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EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS and SPACE COUNCIL
WASHINGTON
TSA
I-NASC
FILE DO2Y
NADE SISS I
Date
By
July 18, 1963
MEMORANDUM FOR
Mr. Robert F. Packard
Office of International Scientific Affairs
Department of State
Washington 25, D.C.
prom
SUBJECT: Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question
During recent discussions the question has occasionally, though
rarely, arisen that perhaps we should consider the policy question
of what to do if an alien intelligence is discovered in space. Some
Jane Connail
Peronantica +
rational
discussion of this occurred, as you will recall, during deliberations
on BNSP Task I. This memo contains some miscellaneous thoughts
on the question.
The consensus of scientific view says, with quite good reasons, that
the possibility of running across an alien intelligent race in our solar
system is negligible. This is due primarily to the presumed unsuit-
ability of conditions upon other planets to support life as we know it.
The flying saucer advocates claim, of course, that the scientific
viewpoint is nonsense, and that there is overwhelming evidence of
such beings. In my own mind, I find it difficult to side with the flying
saucer advocates, but the almost total impossibility envisioned by
most scientists also is disturbing. Therefore, I present the problem
in current perspective, as I see it.
Up until a few decades ago it seemed very improbable that intelligent
life existed anywhere outside of the solar system. The chief reasons
for this were a combination of scientific theory, scientific knowledge,
and religious belief. The most widely accepted scientific theory as
to the formation of the solar planetary system held that it was a re-
sult of the near collision of two stars. Since such a precise near-miss
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of two stars would be an extremely rare event, it followed that there
would be very few other planetary systems in the universe and, in-
deed, perhaps this was the only one. Religious belief said, further-
more, that life was a gift bestowed by God. This was a relatively
undisputed point since no scientific data existed to bridge the gap
between non-living and living materials.
The situation today is vastly changed in these respects. The most
widely held theory of stellar formation would predict the formation of
planetary systems to be a natural consequence of stellar evolution.
On this basis, most stars would possess planetary systems, and the
number of habitable planets in our galaxy would be tremendous. Our
biggest telescopes cannot resolve planets at the distances even of the
nearest stars, so no direct confirmation is yet available. In my own
mind, however, the wide prevalence of multiple stars is an overwhelm-
ing hint in support of this theory. In addition, the biological sciences
have almost completely traced a series of natural occurrences which
lead from inanimate molecules to elementary living viruses.
Thus,
we have the current scientific theory and data not only that there are
a huge number of planets in the galaxy, but that life is quite likely to
arise spontaneously on a large number of these. This, of course, does
not necessarily imply intelligent life. Modern theology is not necessarily
incompatible with this. The description in Genesis of the Creation cer-
tainly is a better picture of the current theory than of a stellar collision,
and since God only spent seven days on this system, He has clearly had
lots of time to create many more systems.
Even granting a probable existence of much life in the galaxy, there is
still the question of whether another intelligent race exists in our solar
system. There are, of course, two methods of its establishment in our
system. One of these is that it originated on some other planet, for
instance, Mars. Some of the spectacular markings of Mars have been
interpreted as indicating intelligence. In particular, the famous "Canali"
are rather narrow, and always run from one prominent marking to
another, frequently with round splotches at intersections. As far as I
know, no one has discovered a "Canali" which goes nowhere. This has
quite understandably stimulated much conversation. In fact, a number
of decades ago, when scientists thought that any life on other stellar
systems was very remote, they seemed to feel that intelligent life
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probably existed on our other planets. Some of the discussions about
life on Mars at the turn of the century seem to indicate a strong urge
to want to find intelligent life elsewhere.
Today, the situation is
completely reversed, and although intelligent life is considered quite
probable among the stars, it is held to be quite unlikely within the
solar system. We seem more eager to listen with Ozma than to look
closely at Canali.
One school of flying saucer advocates claims that the Martians have
been mining our moon for natural resources for some time. At first
thought, one would think they would rather mine earth. It is interesting
to speculate, however, upon space flight from the point of view of a
Martian. The escape speed of Mars is only 16, 500 fps, and, of course,
braking speed on our moon is less than 10, 000 fps. Thus, Martians look-
ing at earth would tend to view it the same way Terrestrials look at Jupiter.
Our moon might not be less work to get to, since atmospheric braking to
earth is possible, but would be very much easier to return from, while
the energy requirements to go to and return from the surface of the earth
might well be so high as to discourage interest, at least initially. Inter-
estingly enough, even a normal high energy chemical rocket could make
a trip from Mars to our moon at favorable times while carrying almost
10% of its gross weight in payload. Space flight starting from Mars,
then, is a much easier prospect than starting from Terra. If a suitable
refueling base had been painfully established on our moon, the operation
could be done quite commendably with merely chemical energy. (The afore-
mentioned high energy chemical rocket could carry at favorable times
almost 50% payload back to Mars.) Of course, many flying saucer advo-
cates claim that the discovery of both Martian moons within a week in the
latter part of the Nineteenth Century indicates that they are large artificial
space stations, otherwise they would have been found earlier. If we were
to discover Martians on the moon, it would result in surprisingly little re-
adjustment of our scientific thinking. The biggest question would be why
they were there rather than among the Asteroids.
