Large starship crews vs small starship crews

[Spacescifi]

 

IRL the trend is for small crews, due to the limitations of rocketry and the resistance that gravity gives.

In scifi though crews may range up to a thousand or more for a single large spaceship.

So I was thinking, does a spaceship really need all that crew?

I think it really depends on the tech level.

 

1. Realistic: Tiny crew. A few tons payload. Spaceship is an orbit to orbit vessel with a lander.

2. Scifi: Tiny crew with orbit to orbit vessel, small payload, has SSTO landers.

3. Imaginative Scifi: Large crew, the large ship is an SSTO.

 

So even in scenario 3 there must ve a reason, like an earth-like world to drop off passengers, in which the standing crew would be far less than the passenger readout. Or colonization of an Earth-like world.

For that matter, I do not ever see people signing up by the thousands to go to the death worlds of the solar system (any place other than Earth). When you consider that the plantd s grown need special filtering or else they kill your immune system, it just does not seem worth it. Plus the plants grown are not even green! They are some weird yellow unhealthy color.

 

Now if it was an Earth-2 colony then yes.

 

For missions like the Enterprise though it does not make sense to ne. Large crews I do not understand. Unless it is a bunch security, since science experiments should not require a thousand people unless you are running tests on them.

Unless those transporter accidents are a lot more common than starfleet reports and large crews compensates for that....

Edited October 14, 2019 by Spacescifi

[AngrybobH]

I cannot see much of a reason for large crews even in a scifi sense unless the cargo is people. But, those would not be crew, they would be passengers. It depends heavily on the intended mission of a ship as what is optimal. I think any mission would at least need command, navigation, piloting, engineering, and science crew. Maybe payload specialists? what about janitors(the toilet doesn't clean itself, or maybe it does)? And then a 2nd or 3rd shift(depending on how long a shift is and if you give them days off). In a scifi sense it looks more like an old time sail boat than todays spaceships. I think that is the idea with a lot of scifi. The manned spacecraft of today are more like a racing yacht, super expensive and not out at 'sea' long enough to need much more than the bare essentials.

[VincentS]

- Generation ship : large crew is required both for sanity and genetic diversity. Moreover, you can only select first generation, you have no choice on any of the next ones. (well, except if you go either the clone or eugenist way...). And you will need some very talented people to keep the ship working, so you'd better have a large population to select from...

- ISS requires constant maintenance, and spaceships are likely to require even more and without any possibility to rotate crew member. So you have to add some redundancy, which increase ship size and complexity, which increase crew requirement, until you get both a very large ship and a very large crew, and can (barely) cope with some crew unavailability. When compared to planes, you basically have to perform what the ground team would do, but while in flight and multiple times and without any material assistance. And you have to either carry or manufacture anything that need replacement...

Edited October 14, 2019 by VincentS

[Treveli]

For Enterprise (TNG), she was always supposed to be acting like an 'exploratory cruiser'. A large combination scout/science vessel, but for long-duration (5 year) missions in generally uncharted space. At around 1,000 crew, say a third are ship crew (operate and maintain ship systems), a third science/mission specialists, and the remainder are family/civilians that are just passengers (and occasional plot devices). That way you have plenty of crew to handle problems that will show up (engineering and security wise), a broad enough S/MS group to handle a wide range of experiments and anomalies that are encountered during the mission (don't have to send another ship), and the families are there for crew morale (for those that have them/want to bring them along into the Deep Dark). For a long-range exploratory vessel, it works. For a combat vessel, horrible waste of space. How many torpedoes/phaser arrays/shield generators could be fitted without having to support the S/MS crew and families.

I've always thought that the more advanced your tech becomes, the smaller your crew could be (automation and robotic systems for maintenance/repair). I cringe when I think about Imperial Star Destroyers with cannon crews of 30-40,000 when they have such advanced tech. A ship's crew should be big enough to handle the ship's assigned missions, but as small as possible to reduce 'costs'. More crew = more resources to support them = less space for mission equipment (ammo/fuel/experiments/etc).

[KSK]

What @VincentS said.

The Enterprise was intended for multi-year voyages to multiple star systems. 

