Originally Posted by
Jimmy Floyd
Reading back, I'm not so sure about the last two questions. At the moment I don't think we're putting much effort at all into space and less still into finding extraterrestrial life. If for whatever reason we started to put a large amount of resources into that, and if technology continued to develop, I guess we might find some algae within a few decades.
The key in my layman brain has always been how many favourable coincidences does it take for 'life' to kick off even when given the most favourable circumstances. The favourable circumstances will almost never come up.