Why Humankinds Quest For Extraterrestrial Life Passes To Be Somewhat Ineffective

Running head: SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE 1

Why Humankind’s Quest for Extraterrestrial Life Passes to be Somewhat Ineffective

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Why Humankind’s Quest for Extraterrestrial Life Passes to be Somewhat Ineffective

Affirming whether or not extraterrestrial life exists and can be within human reach is a

sentiment widely shared among many people. Some people in their attempt to appeal to the

subject draw inspiration from religious expressions, while for others, scientific evidence is what

is preferred. There have been many successfully implemented manned and unmanned space

missions to extraterrestrials such as the moon, and other planets. However, all these efforts point

to very little or no confirmation of the existence of extraterrestrial life in the explored worlds.

The humankind is unable to identify the presence of alien life forms because of its inflexible

capability and approach of what it perceives as life, hence it fails to recognize that extraterrestrial

life can occur in forms which are different from what is understood in earthly terms.

Human Perception of What comprises Life Limits the Ideal Understanding of

Extraterrestrial Life

In many space missions done to search for reliable signs which can confirm the presence

of extraterrestrial intelligent beings, often the focus is on whether the terrestrial bodies in

question can bear much resemblance to the conditions which support life on earth. Mostly, the

search missions are made to recognize the presence of water and oxygen in forms that can favor

human adaptation (Menezes, 2015). Besides, other elements such as surface temperatures are

looked into, and the comparison often is made to the conditions of the earth. I find the approach

to be convincingly misguided because extraterrestrial beings may have life forms which are very

different from that of humans and animal life characteristics on earth. They may not necessarily

rely on oxygen to support breathing, and liquid water may not be a necessity in their way of life.

Carl Sagan, through his numerous demonstrations and publications which affirms the

search for extraterrestrial life, is of the opinion that space exploration should use radio telescopes

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that can receive signals from potential intelligent extraterrestrial beings (Sagan, n.d.). The idea,

though as brilliant as it seems, fall short of logic because of its assumption that terrestrial beings

may be having the same technology as human beings. It is essential to recognize that alien

civilization may have an entirely different direction that what we envision on Earth. Having such

perception can enable quest for alien civilizations to have a broad-minded approach which in fact

can enable chances of fulfilling the alien search objective.

The search for Extraterrestrial Life Forms Mostly Focus on Presence of Temperature,

Oxygen and Water Conditions forgetting that some activities could indicate the presence of

extraterrestrial beings

To better enhance chances of encountering the presence of extraterrestrial beings, space

explorations should isolate human perception of what life is from what alien life may be like.

Instead, the focus should be on searching for signs that may confirm the existence of organized

activities. Those may include structures made to assume certain shapes or surface deformations

which indicate the presence of involvement of intelligence thoughts (Cabrol, 2016). Just the

same way different life forms have distinct characteristics such as color, body forms and manner

of thinking, it is possible that extraterrestrial beings may have characteristics which make them

unique to humans. Therefore, it is wrong to assume that alien beings exist in the same form as

humans on earth.

There Is a Possibility That the Humankind May Be Overlooking Extraterrestrial Bodies

Which Actually Could Be Harboring Life

Because of humans’ understanding that extraterrestrial life can only exist in planets that

have temperature conditions and presence of elements such as oxygen and water as earth, there is

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a possibility that some terrestrial bodies, which can be hosting extraterrestrial beings, being

overlooked supposedly because they may not have the conditions known to humans to support

life. In many space explorations, alien bodies deemed to have too cold or hot temperatures are

often ruled not to have extraterrestrial life forms, and the quests often concentrate more on

finding Earth-like planets (Fischer, 2012). It is essential to recognize that humans understanding

of how extraterrestrial life manifests is so limited. Instead, time should be taken to study any

alien bodies and embark on an evaluation of how it can support any form of life, despite its

condition being so different from what humans see as ideal for supporting life.

Human Space Technology Convincingly Cannot Reliably Indicate Extraterrestrial

Life Forms

It is undeniable that human civilization has made great steps towards its advancement

more so if its technology is questioned. Space exploration missions analyze the presence of

extraterrestrial life forms by examining images sent from unmanned space vehicles sent to the

extraterrestrial bodies of interest. The approach is limiting in that an analysis of an image may

not sufficiently lead to a logical conclusion of a life form being present in an extraterrestrial

landform (Seager, 2014). Besides, the space capsules used for exploration purposes are small, yet

they the extraterrestrial landmasses they move over are vast, some being hundred times bigger

than earth. That thereby means extraterrestrial beings may be existing, but because of the

limiting nature of humans space technology, they may not be feasibly identified.