During that time it needs to be prepared for almost anything. Even with super-advanced Treknology, you still plan for the worst - if the far point of your journey is a couple of years away at Warp 5 then popping back to the nearest Starbase for a quick baryon sweep, window clean and top up of the graviton fluid in the inertial dampers, isn’t really an option.

So you assume things will break. Taking along a starship worth of spare parts seems unlikely, so you need some way of fabricating parts, installing those parts and sourcing the raw materials to make them. Even with 23rd Century automation that still needs an engineering crew and probably quite a lot of it to cover all the needed specialisations.

Then there’s the science crew. Given that we’re exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilisations, the science crew is likely to be huge given that almost any scientist from an atomic physicist to a xenobotanist could probably make a case for a place on a starship crew.

Then you need a medical staff to keep all your scientists and engineers healthy. Not to mention keeping the dermal closers away from the grad students - those things are just made for pranks.

Then you need a diplomatic and linguistics team. Also a security team - even if you’re on a peaceful mission of science and exploration it’s probably better to have the guns and not need them than vice versa.

And finally you need a couple of folks to actually fly the thing and someone to sit in the Big Chair where the Buck Stops.

Most of this you never get to see on the TV show of course. There’s a limited amount of drama to be had from most day to day science and having the Enterprise spend a week or so at impulse speed searching for a suitable asteroid to pull up alongside and mine for raw materials pretty much kills the pacing. Much better to have Scotty pull another miracle out of his Jefferies tube and move on with the story.

[magnemoe]

36 minutes ago, Treveli said:

For Enterprise (TNG), she was always supposed to be acting like an 'exploratory cruiser'. A large combination scout/science vessel, but for long-duration (5 year) missions in generally uncharted space. At around 1,000 crew, say a third are ship crew (operate and maintain ship systems), a third science/mission specialists, and the remainder are family/civilians that are just passengers (and occasional plot devices). That way you have plenty of crew to handle problems that will show up (engineering and security wise), a broad enough S/MS group to handle a wide range of experiments and anomalies that are encountered during the mission (don't have to send another ship), and the families are there for crew morale (for those that have them/want to bring them along into the Deep Dark). For a long-range exploratory vessel, it works. For a combat vessel, horrible waste of space. How many torpedoes/phaser arrays/shield generators could be fitted without having to support the S/MS crew and families.

I've always thought that the more advanced your tech becomes, the smaller your crew could be (automation and robotic systems for maintenance/repair). I cringe when I think about Imperial Star Destroyers with cannon crews of 30-40,000 when they have such advanced tech. A ship's crew should be big enough to handle the ship's assigned missions, but as small as possible to reduce 'costs'. More crew = more resources to support them = less space for mission equipment (ammo/fuel/experiments/etc).

Star destroyer crews are pretty small then you consider the size. 1.5 km long, say 600 meter wide and 3-400 meter high without the bridge. tapered but volume like lots of hundreds air craft carriers who has an size 1/10 of it. 
Much the same with star trek, the ships are huge, and its warships or science ships, not freighters. Freighters has pretty small crews, this will probably be more so in space as part of the crew's work is maintenance and not sure how much can be done in flight. They can still do damage control and that is very important on warships. 

Passenger ships can easy have huge population, both the passengers and the crew doing the hotel work: chefs, bartenders and entertainers. 

Agree on star trek ships, they are for science and exploration, they are armed the same way non warships back in 1700 was armed on long exploration missions. Not an warship but still have an decent broadside because of its size. 

[Terwin]

The NCC1701D (the TNG ship) was originally supposed to be a troop transport, but the war ended before the fittings were added, so it became more like a luxury yacht quarters-wise.

(Scotty even comments on that in the Relics episode)

So the size of quarters in TNG is kind of excessive, but that is one of the things you can get when you re-purpose a hull half-way through construction. (and this is one of the reasons the passage-ways always seem so empty)

If memory serves, in tos quarters mostly consist of a small entry area, a partial barrier, and then a sleeping chamber.  And that was for the chief engineer, so crewmen may well have had bunks.

[RCgothic]

I'm a pretty prodigious Trekkie and I've never heard "troop transport" suggested as an original purpose for the galaxy class before.

It was purpose built as a deep space exploration cruiser. It's large size makes it pretty good at pretty much any role.

