You're failing to see the bigger picture and prattling on about practicality here and impracticality there and whatnot, and it's hardly lending credibility to your line of thinking.
For one thing, the probability of extraterrestrial life is fascinating. And to confirm it would put Humanity in perspective in relation to the Universe. Cherished notions would crumble, religious and societal institutions of all sorts would scramble to adapt, new ones would crop up, governments would react,etc etc etc
It is utterly heartbreaking you regard my line of thinking ever so lacking in credibility.
Also, it is interesting you manage to dismiss my line of thinking lacking in credibility as a whole and hop into few paragraphs of new age filosofy of how mankind responds to alien life in very same post.
Not that there was anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld could tell you. It's just that hop from knowing there is a planet we know next to nothing about some 20 light years away to spreading red carpent to our ameba/furry/humanoid neighbours is pretty huge one.
Again, as it is now we can't "see" the planet at all. When we manage to bring to the table some info about it's atmosphere, what it is made of, conditions in there in general..then it is time to get exited or disappointed. And again I am sure when that happens we have a good selection of more interesting/equally interesting things to look at in the sky.
As it is now we are far away from being able to rule out there isn't life in our very own solar system. Searching for it some 20 light years away makes nice food for thought and is great for imagination and all that but..we have no means to really do so yet.
The TPF sounds like an interesting idea. Based on the site you linked though, it looks like yet another exiting concept by nasa that is miles away from being anywhere but at the very beginning of it's development and has ridiculously optimistic ETA dates slapped all over it.The site itself hasn't been updated in 3 years.
Obviously It will be very exiting to see what it is capable of doing/finding if/when it gets finished.
It does little to my main argument though.As long as we know nothing about this planet and are unable to actually look at it, it just isn't a big enough turn on. The mere fact that hay it exists isn't a huge deal. Well it is fun to know for sure. But do understand that it doesn't spark a religious crisis and journey to my within just yet. The fact it was discovered so soon (alongide with another small distant planet at some point last year was it?)after we began using the um " double star light based detection method" would suggest that it is not very uncommon sight to have planets ize of earth that close to a star. As do statitics as a whole.
Just give it some time, they'll keep popping up.
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