What are your thoughts. hopes, and expectations about extraterestial life? Is the prospect of other life-forms in space, as it really might be, all that interesting?

When I was ten years old, I was fascinated by the prospect of life on Venus and Mars. They were still thinking, in those days, that Venus might have life—but only microbes, and only possibly floating in the clouds. The surface was known to be over 800 degrees—warmer than warm enough to blaze if such temps were in our own atmosphere. Mars’ hopes for vegetation was still out there but only the most determined optimists still believed in the canals theory. Maybe potatoes could be grown there someday if it could be terreformed (making a whole planet into an earthlike biome? That alone sounds science fiction and not possible ) And when rocks were later found that might have been Martian in origin turned out to have evidence of very simple bacteria—some even espoused the idea that life on Earth began on Mars.

None of these seem all that interesting—nor does the bleak existence traveling months or years in a space-craft with the stress of things failing—nor the bleak existence of life in a martian colony with nowhere else to go

I admit that there are many fascinating, wonderous, and beautiful things in space— Gas giants, Black holes, Pulsars, Nebulae—etc etc. But for me, part of the fascination is in that these things are completely devoid of life, of never being closely observed and contemplated by sentient beings—that they exist in eternal silence and are unseen and unvisited and maybe will never be seen but nonetheless is out there.

It would be nice if there were Greys, Nordics and Reptilians—or Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans or Wookies from whence Sasquatch came from. Or planets with trolls and orcs and elves and creatures of high fantasy and role playing games. or adventures in Oz or the many worlds visited on Star Trek. But the truth is, I think the aspect of life—as it usually turns out to be, if even possible, is apt to be a disappointment. If it does not rise to the sentience level of at least fish or birds or maybe insects, it just isn’t that interesting to me.

Space is far more interesting to me as devoid of life but very beautiful in its energy forms and anomalies of time, space and energy— but not the simple, barely qualifying as life lifeforms that may actually be there.

Even so, a part of me is looking for the land of oz—or some ELO -type starship (the iconic space ship of the band Electric Light Orchestra)—or something that can take us out of this world, provide some answers unlike we never imagined, and visit some distant star. There’s got to be more than this mundane hubris we know actually contains. And here sits our own world, brimming with life and light and the only home we’ll ever really adapt to, boring and unappreciated for all the life it is.