OTHER WORLDS... AND US AND OUR VALUES ACROSS THE STARS

"NASA Telescope Reveals Largest Batch of Earth-Size, Habitable-Zone Planets Around Single Star"

Some time ago I read this news about NASA’s latest discovery and how I could not be exited?! 7 Earth size like planets... 3 of which in the "habitable" zone... so maybe with water and life!!!

I enjoy Sci-Fi. Movies, books, some TV series, especially when the story is nice and "realistic". Yeah, realistic! I am an engineer after all, and if something scientifically doesn't fit... it spoils the entertainment! But if that precondition is fulfilled, sometime I can even enjoy when, for the sake of the action, characters are forced into roles like The Bad (really really bad) and The Good (really really good): think about an invasion like Independence Day! Where aliens connected telepathically attack the Earth, where when the President of the United States get a mental connection with one of them while wondering "why are they here" and "what do they want", and he realises that the aliens are like locusts, moving from planet to planet conquering and exploiting all resources, before moving to the next one.

Think about it!

Discovering other planets, planets which might host water and life and that maybe one day could be colonised. Or eventually without going too far, exploring planets and satellites in our solar systems where we could settle to recreate atmosphere and conditions to support life. It is a great dream, I agree!

Anyway, looking at the world as it is today, my thinking goes a bit erratically to our past, our history, colonialism, how we human (not connected telepathically) too often motivated by our own personal interest conquered, killed, exploited and destroyed nature, civilisations, etc.

Even if we like to describe our achievements with beautiful and sound words... if you think about how we are taking care of our planet, the idea of colonising others (eventually with the idea that they could be our backup plan) doesn't make you feel a bit like the aliens of Independence Day?!

By the way, maybe we should think also about how difficult that might be, and not because indigenous aliens might be able to defend themselves but because several aspects like gravity, atmosphere, radiations, etc. could be really tough to be tackled.

I like to quote Lucianne Walkowicz when she says: "thinking about Mars as our backup plan... is like believing the Captain of the Titanic when he says that the real party is when we get to the safe-boats"!