[Guest]

On a realistic starship, SSTO or not, you want as small a crew as possible. Generally, you'll be in 30-200 range, depending on the size and the level or automation. Most of that will be technicians for maintaining the ship's systems, and the second group largest will be crew support (cooks, quartermasters and so on). For admin and command you can get away with a Trek-style five person bridge crew, unless the ship's owners insist on a ridiculous bureaucracy.

One nice thing about a small crew is that you can flesh them out more. A 1000+ person crew will be full of anonymous redshirts, while with a 30-40 person crew you could possibly give at least a name to all of them, if your book is thick enough. This puts a personal touch on everything that happens to them.

[Nuke]

seeing the amount of automation you usually find on a spacecraft i think the smaller crew wins out. a lot of the scifi series with big crews are really just taking the naval ship in space analogy a bit to far, star trek and star wars being the biggest offenders. and it usually goes against their own technology to have so many hands on deck. with so many droids in star wars you think they could handle much of the ship operations and maintenance.

in a hard scifi setting crew is dead weight (mass) so you want a crew that is full of multi talented people who can be cross trained to maximize the knowledge base and experience while minimizing numbers. large crew also means a beefier life support system or a bigger pressure hull which is more mass to deal with. more provisions, more gear, space suits, etc. on a space ship less is more.  

[Spacescifi]

31 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

On a realistic starship, SSTO or not, you want as small a crew as possible. Generally, you'll be in 30-200 range, depending on the size and the level or automation. Most of that will be technicians for maintaining the ship's systems, and the second group largest will be crew support (cooks, quartermasters and so on). For admin and command you can get away with a Trek-style five person bridge crew, unless the ship's owners insist on a ridiculous bureaucracy.

One nice thing about a small crew is that you can flesh them out more. A 1000+ person crew will be full of anonymous redshirts, while with a 30-40 person crew you could possibly give at least a name to all of them, if your book is thick enough. This puts a personal touch on everything that happens to them.

 

Good points.

Now I would like to discuss genders on a realistic starship.

IRL it is predominantly male, but what reasons are their to include females (besides being an equal opportunity employer)?

I guess what I am asking is, what jobs on a starship are females an ideal choice for, since I am being pragmatic and no nonsense about this.

Two roles comes to mind.

Pilot: Females reportedly make good drivers, getting in less accidents overall compared to to males. I dunno, maybe they are more careful.

CNA: Do you really want a big, burly man man-handeling you off to tuck you into your hospital bed? Not to mention other duties that get up close and personal?

 

That's all I can think of.

 

For security though, males are ideal, especially if the danger level is high.

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Spacescifi

[Guest]

Actually, if you're being pragmatic about it, starship crews should be all female. They have less body mass and need slightly less life support capacity. This adds up over long voyages. 

In practice, though, it doesn't matter. You want the best people for the job. If your ship is anything big enough for a minuscule mass saving not to matter, then gender doesn't matter. Jobs on spaceships will be highly technical, and you need the best people you can send up there, since there will be so few of them aboard. Restricting your candidate pool for no good reason gives you worse performing crews.

[Nuke]

3 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Good points.

Now I would like to discuss genders on a realistic starship.

IRL it is predominantly male, but what reasons are their to include females (besides being an equal opportunity employer)?

I guess what I am asking is, what jobs on a starship are females an ideal choice for, since I am being pragmatic and no nonsense about this.

One role comes to mind.

Pilot: Females reportedly make good drivers, getting in less accidents overall compared to yo males. I dunno, maybe they are more careful.

CNA: Do you really want a big, burly man man_handeling you off to tuck you into your hospital bed?

 

That's all I can think of.

 

i think women are actually better as space ship crew because of their smaller frames. less mass to move around. anyone with dwarfism as well. i figure if we ever get to the point of genetically engineering specifically for creating spaceship crews, you would want to find the way to stunt bodily growth without harming mental development as much as possible. perhaps having crews which are very child like in appearance but with an abnormally large head. your typical grey alien seems a plausible genetic engineering target.

[kerbiloid]

Firtst ask the ship if it wants a crew.

Then you always have the Fedors for maintenance needs.

Humans are cargo.

