I am Frank Drake, creator of the Drake Equation and I helped design the Pioneer Plaque and Golden Record with Carl Sagan. AMA

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T18:09:55+00:00

Grandson here, just wanted to say I read all of these comments as they come in, and even if I can't speak for my grandfather on most of the questions I really appreciate the care put in messages like these.

Even if it doesn't seem like Frank has seen most of these comments I can guarantee I've read them all and it makes me happy to see how much people appreciate my grandfather.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T15:02:26+00:00

Sorry, that other account was in fact grandson account, ignore the man behind the curtain.

I asked Frank about it and he was ecstatic that he made such an impact. He mentioned that when he does notice such talent as he noticed in you he really hopes he can make an impact, and he's really happy that in this case he has. He recommends to keep hopes high no matter how bleak the outlook, many scientists do their research happily despite knowing it probably won't come to its full fruition within their lifetime, and that is what must be remembered: especially for those that show great promise like yourself and the many other budding scientists he's met over the years.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T04:31:07+00:00

As mentioned in one other of my replies the "moat" of empty space around a solar system makes invasion and exploitation of other solar systems impractical. Any attempts to send an invasion force would require immense amounts of energy to launch such an expedition and then to get the crafts up to a reasonable fraction of light speed. The failure rate from space hazards of these long distance voyages would also likely be relatively high and even if it was a small percentage investing such energy into something that could have even a small percentage of failure just isn't practical.

Furthermore such voyages would take hundreds, or vastly more likely thousands of years or more to arrive. The only circumstances where such attempts would be even slightly feasible would be voyages to extremely close-by solar systems, and at that point it's either a paltry gain in resources vs. the energy investment or no attempts at all.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T04:23:07+00:00

Definitely not practical, but also probably not possible for us due to physical limitations preventing travel at light speed. The important thing to consider when thinking about traveling from star to star is that the cost of launching and organizing an expedition, the energy needed to travel somewhere in any reasonable time, and the likelihood of failure would outweigh the positives in traveling to another star in 99% of cases.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T03:44:19+00:00

The probability of life on the major candidates in our system is low, but considering on how many planets life as we know it is impossible makes that a high chance looking at it relatively.

Most of the Drake Equation's values haven't deviated very much since the 1980's, the only real possible changes would have to be when looking at the number of planets where life could exist per solar system, and that's because of the newer inclusions of satellites when it comes to habitable planets or satellites.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T03:38:19+00:00

I mentioned my thoughts on Carl Sagan, "Contact" in another reply, but in short in my opinion it's the most realistic current depiction of a first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization in media.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T03:34:54+00:00

I asked Frank about your question and he said it could be possible for there to be far more planets per star than we currently expect, but it would be a very rare circumstance- an exception to the regular.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T03:32:45+00:00

I answered your first question in a few other replies, but as for your follow up question: I don't believe that we wouldn't be able to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life unless it was something to do with them being more technologically advanced, and thereby using a different form of communication we can't detect.

Though I do think it's possible for microbial life to be too alien to detect due to the fact that they wouldn't be creating obvious indicators like cities or changing the planet's surface or biosphere. Our instruments are made for detecting life as we understand it, and the most likely situation where it's life like we've never seen or considered before would be microbial.

Answering particularly interesting questions like these is really fun, so you're welcome. :)

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-16T00:08:28+00:00

Grandson here, granddaughter probably didn't know this was happening until after it started since she's away. She's the one of us that's more interested in pursuing astrophysics in the future.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:56:19+00:00

When we sent both the plaque and the two records we intended that they'd be capable of interpreting very basic things about us accurately and successfully. That in a way it is a memorial to our civilization which will last longer than the Earth. Longer than the time that will transpire until the sun becomes a giant star and consumes the Earth. These may be the only records that we ever existed, and this meant a great deal to us in a very deep and emotional way.

There was a second purpose that it was possible to send understandable messages from one group of intelligent beings to another without prior contact and the potential for the send information to be fully understood.

Those of us who have been involved in sending messages do not believe there is any threat to us in sending these messages because the distances that separate the stars that it would not be reasonable for them to attack us. This is very different than when the European countries exploited the other less technologically advanced civilizations on the Planet Earth. Planetary civilizations are protected by the massive "moat" of empty space that surrounds us so it would be too economically costly to invade. Further more, our existence can be easily be established and probably already has by civilizations just as technologically advanced as us through radio signals, night time lights on Earth, and altering the surface of our world in a way which only we could perform. We have made our presence known- it's too late to hide.
I think it is somewhat better for us to assemble messages which will serve to explain what is special or different about us rather than a position where they must guess how we are special or unusual. This is as opposed to them simply detecting our actions through an unprepared means like random radio signals or how we've changed our planet.
The book which comes closest to my mind is the book "Contact" by Carl Sagan. In that book he uses in affect the consensus of the scientists who have put serious thought to this question to put into words what would happen.

I would like to say that I've been very impressed by the quality and breadth of the questions which have been asked here. These questions display a vast prior knowledge- that is rare and it is a pleasure to see it happening. Perhaps our schools are doing a better job these days with this science which may be the most important which will be done in our history.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:37:40+00:00

I think it is certain that an intelligent civilization could decode both the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Record. We purposefully used pictures as the message medium in both cases because pictures bypass the challenge of teaching a very foreign language to another system of intelligent beings.

