Posted: Nov 13, 2010 7:49 pm
The Fermi paradox isn't a paradox, and isn't even a real issue for those with a real understanding of the size of the cosmos, which was only just being understood in 1950, when Fermi uttered his famous question 'Where is everybody'. The problems faced in crossing large distances in space in manageable time frames are not insignificant. Even travelling at close to light speed, so that the time experienced in the inertial frame of the traveller is reasonably small, the time outside that frame is still ridiculous. For example, a round trip to Andromeda at a snip below lightspeed would take only about 50 years from the frame of the traveller, while outside that frame, 6 million years would pass.