Edited October 15, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

16 hours ago, VincentS said:

well, except if you go either the clone or eugenist way...

Let'a be honest: if you're willing to effectively conscript all future generations of the crew for your mission, you'd not bat an eye.

12 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

IRL it is predominantly male, but what reasons are their to include females (besides being an equal opportunity employer)?

I guess what I am asking is, what jobs on a starship are females an ideal choice for, since I am being pragmatic and no nonsense about this.

In pure theory? None, because starship crews will target the upper echelons in terms of IQ, and the bell curve for males has a fat tail in the genius region. 

In practice? Most (given automation of physical labour, probably all) of the jobs will have a percentage of women, but there are none for which they emerge as a distinct first pick. The usual personal inclinations - which correlate to stereotypical gender roles - cause a bias towards people-oriented jobs, of which there will be a fair amount.

12 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

CNA: Do you really want a big, burly man man-handeling you off to tuck you into your hospital bed? Not to mention other duties that get up close and personal?

Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is, "Do you want your buddy to be too weak to haul you out of a fire-stricken compartment?"

12 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Actually, if you're being pragmatic about it, starship crews should be all female. They have less body mass and need slightly less life support capacity. This adds up over long voyages. 

It'd take some time for me to div up the citation, but all-female teams perform significantly worse than all alternatives.

[DDE]

12 hours ago, Nuke said:

seeing the amount of automation you usually find on a spacecraft i think the smaller crew wins out

Automation needs maintenance. You'd basically have to give up on constant repairs.

There's a naval precedent to it, and it wasn't nice.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, DDE said:

It'd take some time for me to div up the citation, but all-female teams perform significantly worse than all alternatives.

But they mass less.  Besides, I doubt the study in question involved operating a spaceship, or anything comparable. I'd give it a thought if this was about operating a naval workstation, but most of such studies I've seen tend to be rather detached from reality (but easy to do for those conducting them).

[kerbiloid]

15 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

what reasons are their to include females

That's nice for eyes.

2 hours ago, DDE said:

because starship crews will target the upper echelons in terms of IQ

Or vice versa, be as dumb as possible to keep washing the ship with caring about nothing else. _{Lobotomy, way to stars!}
Though, the bell curve stays same and in this case, too.

2 hours ago, DDE said:

15 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

CNA: Do you really want a big, burly man man-handeling you off to tuck you into your hospital bed? Not to mention other duties that get up close and personal?

Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is, "Do you want your buddy to be too weak to haul you out of a fire-stricken compartment?"

The Fedor can this all. And it is genderly neutral despite of its "name" and "twitter".

2 hours ago, DDE said:

It'd take some time for me to div up the citation, but all-female teams perform significantly worse than all alternatives.

I.e. an age detector detected.

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

But they mass less

If fat - no.

Edited October 15, 2019 by kerbiloid

[KSK]

17 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Good points.

Now I would like to discuss genders on a realistic starship.

IRL it is predominantly male, but what reasons are their to include females (besides being an equal opportunity employer)?

I guess what I am asking is, what jobs on a starship are females an ideal choice for, since I am being pragmatic and no nonsense about this.

Two roles comes to mind.

Pilot: Females reportedly make good drivers, getting in less accidents overall compared to to males. I dunno, maybe they are more careful.

CNA: Do you really want a big, burly man man-handeling you off to tuck you into your hospital bed? Not to mention other duties that get up close and personal?

That's all I can think of.

For security though, males are ideal, especially if the danger level is high.

Well there's a pile of cliched tripe if ever I saw one.

There are no 'ideal jobs' for any gender. Each would be as capable as any other aboard a starship. About the only situation I can think of where physical strength might provide an advantage (and thus men would, on average, have an edge) is EVA work in current generation spacesuits. Even then, there are no shortage of examples of female spacewalkers. They're vastly outnumbered by their male colleagues but they are there. 

Your medical concern is a total non-issue. Male nurses are a thing, for that matter (flipping the situation around) male gynaecologists are a thing - and you don't get much more 'up close and personal' than gynaecology. Absolute worst case scenario, have a mixed medical team and include a chaperone if the patient requests one.