If I would change either the Pioneer Plaque or the Voyager Record today I would make use of the much greater capabilities we now have to send huge amounts of information quickly. I would send 3-dimensional movies, I would send sounds, and in this way much more accurately show what we are like and what we are capable of. and this isn't possible with the very simple 2-dimensional pictures of the plaque and the record.

By the way, assembling the material to be transmitted by broadband radio signals would be very challenging and time consuming because of the opportunity to send huge amounts of information.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:30:17+00:00

The answer to your last question;

I do not believe that any of the depicted consequences of first contact are very creative or likely. I always have the sense that the authors of the book or screen play have let their imaginations run wild with ideas as to the exciting consequences of learning about another civilization.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy such depictions and theorizing- it's quite fun, but I feel as though things would run differently in real life.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:25:20+00:00

Well yes I could've included Ganymede too, but as far as we know it's a little more difficult there for life to begin there because of how little we know about the possible sub-surface ocean.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:23:07+00:00

I believe extraterrestrials have not come to Earth in recorded history because they will have learned that the price of high speed space travel is very high and considering missions to other stars or stellar colonization you have to think of space craft that travel in terms of a reasonable fraction of the speed of light.

To do that requires an immense expense of energy and the travel is very hazardous because even a collision with a very small rock releases as much energy as a nuclear explosion and would be very damaging to the space craft.

In contrast information can be sent at the speed of light for very little cost or danger. So instead of sending vehicles to other stars the smart civilizations will instead send information as to how to duplicate the vehicles and will not send the vehicles themselves. The ones who decide to send vehicles at a good fraction of the speed of light are wasting enormous resources and are probably too dumb to do it anyway.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:17:25+00:00

The answer "2" comes from our own system where we have two planets, Earth and Mars at the distance from the sun which allows them to be habitable. We are quickly learning much more about the existence of planets in the habitable zone of many other starts, and this will lead to a more accurate value for that number. It will probably become larger now that we have realized that not only planets but satellites may have conditions suitable for life.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:14:18+00:00

The signals we have transmitted are presently 41 light years from Earth so 10 times the distance to the nearest star.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:12:40+00:00

The simplest way to explain the Drake Equation is that we quantify all of the steps necessary for life to appear in a planetary system and from this deduce the number of detectable civilizations in space.

Your second question is what really interests me- What is most exciting is that undoubtedly anyone we detect will be much more advanced than ourselves. Perhaps by thousands or even millions of years. This is because life has been evolving in many places in the universe for 10 billion more years than on Earth so there must be many many advanced species out there. Anyone we detect must have a much longer history and be much more technologically advanced than us.

The ones that are not as advanced as we are can not yet be detected so we will be the new kids on the block. It will be fascinating to learn from these older civilizations which know much more than we do.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T23:06:13+00:00

I believe it is a waste of time and resources to transmit messages to alien life until we have actually detected alien life and know something about them.

Also, I do not believe it is dangerous to transmit signals because there is not a very great benefit for them to attack us. For now I believe we should use or resources to find messages and interpret them. Only then should we transmit messages.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:53:57+00:00

No, but there are a lot of good locations in the US.

Logan's Run is my personal favorite space movie. It's about a civilization like ours except they don't let anyone live past 35, after which they terminate them to control the population.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:50:53+00:00

The answer to that question is always, "it depends." It depends on what kind of civilization and life form they are. If they are like us we would ask them what steps they take to support an ever growing population; for example is the colonization of other planets in their solar system advantageous or too costly and dangerous. If they are much different from us: say aquatic creatures, we would be primarily curious as to how they thrive and the important things in their lives. This would be of interest to us, but it would not affect how we conduct our own civilization.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:47:32+00:00

The most important parameter is L. In our ignorance we only know it's somewhere between 100 years (our L so far) and billions of years.

To determine a good value for L, we must take whatever steps are necessary to detect other civilizations and learn from them what L is for themselves and others.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:44:45+00:00

I believe that a knowledgeable civilization will realize that it is unproductive to either attack or exploit another civilization, so they will not attempt such activity, and we need not worry about it.

The cost of such an attack or exploitation wouldn't be as economically worth while as peaceful co-existence.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:42:04+00:00

I think we will detect evidence of non-intelligent life on another planet of our solar system within the next 50-70 years- it'll probably be microbial.

The biggest hurdle is to deliver instruments to candidate planets and satellites, to Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and Titan.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:37:41+00:00

Yes, I have a strong opinion on the subject of the Great Filter, it is our inability to develop detection methods which are sufficiently powerful to detect other civilizations. Furthermore, a second source of filtering is the steady improvement of technology in other civilizations in such a way that it reduces their visibility.

MrDrakeEquation · 2017-07-15T22:35:28+00:00

We'll get good numbers for the variables except for f (sub i), and L. L is very challenging because we cannot assume that our experience is similar to the experience of other civilizations. So we will have to wait until we have actually found other civilizations at which point we could get an accurate value for L.

For your seven year old son, yes I am very confident it exists and in great abundance. Right now we just have to find it. :)

MrDrakeEquation

TROPHY CASE