I would think there’s life of some sort out there somewhere beyond the little rock we call Earth. It’s never visited us here, but perhaps someday, in one way or another, we’ll make contact. At that point, how do we proceed?

In a Guardian article, Roger Pielke Jr. fears we’ll have to wing it, having done so little thinking about the possibility. An excerpt:

Earlier this week Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and modern rock star scientist, along with Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced that they would be launching a new project to boost efforts to look for intelligent life outside our solar system. Milner, who is funding the effort, said that he had been “thinking about this since I was a child, reading Carl Sagan’s book.”

Upon hearing of the new project, called Breakthrough Listen, I was reminded, of all things, of a recent prison break. Last month two convicted murders escaped from a New York prison. They had spent months carefully planning and executing their escape, which involved cutting and digging their way through walls, pipes and concrete. Remarkably, however, the pair gave little thought to what they would do if they actually succeeded in their plans. The consequence of the lack of planning was a short effort to flee from authorities followed by the death of one prisoner and re-capture of the other by authorities.

The search for extra-terrestrial life shares some similarities. We are investing considerable attention and resources into the search, but little into thinking about the consequences of success. As Carl Sagan imagined, it is as if we expect to fail, which would be a relief. Even Milner says, “It’s quite likely that we won’t find anything.” But what if we do succeed? What then? …

In fact, it seems unlikely that any policy makers in national or international settings have a clearly thought–through plan for responding to the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether that be microbes on another body in our solar system or beady-eyed aliens looking to invade. The conversation is only silly if we assume that efforts to detect alien life will never succeed.•