Post #2153650

I was watching Ms Hossenfelder's latest on the Fermi paradox. I think that a couple of factors are missing from the Drake equation. It seems to me that there are some significant hurdles that an advanced civilisation needs to overcome for them to be visible to us. We have been assuming that we would see their electromagnetic emissions. This would be true if they were space faring, as its the only way to communicate between worlds (or even moons). Without space travel most communications would be via point to point connections, such as fibre optics, as there is not enough bandwidth in EM for the ubiquitous communications that we currently enjoy. Two scenarios that would prevent space travel by an advanced civilisation are "water worlds" and "super Earths". Developing technology might be possible on a water world via the use of enzymes rather than fire, but space travel would seem to be a big ask. For planets that are just a bit bigger than Earth (higher g) the rocket equation would make getting to orbit infeasible. It seems to me that Earth might be rather special by having enough mass to hold its atmosphere, but still allow rockets to get into orbit; while also having both large oceans and dry land. #FermiParadox #DrakeEquation