Folks -
I have had some trouble over the years figuring out why a civilization would come to earth to mine a particular element or mineral. If you can move massive objects across intergalactic space, you can surely transmute whatever element you need from either fission or fusion reactions at a lower energetic cost that accelerating and decelerating a mining robot to get to earth from who know where, and doing the same for a payload.... There is an alternative scenario.
There have been estimates that to store a single copy of every possible 200-amino acid protein would require greater than the volume of the observable universe (there are twenty natural amino acids in the body, so 20 raised to the 200 power is a very very big number that multiplies a small, but not infinitesimal volume of one protein). The number is even bigger if you include other natural and unnatural amino acids - that brings it to ~500, and 500 raised to the 200 is humongous. It gets even more complicated if you think about the number of possible life forms, such as bacteria. Try to build one from scratch with no prior history and you'll fail miserably because of all the ways such organisms can fail. This is what happened to to the pharmaceutical companies that thought they could design drugs from first principles, and hence why some people search the Amazon jungle for new plants or microbial species.
So what does this have to do with the ETMR? It is mining to look for proteins in rock-eating bacteria, and it only needs to send back, by radio or light, the chemical/genetic structure of what it finds. No need to rocket a payload back. Why rock? Maybe it's from a culture that has destroyed its atmosphere and has had to move underground. There are bacteria kilometers deep in the earth's crust that live off of chemical energy rather than sunlight. They may want to see if they can find some bugs that do what they need. It's a lot easier to look for an existing solution to the problem of evolution than it is to start from scratch. Also little societal cost once the ETMR is built and shipped - it is sending back data.
I've got a number of articles and books on bacteria in rocks - tied into the orgins of life literature, a subject I've taught about a lot over the years.
At last I can justify the expense of the ETMR - just like we justify sending robots to Mars. Only for the ETMR, they are only interested in bacteria that live in rocks.... Go figure!
Thoughts?
John
If a race were capable of creating the ETMR, would they also be capable of manufacturing nanobots to look for specific bacteria in rocks and transmit the information to the ETMR which could evaluate the quality of the data before sending it back. This would make it possible to send a much smaller ETMR to accomplish the mission. Smaller is less costly and less detectable.
ReplyDeleteGood point. This can be a fractal exploration - plasma miner to get into the underside of the Andes, then smaller drills to fan out, and then nanobots to go the last little bit. Nanobots are good, but they may be slower than drilling a hole. The bottom line is that when ETMR is done, the Andes look like a vascular network to collect bugs, with the outlet at the bottom where the sequencer lives. We have yet to figure out how to transmit the data back. Deep = long wavelength = very low frequency = low transmission speed. Google Project Sanguine or Project Seafarer. I expect it will have to float a beacon to the surface of the sea and transmit that way. That is a problem for detectability by us. Alternative would be to blast a data module back to an orbiting mother ship with analytical lab....
ReplyDeleteYou are right, John. I read through some of the Project Sanguine materials and very low frequency (VLF) and extreme low frequency (ELF) transmission would be of little use since a relatively few characters take quite some time to send. Unless advanced data compression algorithms have been developed by this civilization, enabling them to use ELF to transmit. The amount of time it takes to accomplish the transmission might not be as critical to them as it is to a submerged submarine crew in a conflict. I like the idea of blasting a data module back to another ship. A small, surfaced beacon could work if properly masked by some naturally occurring situation like migrating flocks of birds or schools of fish. Just a couple of thoughts.
DeleteOur report would need to reference Sanguine and Seafarer just to point out that we realize the problem. We don't have to assume the the ETMR is trying to be secretive. If you could fly across interstellar space, would humans scare you? The approach I think we should take is that a variety of coincidences resulting in people missing a lot of key information - like why we didn't see the beacon. How many floating beacons are out there anywhere?
DeleteOn the same thread, if we have the mother ship in near orbit, it will be seen. How far out should it be to be missed by the standard space-junk tracking systems? I think it should be hiding at the L2 Lagrange Point on the back side of the moon - that would ensure that it's transmissions home would be shielded from all the shit Earth radiates. Check out
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mechanics/lagpt.html
They've told us to use L2!
If we use L2 we need to check out how many times satellites have been near L2 or been able to see it! My guess is not many.
DeleteWe may need an "email" from someone to the DPWG explaining the implications of the mother ship hiding at L2. The "from" line of the email can be redacted.
They may not be looking for a specific bug, but a bug that can do specific things.
ReplyDeleteI like the bacteria angle John, good idea.
ReplyDeleteJust FYI: since I am back offshore my responses may be a bit slow; the ship is all satellite communications w/ limited bandwidth so I have no access to web videos, You-tube etc.
On another note, I have a phone call later with my acoustic survey specialist in Houston; will relate info from that soonest.
Terry
It will be interesting to hear what the acoustic survey person says!
ReplyDelete