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The Earth in Space

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Meeting the Alien

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Abstract

It is undoubtedly a sad fact that the beginning of space travel, the starting signal for the human ‘reach for the stars’, is located in the context of armed conflicts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In aeronautics and astronautics, space is usually referred to as from an altitude of 100 km above sea level (Kármán line). Above this altitude, the Earth's atmosphere is so thin that it can no longer be used for lift or propulsion.

  2. 2.

    We present the astrophysical and astrobiological backgrounds of our sociological considerations in this chapter in such detail because they do not belong to the usual canon of social scientific knowledge. It should be added that the current state of scientific research provides a central justification for our decision to make such a strong case for the idea of an exosociology at this point in time.

  3. 3.

    The spectral class (also spectral type) is a classification system dating back to nineteenth century astrophysics, which classifies stars according to their light spectrum. The vast majority of stars (over 90%) belong to the seven spectral classes (so-called basic classes) O, B, A, F, G, K and M, which at the same time represent a temperature sequence from high (B) to low temperatures (M).

  4. 4.

    Own calculation based on data from http://www.exoplanet.eu/.

  5. 5.

    See NASA Exoplanet and Candidate Statistics: https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/counts_detail.html.

  6. 6.

    See University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo: Habitable Exoplanets Catalog: http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog.

  7. 7.

    Available online at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A4rtierchen.

  8. 8.

    We will revisit and discuss this conception in more detail in Chap. 10.

  9. 9.

    Such a position is advocated by Martinez (2014), for example.

  10. 10.

    These are hypothetical, self-replicating space probes equipped with artificial intelligence, conceptualized by the mathematician John von Neumann (1903–1957).

  11. 11.

    Based on the observation data of the Hubble telescope, some scientists even assume that there are more than a trillion galaxies (cf. Conselice 2016).

  12. 12.

    Available online at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromedagalaxie#/media/File:Andromeda_Galaxy_( (Accessed: April 10, 2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene, Freiburg, Germany

    Andreas Anton

  2. Institut für Soziologie der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany

    Michael Schetsche

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  1. Andreas Anton
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Correspondence to Andreas Anton .

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Anton, A., Schetsche, M. (2023). The Earth in Space. In: Meeting the Alien. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41317-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41317-0_3

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