We write Science Fiction.  We love reading Science Fiction and Fantasy.  We love watching the Expanse and Science Fiction Movies.

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The problem is:  we are also engineer and science types.  And, we want our stories to be relevant for decades, if not generations.  To be so, it is not appropriate to toss out too many ideas that are patently untrue, or very, very , unlikely.

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One of our most dear topics as kids were the stories of humans and aliens working together,

and those of Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers were most threatening.

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However, there hasn't been evidence of alien civilizations except in the most campfire or sea story kind of way.

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So, approaching Drake's Equations from a fully different angle: logistics, we come up with some different values for the probability of intelligent space civilizations in our galaxy (Griffith's Equations).

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SWAG Assumptions:

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• We are estimating for the Milky Way Galaxy, no estimates for the Universe at Large.

• That a civilization that moves between star systems over long periods of time would be adapted to space, and therefore not need to settle only planets, but could also settle asteroids.

• That the sun is a fairly typical star system:  star, radiant energy, with rocky, icy, and gaseous bodies in orbit.

• Life will expand to environments that they are adapted for where energy, materials, and real estate are in supply.

• Life does not develop in the vacuum away from planetary surfaces, but could evolve and adjust.

• That absent conflict and self destructive habits, mankind could colonize technically (over a long period time) a self sustaining civilization in the solar system. 

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With these assumptions in mind, we estimate the following:  to create a cell phone from scratch, to produce and deliver food, water, air, and heat to space faring inhabitants would require over 10,000 different industries and skills and perhaps  between 1 M to 100 Million people to accomplish those tasks.  Glance at the short list of materials and processes at the end of this essay, very long but very incomplete.

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The effort to do this for millennium would stamp an indelible footprint on the surfaces of most if not all the minor planets (like the ones in our solar system that show billions of years slow crater impacts).

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So, in our estimation, if a space faring civilization had successfully expanded to more than a few star systems, and had visited the solar system in the first 2-3 billion years of its existence, that they would have exploited at least to the minor objects orbiting the sun, and there would be evidence of their historical activities, even if they did not visit the planets.

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More formally:

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We believe there are no alien space faring civilizations or species

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Consider the following assumptions:

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• If social issues are resolved, humanity has the technological ability to colonize the solar system

• The logistic effort for humans to colonize the solar system will be enormous, and require significant utilization of material from the moons and minor bodies even if we do not colonize the planets

• To create a stable and self-sustaining interplanetary civilization, portions of that society will be accustomed and adapted to routine life in vacuum and zero gravity

• If a human society is established within the solar system to the industrial level that exists on Earth today, it would capable of sending probes and missions to the nearest stars.

• If humanity is able to build interstellar “seed” generational colony ships and launch them to the stars, they would have to be viable for thousands of years without any outside source of energy, supply, or other forms of help.  They would have to have smart tools capable of successfully bootstrapping an industry and technology from raw energy and materials of a different star system’s minor bodies.

• Any civilization capable of sustaining a society in its home star system and capable of launching colony ships between the stars would be capable and comfortable in the vacuum and zero g environment of interstellar space and travel.

• Assume the vast majority of stars form with some amount of minor body rubble left in orbit. 

• If not constrained to occupy Earth type planets, then the vast majority of stars are suitable for colonization if a civilization uses the energy of the star and materials from local minor bodies.

• The travel time between stars would be less than 10,000 years with today’s technology. 

• 10,000 years is a reasonable time to resurrect a civilization capable of launch additional colony ships, if all the tools are available, and social issues are resolved.

• Colonization efforts can be done in parallel from a robust home.  Sending multiple missions to all the stars within a 50 LY radius can be accomplished at the same time.

Using the previous assumptions:

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• 100 million years is a reasonable rough number for the time it would take a space civilization to occupy the vast majority of stars within the galaxy.

• If an alien civilization formed 5 billion years after the big bang, then they would have been in place prior to the sun’s birth.  The alien race would have little reason not to colonize the initial solar system, there would be no life in the first 500 million years.

• If an alien civilization visited our solar system in anytime in the last 4 billion years, an enormous footprint of the required industrial effort required to leapfrog to the next system would have been left.

Conclusion:

• There is no evidence of aliens in the electromagnetic spectrum.

• There is no evidence of aliens on the minor planets and moons that have surfaces that have been practically undisturbed for billions of years.

• There is no evidence of aliens on earth beyond the existence of the Loch Ness monster.  If you believe in one, you might as well believe in the other and go back to your job.

But what are the odds of a stealthy alien civilization

forming in the last 100 million years and not having reached Earth yet?

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• So, think about American football

• A football field is 120 yards long from the back of each end zone

• Imagine each ten-yard marker is a billion years, and each yard is 100 million years

• It has been estimated that a space faring society with rockets like the SATURN V launched from an asteroid belt would take 10,000 years to colonize stars 5 light years apart.

• This would take 50 to 100 million years to fully colonize the Milky Way Galaxy

• It would be impossible to eliminate all life from such inhabited space, so once life is established, it would remain

• So, if aliens arose any time in the past 10 billion years when inhabitable planets existed, it would take only one yard on our football field for them to fully occupy the solar systems of our galaxy.  Which yard was it?

• Alien Life could form at any yard in the timeline, more before the earth formed than after!

• Aliens that arose before the earth would have no reason not to occupy the solar system, since life wouldn’t have existed here yet. And no reason to hide from the primitive life that eventually formed.

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