The scientific pressure for disclosure

Non smoking gun

Honorable
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launches in October, will provide a magnitudinal increase in exoplanet atmospheric data. Say it detects many biosignatures, then, later, some technosignatures, do you think it will change the disclosure of any governmental data relevant to SETI?
 

HAL9000

Honorable
No, not really.

It may lead to the admittance of possible life forms on other planets, but that in itself does not mean these life forms are any more than what we call animals, even very simple ones.
The intelligence of these may not go beyond their ability to survive.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launches in October, will provide a magnitudinal increase in exoplanet atmospheric data. Say it detects many biosignatures, then, later, some technosignatures, do you think it will change the disclosure of any governmental data relevant to SETI?

Indubitably if there are sure indications of life present on other worlds...IMO

...
 

Non smoking gun

Honorable
The UK's Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, recently gave an interview to New Scientist in which he was asked about the James Webb:

We have just seen the launch of the James Webb
Space Telescope. What answers will it give us?


There are two important fields that it’s going
to illuminate. One is the very early stages of
galaxy formation.
The second is the search for life in
the universe. One of the most exciting
developments in the past two decades has
been the realisation that our solar system
isn’t that special. If there were an Earth-like
planet around one of the nearest stars, the
Webb telescope might be able to take a
crude spectrum of its light.
We might be able to use this to show
evidence of life. It is probably just about the
limit of what it can do.

Is not just life, but intelligent life, out there?

My view is that any intelligent life is
unlikely to be a flesh-and-blood civilisation,
but some exotic and possibly malfunctioning
electronic entity. The timespan of our
technological civilisation is just a few
thousand years, and it could be less than
another 1000 before it’s usurped by electronic
entities. That is a very thin sliver of time, not
only compared with the three and a half billion
years of Darwinian evolution, but also to the
billions of years that lie ahead. If there were
another planet in the galaxy that had evolved
like ours, it would be most unlikely we would
catch it in this sliver.

Should we be sending astronauts to space at all?

If I was from the US, I wouldn’t want my
tax money to go to NASA’s space programme
for human space flight. Miniaturisation and
robotics are advancing fast, so the practical case
for astronauts is getting weaker all the time.

What about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the
other billionaires attempting it?

They can do it more cheaply and can afford
to take higher risks than NASA or any Western
government could impose on publicly funded
civilians. If you look back to the space shuttle,
it was launched 135 times and failed twice,
resulting in catastrophic crashes.
Each of those was a big trauma in the
US. But a less than 2 per cent failure rate is
acceptable to test pilots and thrill seekers.
If Messrs Bezos and Musk want to have a
programme of human space flight for thrill
seekers prepared to take a risk, that is great.
But they shouldn’t present it as tourism.
One reason why I wish them luck is that
human enhancement is going to be strongly
regulated on Earth. But if there are these guys
in a hostile environment on Mars, they would
have every incentive to adapt themselves to
that environment and they’d be away from the
regulators. So if there is to be a post-human
species, then it could evolve fastest from the
progeny of these bold pioneers.
 
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