Your security example is equally lame. Women serve in a number of military organisations, women serve in police forces, historically women have served on the front in various support roles. For that matter, women have volunteered to be shot into space aboard controlled explosions. I think they're entirely capable of dealing with situations where 'the danger level is high.'

I would have to dig out the relevant links but long duration crew dynamics have been studied and  I've read that mixed crews functioned best, followed by all-male crews, with all-female crews coming in last. Assuming that's correct and hasn't been superseded by later research, that means that a mixed crew is the pragmatic choice for any long distance, long duration missions. 

Oh - and unless you're talking about a SpaceX 'Starship' (i.e. a starship in name only), a 'realistic starship' is a total oxymoron and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. So trying to disguise this nonsense under a flimsy appeal to 'realism' is a non-starter too.

 

Edited October 15, 2019 by KSK

[Spacescifi]

25 minutes ago, KSK said:

Well there's a pile of cliched tripe if ever I saw one.

There are no 'ideal jobs' for any gender. Each would be as capable as any other aboard a starship. About the only situation I can think of where physical strength might provide an advantage (and thus men would, on average, have an edge) is EVA work in current generation spacesuits. Even then, there are no shortage of examples of female spacewalkers. They're vastly outnumbered by their male colleagues but they are there. 

Your medical concern is a total non-issue. Male nurses are a thing, for that matter (flipping the situation around) male gynaecologists are a thing - and you don't get much more 'up close and personal' than gynaecology. Absolute worst case scenario, have a mixed medical team and include a chaperone if the patient requests one.

Your security example is equally lame. Women serve in a number of military organisations, women serve in police forces, historically women have served on the front in various support roles. For that matter, women have volunteered to be shot into space aboard controlled explosions. I think they're entirely capable of dealing with situations where 'the danger level is high.'

I would have to dig out the relevant links but long duration crew dynamics have been studied and  I've read that mixed crews functioned best, followed by all-male crews, with all-female crews coming in last. Assuming that's correct and hasn't been superseded by later research, that means that a mixed crew is the pragmatic choice for any long distance, long duration missions. 

Oh - and unless you're talking about a SpaceX 'Starship' (i.e. a starship in name only), a 'realistic starship' is a total oxymoron and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. So trying to disguise this nonsense under a flimsy appeal to 'realism' is a non-starter too.

 

 

By 'danger I was implying situations where having a little extra muscle would be an asset...namely, physical confrontations.

As for security in general the sex matters less, since it firearms do not require a lot of muscle, nor does monitoring screens.

 

The main issue with long duration crews though is babies.

Maybe they really should just send families and be done with it.

Since that may cut down on the baby potential.

 

From what I read of western colonization of the Americas, the Spanish crews were mostly male and had a lot of babies with the natives, so is no wonder why spanish is spoken nearly everywhere english is.

The british/english on the other hand brought families and were more likely to enslsve the locals than have babies with them.

For this analogy to apply to a Mars mission though, I think the British way is better, since otherwise you will have a bunch of really frustrated guys on a several years long mission.

 

Stuff happens. I have read. In the Antiartica research station I have read they have a mixed crew of male and females. I have read that they get large orders of.... stuff that prevents pregnancy..

That is what isolation does to males/females long term.

 

If it os just males, things get weird sooner or later, read this: I found the crossing the equator 'ceremony'to be quite disturbing, but it also illustrates how bored these guys are that they think this gross stuff is fun 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/taskandpurpose.com/life-submarine-raunchy-cramped-occasionally-smells-like-sht/amp/

[kerbiloid]

If an onboard job requires muscles, it's just insufficiently automated. So, in fact it requires the engineers'  head muscles.

Babies are not an issue after some medical intervention.
Of course, no babies onboard can be made/sent. At least because they are a headache even at 4 g, and mutate under space radiation.

50 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

From what I read of western colonization of the Americas, the Spanish crews were mostly male and had a lot of babies with the natives, so is no wonder why spanish is spoken nearly everywhere english is.

This practice should be reproduced on Mars with the Martian natives. You see, it works.
(Though, can't get a link between English/Dutch/German colonists and Spain, as they were colonizing different countries.)

53 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

The british/english on the other hand brought families and were more likely to enslsve the locals than have babies with them.