In fact, if we were not as scientifically sure of ourselves as we are, three
recent events would be hailed as broad hints of intelligent life on the moon.
(1) The discovery of hot gasses eminating from the crater Alphonsus when
the moon was supposedly dead. This would be considered evidence of civili-
zation and, since Alphonsus is close to the visible edge, interpreted to mean
that the other side of the moon was teaming with population which had begun
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to spill around to this side. (2) The infra-red scans which show hot
spots. These would be interpreted as indications of cities or at least
mining camps. (3) The fact that no lunar or planetary probe of signi-
ficance has been successful, in spite of major efforts on the part of
two very successful earth orbitfaring nations. It would be supposed
that someone was denying us deep space. (The other-side-of-the-moon
pictures from Lunik III show no details of consequence, and the same
can be said of the data from Mariner II compared to what we had already
known about Venus from earth-based measurements.) Should the Martians
have colonized the moon without discovering nuclear energy, then they
represent no real problem, and our current national policy would be
made to order for the situation. If all of this were true, of course, I
would expect the Martians to be scared to death of what they have seen
recently on this planet, and would expect that the highest priority de-
velopment program in the solar system is being conducted by the Atomic
Energy Commission of Mars.
Even if we are secure in our belief that intelligent life never would develop
on Mars or some other solar planet, there is still the question of visitors
to the solar system from other stellar systems. This is normally written
off as an extremely low probability, due to the tremendous distances be-
tween stars, and the Einstein limitation on travel faster than the speed
of light.
Therefore, even if there are a large number of intelligent life
forms in the galaxy, and even if they are continuously searching for other
races, the frequency of investigation of any stellar system would be only
once in many thousand of years and contact would rarely, if ever, be
achieved. It might never be achieved, since presumably intelligent races
die out. (What happened to the planet whose pieces now are spread around
the Asteroid Belt? Or, for that matter, why is Uranus lying on its side?)
I am not sure that this travel restriction is quite as infallible as it sounds.
I believe that it is possible with what we now know about nuclear energy
to envision ships driven at half to three-quarters of the speed of light.
This, since the galaxy is 100, 000 light-years across, still does not make
a search of the entire galaxy feasible within the life span of the average
man. But suppose some race under pressure of population explosion were
expanding as fast as technically feasible from star to star throughout the
galaxy. If their ships averaged half the speed of light, and if, on the average,
they stopped every 10 light-years for a twenty-year stay at a stellar system
to deposit colonists, refuel, and build extra ships, they would only take
two hundred thousand years, starting at the center of the galaxy, to spread
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throughout the whole system. Since the earliest known remains of
man have recently been dated at approximately one million seven-
hundred thousand years, a sustained drive for merely two hundred
thousand years may not be unreasonable. Of course, if we were to
run across representatives of this kind of interstellar race, they
would not be nearly as tame as the previously hypothesized chemical
Martians, and our policy would need to be revised accordingly.
Fortunately, travel time restrictions would inhibit their ability to
bring all forces to bear, in case we should develop differences of
viewpoint.
The third possibility, scientifically abhorrent, is that the Einstein
theory may only be an approximation, and an alien race which actually
travels faster than light exists. If we were to meet such a race, our
policy had better be to negotiate fast, because the implications of their
far better understanding and control of the fundamental forces of nature
would be obvious. If all the scientific speculation were to turn out wrong
and we were to stumble across an alien race, we would want to know
as quickly as possible which of the three types I have indicated it was,
as our diplomatic policy would damned well be influenced by the results.
CONCLUSIONS
Although all plausible scientific thinking suggests that we will not find
any other intelligence race, the probability that we will is finite, and
perhaps should not be completely ignored. Were we to find one, the
question of whether it was a race with primitive chemical space flight,
space flight equivalent to our best understanding of nuclear energy, or
space flight based on physics beyond Einstein should be ascertained as
rapidly as possible, since our policies would be affected in the most
drastically possible way. In any event, a policy of the immediate burying
of all Terrestrial hatchets would likely be in order. Even if we only
found tame chemical Martians, or merely the debris from some intra-
glactic survey mission,
it would be a good idea to proceed on the assump-
tion that the human race would finally have found a bigger problem than
the ones it has created for itself. There likely is nothing to be done at
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the moment to prepare for these possibilities (the only body of writing
on the subject available in an emergency is science fiction), because
no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless
it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the tradi-
tional manner of grand panic.
Magell l flant It
Maxwell W. Hunter, II
Member, Professional Staff
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