> Why Do We Assume Extraterrestrials Might Want to Visit Us?
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, though it'll be hard to write this without the tone seeming that way, but the question alone has a pretty simple set of answers and their own problems:
(1) Our only way to study how an *intelligent* extraterrestrial would behave would be to study the behavior of other intelligent[0] beings. Our data set consists of one species. Enough of this species wants to visit an extraterrestrial civilization, and given no other examples, we assume it's probably the same.
(2) Related to (1), we have exactly zero evidence of the existence of *any* extraterrestrial life, let alone life that understands that they live on "something in space", that there is other life on a planet orbiting a sun amongst an infinite number of stars, etc.
Maybe I'm not the article's target audience, but this is so far down the list of questions that need to be answered at this point that I had a hard time being motivated to read the whole thing.
The first, and a more interesting question is: "Is there any life, intelligent or otherwise, outside of this planet?[1]" If we found, say, that samples from Mars or some other planet/asteroid had a diversity of different bacteria/single-celled organisms, etc, it would increase the probability that there is intelligent life out there "somewhere". If everything comes back empty, there's probably better things to focus research energy on.
[0] The title is missing that important piece. If they are unaware that life could exist they won't be all that interested in visiting. The mattresses (from the planet "where mattresses are grown") likely haven't pondered any of the big questions of life, the universe and... everything.
[1] Tricky problem: you sent something up from a planet teaming with all kinds of bacteria/life; I've read about how they sanitize/handle things but it still amazes me that they can say with any confidence that there was no cross-contamination, but IANARS.
The first, and a more interesting question is: "Is there any life, intelligent or otherwise, outside of this planet?[1]" If we found, say, that samples from Mars or some other planet/asteroid had a diversity of different bacteria/single-celled organisms, etc, it would increase the probability that there is intelligent life out there "somewhere". If everything comes back empty, there's probably better things to focus research energy on.
[0] The title is missing that important piece. If they are unaware that life could exist they won't be all that interested in visiting. The mattresses (from the planet "where mattresses are grown") likely haven't pondered any of the big questions of life, the universe and... everything.
[1] Tricky problem: you sent something up from a planet teaming with all kinds of bacteria/life; I've read about how they sanitize/handle things but it still amazes me that they can say with any confidence that there was no cross-contamination, but IANARS.