Shuttle astronauts say alien life does exist
www.telegraph.co.uk
 Astronauts who returned recently from a Space Shuttle mission said on Monday that they expected alien life would be discovered.
"Life like us must exist elsewhere in the universe," Takao Doi, who had been on a 16-day Endeavour mission to the International Space Station, told
reporters in Tokyo.
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In December, Nobutaka Machimura, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, said that UFOs definitely existed and that he was firmly of the opinion that aliens
were out there. (visit the link for the full news article)
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I always find it fascinating when people that have been exposed to space make these comments. To me i find it a credible source of information.
I would tend to think that even if they were involved in NASA missions, that i don't think they have seen, or been shown something that gives them
this idea. I tend to believe that they would be kept in the dark as much as we are.
www.telegraph.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)
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The universe is so huge, it's almost absurdly unlikely that Earth is the only place where (relatively) intelligent life, let alone life, exists.
Astronauts are usually scientists, and they know this as well as anyone.
They are simply stating the obvious.
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Thanks for posting that article!
I wonder if those of us in the U.S. will ever get to hear a sitting cabinet member say that exact thing on live television?
I bet the odds in Vegas on that are slim to none...Shake the magic eight ball, and the cube inside will say "Outcome is highly doubtful." (For those
of you old enough to remember those "magic" eight balls from childhood and for those of you not old enough to remember them, it was a toy...back
when there were only 4 tv channels, you know, the stone ages.)
As xmotex said, they are only stating the obvious...but then most government officials/employees will NOT just state the obvious so I think it's a
great sign, that more and more that are STILL in government positions are saying it out in public in front of the media. This can only be a good sign
IMO. 
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It's actually pure statistics.
If you take the probability of a planet being in the right condition to sustain life, and the probability of life starting on that planet... then
compare that probability to the sheer massive size of the universe...
... claiming there isn't life out there, is pure insanity.
Given that there is life on Earth, we must declare that it is possible to start life on a planet with Earths general description.
The chances of finding another planet in an orbit comparable to Earth, with the elements Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Hydrogen, are EXTREMELY
high.
Given that we are aware of billions of solar systems, and thats simply whats within range of a lens based telescope... statistically, there has to be
millions of planets in the Universe which also contain life.
Humans haven't been around very long... in fact, we've existed for a mere blink of the eye in comparison to the age of our planet.
Chances are, a lot of these species have had A LOT longer to exist than we have.
Which means, there are a lot of well evolved and likely much more intelligent species out there.
Attempting to claim there can't be life out there... well, thats just crazy.
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 Originally posted by johnsky
If you take the probability of a planet being in the right condition to sustain life, and the probability of life starting on that planet... then
compare that probability to the sheer massive size of the universe... 
I completely agree, although I think science is only just beginning to realise just how remarkable life is. As we discover more about the kinds of
life that flourish in extreme conditions on Earth (such as the extreme dark, cold, and high pressure of deep sea) we will realise that there is much
more variety in the 'right conditions' necessary for sustaining life. Eventually we'll discover that we need to look beyond the 'Earth-like
planets' to discover life.
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I found this somewhere ...
Astronomer Ian Crawford recently wrote about this in Scientific American. His diffusion model leads to "full galactic colonization" in 5 to 50
million years (Sci. Am., Nov. 2000, p. 8), a small fraction of the age of the Galaxy. Naturally this all assumes human-like behaviour and motivation.
The bottom line is that if even only a few alien civilizations have arisen in the 10 billion or so year history of our Galaxy, most of the habitable
parts of the Galaxy would likely be colonized by now.
I like it.
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