[Interview+] The Tricky Part of Finding Extraterrestrial Life

I am impressed and grateful at how well this German scientist expressed himself in English. Thank you for the effort you made to know a language which I speak so I could enjoy your thoughts and work in a field I am so interested in. This interview seemed to start on the slow end of the spectrum but kudos to Fraser in his ability to engage in so competent and professional a manner that he successfully draws out each researcher’s enthusiasm.

It's amazing that my lifespan happens to coincide with the first humans to reach space, and 60 years later, some real data is being gathered by scientists focused on the question of life in the universe. It is tragic that the US is turning away from science as we swirl the existential bowl, toying with the flush handle of Neanderthal authoritarianism. I wonder often if crowd-funding might be an option for us to support these projects if our government wont.

Let say, for the sake of argument, that a future mission to Europa or Enceladus actually discovered complex organisms swimming around in the oceans under all that ice. The most interesting question would be exactly what the reproduction mechanism is. Is DNA involved, or is is some other, novel chemical means of transmitting genetic information?

Fraser, as an only child just like yourself, I agree with your analogy.

Never mind Arthur C Clarke, whenever I hear the LIFE word I think of Carl Sagan's "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs". Hardly a week passes without some researcher blurting out the L word with precious little proof. Seeing how we can't even tell if there was ever life on Mars or Venus, and they are just next door, the chances of determination on a vastly more remote exo-planet are vanishingly small. I'll have a go at the Fermi paradox now: on an undistinguished little planet, in a galaxy far far away, the inhabitants are sipping their coffee analogues and wondering why no aliens have come to visit them.