NASA opens SpaceX's moon lander contract to rivals over Starship delays

[hunter]

16. Baby smiles.

Or it could be gas.

If advanced civilizations are watching us maybe they are waiting for a warp signature or something similarly advanced before they make first contact, like the Star Trek Vulcans and later Federation.

Or maybe it's something even more sophisticated than that, like a demonstrated ability to live in harmony with our natural environment and at peace with ourselves.

What if the Neanderthals are gone because they walked away with the Star People to become a respected community within the galactic federation? Maybe other earth species unrelated to humans have walked that path too -- Cetacean, squid, dinosaur, bird, insects, fungi, plants, heck even rocks.

Meanwhile, here we are, modern twenty-first century humans jerking ourselves off into orbit riding giant pollution spewing metal dildos.