Alien water logic

NASA launched The Kepler this week, a space probe designed to look for planets that may share earth’s atmospheric characteristics, and thus the capability of sustaining life. According to a news story on FoxBusiness, "Kepler is designed to find the first Earth-size planets orbiting stars at distances where water could pool on the planet's surface. Liquid water is believed to be essential for the formation of life.

Anyone who pays attention to NASA's efforts knows that water is the holy grail for NASA scientists. That’s what we were looking for on Mars, among other things – such as Martians. That's what we're looking for everywhere, with only the thinnest veil hiding the fact that we are actually looking for new places to call home. (Wise planning considering we're unlikely to get our security deposit back on this planet.) Check any NASA staffers Christmas wish list and "water" will be near the top.

I am no scientist, but I am amazed that we are able to think so far outside the box as to create a solar-powered space probe designed to observe the orbital patterns of satellites around 100,000 different stars, yet our imagination is unable to comprehend that “life” on other planets, in other galaxies, may not look like what “life” looks like on earth?

Experts explain that certain planets cannot support life because they are too cold. But that means too cold for the type of life we associate with earth. This seems like a serious limitation on our thinking---that the rules as we know them here apply everywhere, to everything. It's like spending the money to fly across the Atlantic, training across Europe to get to Italy, then looking for an Olive Garden because, well, isn’t that what Italian food looks like?

I am assuming there is some logical reason for this thinking---the immutable laws of science neither bend nor break in environments with different gravitational and climatic atmospheres. But there is so much in our existing world that gives cause for questioning those laws, or at least our ability to comprehend those laws: We have no explanation for psychic visions, for reported ghost sightings, for the emotional complexity of falling in love, or the certainty we feel about the existence (or lack thereof) of god. And it's not just the metaphysical world: We are regularly discovering new species of life in remote rain forests, a prehistoric shark found swimming alive, organisms living in the direct path of 572 degree thermal vents in the 36,000 feet deep Mariana Trench who "show an incredible resistance to temperature extremes by having different proteins which are adapted for life under these conditions."

I'm not saying we shouldn't be looking for water elsewhere in the universe, I'm just concerned that our obsessive focus on this single commodity might impede our ability to recognize elements that do not fit our preconceptions. It's like looking for mayonnaise in the refrigerator: We've used the same brand of mayo for years, so I know the label completely; if we buy a different brand, the jar still looks very much like mayonnaise, but it takes me forever to find it in the fridge because it doesn't look like the thing I'm expecting to find. I can look right at the jar and not recognize it because it doesn't look like the narrowly-defined item I am hoping to find. I hope NASA isn't making that same mistake.

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