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Think about this:  There are millions of stars in a galaxy.  There are billions of galaxies, if not an infinite amount!  It is likely, and supported by observations of close stars, that all stars have some sort of planetary bodies orbiting them.  If only 1 percent, that’s 1 out of 100 stars have planets circling them, and only one percent of those planets is an Earth-like planet with liquid water, then that still leaves billions of habitable planets.  Are we the only life in the universe?  We could be, but with all those possibilities, I certainly wouldn’t bet against it! 

Don’t go buying alien repellent or anything just yet.  Think about this, now.  Traveling faster than the speed of light is somewhat impossible for us at the moment, and may be impossible at all.  Even if we could travel at or near the speed of light, it would take us almost 5 years to reach the nearest star.  Even if we knew which direction to head, we would have to travel years and years to reach other life.  Then we might just find some weird bacteria or something.  No, I think the odds of two intelligent species finding each other in all this vast space is somewhat improbable.  What do you guys think?  Will we be visited by aliens?  Have we already been? 

Check out this NASA article about nearby stars with planets.

NASA is already planning to have astronauts living on the moon starting in the year 2020. They’ll start with shorter visits of about a week, but with each successive visit getting longer. But astronauts don’t just decide to go to the moon and jump in the shuttle. They are already practicing living in inhospitable environments down in Antarctica. Since space shuttles have to be very, very lightly loaded in order to escape Earth, the houses that they will take with them have to be very light indeed! Right now, some NASA employees are trying out inflatable habitats to take to the moon. The coldness and barren land of Antarctica mimics those properties of the moon, but if something goes wrong there, the men inside won’t die! They will extensively test any type of house before taking it on a space voyage. Visit this link to part of NASA’s website to read
Larry Toups journal about setting up and living in an inflatable house in Antarctica!

2020 is in 12 years. That means that my current students will be around 25 when these voyages start. I think it would be the height of coolness if one of my kids were one of the future inhabitants of the lunar outpost! Any of you interested?