By Naman Yadav
New Delhi [India], December 7 (ANI): Former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, known for his work on the Hubble Space Telescope and for flying on two space missions, weighed in on whether humanity is alone in the universe.
The veteran astronaut—who conducted four spacewalks and spent 30 hours and 44 minutes outside a spacecraft—said there is no proof of alien contact but that life beyond Earth remains plausible. “We have no proof that we haven’t been contacted or visited. There’s no evidence of that,” he told ANI, adding that the vastness of the universe makes extraterrestrial life likely. “There are billions of galaxies with billions of stars in each,” he said, noting most stars have multiple planets. “We have seen some of the building blocks of life as we know it, even within our own solar system. We haven’t discovered any life or any life form yet, but there’s certainly possibilities out there somewhere.”
Responding to NASA studies suggesting aliens might be listening to Earth, Massimino emphasized the challenge of connecting across immense distances. “The distances are really great between stars where we would think planets might, where planets are that we think maybe there’s some sort of life somewhere. So it’s not so easy to get to these places, to communicate to these places. And they’re so far away that even at the speed of light, it takes a long time for a radio wave to travel if we were to try to make contact somewhere.” For now, he said, the search is limited by physics rather than imagination.
On a viral social question—whether people can have sex in space—Massimino smiled: “I don’t see why not. I don’t know if it’s ever been tried—I’ve seen no evidence of it. But eventually we’re going to be sending families to space, and that’s going to be something.” He added, “There’s no proof but no physical reason preventing it.”
About reaching Mars within 20–25 years, Massimino called it expensive and challenging but achievable. He noted launch windows and travel time complicate missions: “Mars is much further away. The moon is always kind of close to Earth; we can get there any day of the year. But with Mars, you have to wait for the planets to align—only certain times of the year you can even launch.” Communication delays are a major operational hurdle: on the space station responses are immediate, on the moon about three seconds, but on Mars a reply could take 20–30 minutes. Astronauts would likely need to stay about a year on Mars to wait for alignment for a return trip.
Addressing Area 51, Massimino said, “Area 51 is a secure area where there’s classified work going on. There are no aliens there, as far as I know. You’re not even allowed to fly over it.” He stressed hiding an alien visitation would be impossible: “There’s no way we could cover that up.”
Still hopeful about contact, he concluded, “One day we’ll make contact. Maybe through communication, not visiting. But they’d need to be a lot smarter than us, because we’re not close to being able to do that yet.” (ANI)
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