Commonwealth of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, or whatever form it would take over the ensuing centuries and millennia, expansion beyond our birthworld is, as many astronomers have argued and I heartily concur, necessary for resources, for avoiding "Malthusian" or other catastrophes (like space impacts) that could wipe us all out, and, as with all exploration down through history, to "see what's out there".

For the hell of it, in so many words.  And because it's the coolest thing ever.

However, if you listen to the rhetoric of astronomers and astrophysicists and especially astrobiologists, it's clear that they aren't the slightest bit interested in "elbow room" or lebensraum or any practical, human interest in space exploration.  To them it is a religious quest - "the search for life" to determine if we're "alone in the universe".  They wax rhapsodic about how confirmation of the existence of even alien microbes would have a "transformational" (sound familiar?) effect on our culture and civilization.

But as we discussed regarding Stephen Hawking and SETI the other day, finding alien life, much less alien intelligence, even if it does exist (i.e. wherever else God created it), with our unquestionably primitive technology is the lonely work of thousands of years at least, because barring the invention of warp drive, that's how long it would take to reach even the nearest stars.  It is, in other words, incalculably more difficult than sifting through radio signals for another "WOW!" moment.

Yet uniformitarians and evolutionists rapturously pursue their cosmic pilgrimage anyway with the blind faith of precisely the sort of religious zealots on whom they reflexively heap so much scorn, when it would require so much less faith to accept that, "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

"Political scientists" know we're not alone in the universe.  They just don't like the divine company.  And meanwhile, "the heavens declare His righteousness, for God Himself is judge."

Pity I won't live to see the first interstellar missionaries bring the Gospel to other worlds.  That will truly be glorious.