The human technology used for the search for extraterrestrial life forms is also limiting in

a sense it takes a long time, sometimes decades, to relay information about an alien body being

surveyed for the possible presence of life. Because of such limitations, the search for life forms

outside the earth most likely seems to be an infinite process which may not get accomplished

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(Horneck, 2013). To avoid the limitations of communication, it could be feasible to limit the

search only to universe portions where faster information relay is possible. A better alternative

would be to improve the prowess of human technology so that space vehicles can communicate

easily and faster with the ground stations pursuing leads to the existence of extraterrestrial life

forms.

There Need to be Territorial Limits on the Quest for where the Existence of Alien Life

Happens

The heavenly space is vast and in many instances, due to the limited human

understanding of its nature, is assumed to be infinite. The wrong approach taken in the quest for

the existence of human life is that almost all extraterrestrial bodies are screened whether or not

they can show some life signs. Due to the vastness of the heavens, there is a possibility that

humans may continue that quest on a time scale that matches the infinite size of the universe

(Santos, 2016). It is better to categorize the vast universe into appropriate portions and

concentrate on ones which could lead to a higher probability of meeting extraterrestrial life

forms. The current approach of sampling almost any extraterrestrial masses for the possible

presence of alien civilization or life makes the quest tedious and not being objective-oriented

most of the times.

The Extraterrestrial Space Presents Plenty of Dangers which Hinders Humans Quest for

Finding New Life Forms in the Universe

It is recognized that exploration of extraterrestrial life forms on masses such as Mars can

best happen if humans, instead of machines, are the ones involved in analyzing traces of life

there. However, taking humans to heavenly bodies often are cost prohibitive and largely remain

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missions which are too difficult to accomplish (Setlow, 2013). The landing humans on the moon

though successful still met plenty of challenges. Flying space debris such as rocks presents the

danger of space vehicles getting destroyed before they can engage in their functions of finding

evidence suggesting the existence of extraterrestrial life. The existence of dangers such as

extreme cosmic radiations, an environment having extremely fluctuating gravity levels, and

elements such as intense sunlight and darkness make it difficult for humans themselves to pursue

life forms with whom they can be sharing the universe (Thirsk, 2012). Because of the existence

of such dangers, human exploration of the universe may get limited only certain portions of the

universe which sadly may not contain any extraterrestrial life forms. Interestingly, other life

forms may exist in the universe portions which are out of human technology reach. But because

of the dangers which must be met before such space sections are reached, humankind’s

interaction with the universe’s alien life may not happen.

Conclusion

Because humans assume that life can only exist in certain conditions, there is a possibility

that extraterrestrial bodies which actually could be having life forms being overlooked. Space

explorations in their quest for the existence of an extraterrestrial life form less make use of

observations of activities that could indicate the presence of an organized alien activity. The

universe is vast, and the search for the existence of alien life forms seems to follow that infinite

vastness. It is better to concentrate the search for the presence of extraterrestrial life forms only

universe portions which logically can show sure signs of harboring extraterrestrial life signs.

Human technology causes slowed information relay between the earth and terrestrial bodies. It

therefore takes a long time to analyze the small bits of information available on extraterrestrial

bodies space vehicles maneuver for possible signs of alien life. Therefore, humans are unable to

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identify extraterrestrial life forms because of a limited understanding of what life forms they can

assume and also because of limiting factors related to technology. However, by favoring an

approach that aliens could take life forms different from us and also improving on our

technologies, the chances of meeting can get reasonable.

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References

Amor Menezes, J. C. (2015). Towards synthetic biological approaches to resource utilization on

space missions. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 12(102), 236-243.

Cabrol, N. A. (2016). Towards synthetic biological approaches to resource utilization on space

missions. Astrobiology, 16(9), 661-676.

Fischer, D. (2012). signatures of life on other worlds. Nature, 464(1), 1276-1277.

Gerda Horneck, D. M. (2013). Space Microbiology. Microbiology and Molecular Biology

Reviews, 74(1), 121-156.

Morphy D. Santos, L. P. (2016). On the parallels between cosmology and astrobiology: a

transdisciplinary approach to the search for extraterrestrial life. International Journal of

Astrobiology, 15(4), 251-260.

Robert Thirsk, A. K. (2012). The space-flight environment: the International Space Station and

beyond. Canadian Medical Journal Association, 180(12), 1216-1220.

Sagan, C. (n.d.). The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Retrieved from Cosmic Search

Magazine: http://www.bigear.org/vol1no2/sagan.htm

Seager, S. (2014). The future of spectroscopic life detection on exoplanets. Proceedings of the

National Acdemy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(35), 12634–12640.

Setlow, R. B. (2013). The hazards of space travel. Embo Reports, 4(11), 1013-1016.

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Why Humankinds Quest for Extraterrestrial Life Passes to be Somewhat Ineffective

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