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16 Other authors imagined meetings between humans and their counter- parts in space, although they did not foresee significant consequences from such contact. Bishop Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone (1638) envisioned aliens as being similar to humans, but their world was like Paradise.” This conception of extraterrestrials being not only better than us but also happier reappeared in later speculations; imaginary societies gave us models of utopia to aspire to, or visions of abasement to be shunned. Some pursued the idea that we could initiate direct contact with extrater- restrial beings. In his Discovery of a World in the Moone, first published in 1638, Bishop John Wilkins speculated that future generations might invent means for our better acquaintance with the inhabitants of other worlds; the problem was merely one of transport. Pierre Borel, a counselor to the French court, proposed in 1657 that humans could learn the truth about the plurality of worlds by aerial navigation, what we now would call space travel.”° The skeptics had their say. To novelist Charles Sorel, an encounter with aliens was the height of absurdity. He introduced the idea of an invasion of the Earth from outer space, but only as a ridiculous concept.”” The Importance of the Moon The Moon, hung high above us, was the natural first target for our extraterrestrial aspirations. Brightly visible, obviously round, its face marked by intriguing patterns of light and dark, it was a little world. Except for the Sun, it was the only body in the solar system whose disk we could see with the naked eye; it suggested to us the shape of the planet on which we live. Although other heavenly bodies seemed to be pure light, unchanging, and eternal, the appearance of our natural satel- lite varied as it went through its monthly cycle. With the invention of the telescope, we saw the Moon’s craters, its seas of hardened lava, even the shadows of its peaks. Would we have imagined other worlds if there had been no Moon, or no planet close enough to look different from a star? The Moon offered a tantalizing destination. Once we combined tech- nology with intent, we broke the barrier of distance with startling rapid- ity. Only 8 years after the first human ventured into space, others set foot on our natural satellite. That achievement encouraged visions of human journeys to the planets and beyond. Would those visions be in our minds if the Earth had no Moon?** This is not just idle speculation. It helps us to imagine what extrater- restrial civilizations might do—or not do. A Belief in Other Minds