UFO's and Defense What Should we Prepare For

Imajority to mention them without being assured ofanonymity. In addition, the general
opinion ofastronomers on the subject is much less negative than one says sometimes, and
the least that you could say is that there is no consensus, with many wanting an objective Istudy of the phenomenon without any preconceived ideas. The private conversations that
I have had with French colleagues confirm Sturrock's conclusion: many would refuse to
broach the question with a journalist, but when I speak with them about a serious scientific Istudy, they state that they are in agreement.
Appendix 3 - Life in the Universe I
The question of extraterrestriaJ life left the domain of belief barely a few decades ago
and entered the domain of scientific research, and the advances in this domain have been Ivery rapid for several years. Beyond earth, the solar system proves to be currently
unsuited to life, but the "Viking" probes have shown that some three-and-a-half billion
years ago, the planet Mars must have offered much more favorable conditions than at Ipresent, namely with the existence ofliquid water. Thus it is not ruled out that an
elementary life form (bacteria) could have existed there, as was then the case on earth.
The study offossils is, besides, one of the reasons for future Martian expeditions, Iautomated first, then with humans aboard. The discovery of fossils in a meteorite
originally from Mars, as announced by NASA, is still the subject ofa debate in the
scientific community. But the very existence of this debate increases the interest in going Ito take a look on site .
. Outside the solar system, astronomers have long thought that, very generally, the stars
should be surrounded by planetary systems, but it has onJy been in very recent years that Iexperience has con.finned this theory: we now know of a half dozen stars each
accompanied by at least one planet. Biologists, for their part, are making rapid advances
in understanding the chemical mechanisms that give rise to life, and this appears more and Imqre to be a necessity rather than a coincidence.
Twenty years' experience has shown, from Siberia to the ocean depths, that life adapts
itself to sharp variations in temperature or to extreme temperatures where it was Ipreviously considered to be impossible.
For 35 years, radioastronomers have carried out different programs searching for an
intelligent radio signal corning from space (SETI: Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). INo signals have been detected yet, which is not surprising given the immensity of the
spatial and frequency domain to be explored. A major NASA program, which was
canceled by the U.S. Congress, was revived using private funds and should improve the Isensitivity of the search by severaJ orders of magnitude. The French radiotelescope at
Nan9ay, where several SETI studies have already taken place, will perhaps be included in
this program. I
Appendix 4 - Colonization of Space
IThe second half of the 20th century will have been the half century of the exploration of
the solar system: man on the moon, probes placed on Mars and Venus, others in the
immediate vicinity of the other planets ( except Pluto), comets, and asteroids. The 21 st Icentury might be the century of the colonization of our system, with pennanent human
settlements and preparation for voyages to other planetary systems.
The corning years will see the positioning of the permanent orbital station Alpha, the Iinternational follow-up to the Russian Mir program. Next, the Americans plan, in
I
I