Afaik, the local slavery was mostly in use in Spanish America, just due to more developed and numerous native population.

59 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

For this analogy to apply to a Mars mission though, I think the British way is better,

Sure it's better because there is neither gold, nor natives on Mars, but it's still possible to send there religious communities and sentenced prisoners.

Also, everyone must read this before colonizing Mars and establishing any Martian society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community

[KSK]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

For this analogy to apply to a Mars mission though, I think the British way is better, since otherwise you will have a bunch of really frustrated guys on a several years long mission.

And/or a bunch of really frustrated women.

Assuming that your spaceship isn’t able to accommodate them anyway, I would argue that babies are only an indirect problem.

If an astronaut’s personal beliefs preclude them from using contraception or having sex other than for procreation, then a long duration spaceflight will most likely entail an equally long period of enforced celibacy in the company of other people who may not share your beliefs and will probably be taking a partner off to a quiet corner of the hab module at some point during the journey.

That sounds pretty tough to me. Not insurmountable but tough.

Apart from that, there are many options for not having babies. One of the most pragmatic would be to have every male crew member make a sperm donation and then have a vasectomy before the journey. Almost foolproof contraception plus non-radiation damaged sperm for starting a family afterwards.

So no, it’s not nearly as big a problem as you’re making out and, depending on the crew involved, could conceivably be a total non-problem.

Edited October 15, 2019 by KSK

[Spacescifi]

28 minutes ago, KSK said:

And/or a bunch of really frustrated women.

Assuming that your spaceship isn’t able to accommodate them anyway, I would argue that babies are only an indirect problem.

If an astronaut’s personal beliefs preclude them from using contraception or having sex other than for procreation, then a long duration spaceflight will most likely entail an equally long period of enforced celibacy in the company of other people who may not share your beliefs and will probably be taking a partner off to a quiet corner of the hab module at some point during the journey.

That sounds pretty tough to me. Not insurmountable but tough.

Apart from that, there are many options for not having babies. One of the most pragmatic would be to have every male crew member make a sperm donation and then have a vasectomy before the journey. Almost foolproof contraception plus non-radiation damaged sperm for starting a family afterwards.

So no, it’s not nearly as big a problem as you’re making out and, depending on the crew involved, could conceivably be a total non-problem.

 

As a kid I kind of wanted to go to space.

 

But given what we know,  what are the pros and cons?

Cons:  Long interplanetary mission? Either use contraception or get a vasectomy, or just do not do it. Increased cancer risk, weird toxic plants grown in martian soil that require filtering to eat. Ditto for Lunar soil probabably.

Pros: Fame. Money. Fun in space (you know what I mean) with significant other, just tie down or you will hit the wall.

 Can't think of anything else.

[Guest]

Myself, I'd go up there for the science. If it's anything like a regular lab work, there won't be time for much else, anyway. On the plus side, ground control will probably be handling the bureaucracy for you.  No distractions, either (such as students  ) and no need to commute.

Really, science is the best reason to go to space. There's so much you can do once you're on the Moon or Mars. I don't care much for fame, and spaceflight costs money more often that it pays. The science is really the best thing about spaceflight, currently. 

[Spacescifi]

48 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Myself, I'd go up there for the science. If it's anything like a regular lab work, there won't be time for much else, anyway. On the plus side, ground control will probably be handling the bureaucracy for you.  No distractions, either (such as students  ) and no need to commute.

Really, science is the best reason to go to space. There's so much you can do once you're on the Moon or Mars. I don't care much for fame, and spaceflight costs money more often that it pays. The science is really the best thing about spaceflight, currently. 

 

Science? The goal of science is knowledge is it not? The dictionary defines science as experimentation with the gaining of a knowledge as the goal or something like that I once read.

So an even deeper question I would ask you is this. what questions do you want science to answer for you in space or mars or the moon?

Many we have already answered. What is left to answer is how well can humans live on the moon or mars, and the answer we know already is that it would be hard, but not impossible.

The main question that people in the science media keep bringing up is are we alone in the universe?

Yet that is not what they are asking. What they are really asking is, are we alone in a universe that fits our definition of what we think life to be like?

Answers to questions we never asked might be far more rewarding than than the answers to questions we keep asking.