The One Planet Irony

The search for exo-solar system planets proceeds apace with the recent launch of NASA's Kepler Satellite . For those who are unfamiliar with this exciting venture it consists of a special satellite sent far out into the Earth's orbit around the Sun to loiter for awhile in one of the La Grange points associated with our home planet. It has arrived on station and has unfurled its powerful telescope to examine hundreds of thousands of stars in a selected region of our galaxy repeatedly in rapid succession in the hope of detecting planets around other stars. It will undoubtedly succeed. We already know of at least 400+. The problem is the ones discovered so far are the low hanging fruit - easy to find and they are very large - Jupiter size. the Kepler Mission hopes to find Earth sized bodies - and it will (http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/). It is a supreme irony to consider that if one or more - maybe a large number of planets are found - and if in the decades ahead new technology permits us to really examine these candidates in greater and greater detail to such a point that it becomes certain that we have observed many 'water worlds' from afar then what? We will have discovered what many, if not most, scientists already believe - that the universe is filled with billions upon billions of planets and large moons that would (and probably do) support life. The difficulty is that even the closest planet is many light years distant and most of these new discoveries will be hundreds if not thousands of light years distant just in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. One can not really imagine even communicating with a possible sentient race on one of them let alone traveling to greet them in person. Enrico Fermi is famed for saying "Where is everyone?" Einstein's laws most certainly rule out travel and probably any meaningful communication. Who has the patience to carry on centuries of millennium long conversations. We are as May Flies in this universe - very short lived.