I am an American.

I am frequently mistaken for being in my
mid-thirties, despite my 52 years on this planet.

 

In the past decades, I have done pretty
much anything I have wanted to do, and managed to make money doing it. Among my
favorite jobs have been – News Videographer for First State News in Delaware, chief
engineer for the Fels Planetarium, Computer/Video Exhibit Specialist for the Franklin Institute Science Museum, and now I have
returned to school to learn how to make documentary films. I ride  my Peugeot bicycle all over Delaware
and S. E. Pennsylvania. I love reading and watching birds. I am also an amateur
mycologist.

 

One of my passions is community politics
(I consider the world my community, so that can be a relative term). My focus
is FREEDOM and
LIBERTY for
all people; the right to make one’s own choices in life with as little
government interference as possible. As one freedom fighter once put it, “The
government governs best that governs least.”

 

 

I am not certain that there is any other life in the universe at all, let alone anything that could be "intelligent" enough for travel or communications.



It could be that there is
intelligent extraterrestrial life. Indeed, it is
hard to discount the possibility, given the sheer
size of the universe. However, it is distance that makes it seem unlikely that such life is visiting us, or will.



Everything in the universe has a cost, in terms of raw materials, energy, time investment, etc. The closest star system, Alpha Centauri, 4.35 light years away, part of a three star system, is a potential candidate for life. In those terms, the cost to travel to, or even set up communications with, Earth would be costly.  Such a trip would only be possible if there is a substantial change in our understanding of physics, and communications would take far more money than has been spent so far just trying.



Communicating with a distant civilization may be possible, but it would be limited despite the best investment. We may well find another species using a program like SETI. Any communications signal we pick up originated about four and a half years ago. It also would take that long for our signal to get to another civilization.