Astronomer, teacher, and writer Jeffrey Bennett discussed the variety of ways man is searching for life in the universe, including both SETI and various missions launched in outer space, as well as the implications ET life presents to humankind. He outlined three possibilities to the question-- where is alien life (sometimes referred to as the Fermi Paradox). One possibility is that intelligent civilizations are very uncommon, and we are alone in the universe; another is that civilizations might have sprung up over millions of years but destroyed themselves before they reached space faring capacity. A third possibility is that ET life is out there and there is an advanced galactic civilization but they have not yet chosen to acknowledge us. "That's one of the reasons I'm somewhat skeptical of the UFO reports because I think if they decided they wanted us to know, they would make it very, very obvious," he commented.
Bennett hypothesized as to what ETs might look like, and suggested they would likely share some common traits with us, if they were to have the dexterity to build craft or interstellar transportation. He is excited about the Kepler Mission, which has already uncovered 1,200 new extrasolar planets-- and that was only from the first few months of data. "Over the next few years the Kepler Mission is going to discover thousands of planets, many of them Earth-sized, some of them in Earth-like orbits. So, we are really right now, learning for the first time in history that planets like ours really do exist out there," he said.
The Cassini Mission, currently orbiting Saturn, has also impressed Bennett, particularly the soft landing of the Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan, a feat which he compared to hitting a dime with a bullet from 2,500 miles away. He advocated for combined international efforts in space and moon exploration, not only for budgetary reasons, but to also demonstrate a cooperative spirit to citizens of various, sometimes sparring nations.
Alternative Cancer Treatment
First hour guest, author and health freedom advocate Ty Bollinger spoke in favor of alternative or natural cancer treatments, which he said are typically suppressed by the "cancer industry." He suggested that people learn as much as possible about their disease, and warned that chemotherapy and radiation can kill patients. For more, see the recap of Bollinger's full show appearance from 2/1/11.
News segment guests: Richard C. Hoagland, Jim Berkland