I think people just underestimate the skills the people of that time will have had and the timescale of 25 years is a guess.
When it comes to life on other planets, I am a believer ... in the boring sense, not the SCI-FI one. First, the universe is so unfathomably vast that it seems mathematically certain that life exists on more than just our planet, life is after all nothing more than a chemical reaction that requires a forumla and conditions. The question that needs to be raised is, what about intelligent life. In the parts of the universe that we have observed, the term the "great silence" has been coined. There's nothing, not a single sign and an intelligent life much like us would leave a signature. The human race has been observing the galaxy in a scientific sense for about 200 years. Not just gazing but studying and understanding. In that time we have sent humans to the moon and in under 10 years have plans to land humans to possibly LIVE on Mars. Yet we see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any other lifeform has done that in our galaxy. I want us to discover genuine life on other planets, like an intelligent life. But the evidence seems that if they do exist, the universe is just too insanely vast for us to have been placed near one another. The odds of that happening are extremely small. They believe that Mars once had flowing rivers, it is possible microbes are frozen under the surface. It is also possible Jupiters moon, Titan could host microscopic lifeforms. I think the scary aliens that will start landing on planets and doing as they please with the locals will be humanity
Will they go for our sky dishes first? Can they wait until we've won a trophy? Just our luck some little green men will pop up just as we start to have some hope
Probably find that their supreme overlords will pass the fit and proper owners test and the six-legged bastards will beat us in the final.
