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The well-known space biologist Carl Sagan (USA) also does not exclude the possibility that 'the earth has been visited by representatives of an extraterrestrial civilisation at least once in the course of its history’. It is gratifying to know that under the pressure of successful space flights science is beginning to concern itself intensively with ideas that were absolutely taboo only decades ago. And I am convinced that with every rocket that shoots into the universe the traditional opposition to my theory about the Only ten years ago it was absurd to talk about the existence of another form of intelligent life in the universe. e. Today no one seriously doubts that extraterrestrial life exists in the cosmos. 3» When eleven scientific experts separated after a secret conference at Green Bank (West Virginia) in 1961, they had agreed on a formula which calculated up to fifty million civilisations in our galaxy alone. Roger A. MacGowan, who holds an important NASA appointment in Redstone (Alabama), even arrives at a figure of 130 milliard possible cultures in the cosmos, basing? his theory on the most recent developments in astronomy. These estimates seem comparatively modest and cautious if it proves to be true that the 'key of life'—i.e. the generation of all life from the four bases adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine—controls the whole cosmos. If this is the case, the universe must be literally teeming with life. Crushed by the facts, people reluctantly admit today that space travel within our solar system is conceivable, but in the same breath they say that they consider interstellar space travel impossible because of the vast distances. Like a conjurer, they whip out of the hat the statement that because interstellar space travel will never be possible in the future, our earth cannot have been visited in the past by unknown intelligences, because they would have had to have been able to traverse interstellar space. And that's that! But why should not interstellar space travel be possible? Working on the speeds that seem possible to us today, it is calculated that the journey to our nearest fixed star, Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away, would take eighty years—in other words no man could survive the flight there and back. Is this calculation correct? Admittedly, the average expectation of life today is about seventy years. The training of space pilots is complicated; even the most intelligent young man would not be able to pass his examinations as an astronaut before he was twenty. And if he was over sixty, he would hardly be sent on a space mission. That leaves only forty years as an active astronaut. It sounds quite logical to say that forty years are not long enough for an interstellar expedition. But that is a fallacy. Even a simple example shows why and simultaneously demonstrates how hard it is for us to escape from traditional patterns of thought whenever we tackle projects for the future. Let us suppose that I am given an accurate calculation showing that it is impossible for a water bacteria to And Professor Hermann Oberth, the father of the rocket, told me in these words: 'I consider a visit to our planet by an extraterrestrial race to be extremely probable. ‘gods’ will get weaker and weaker.