Because if we don't look for it, we certainly won't find it. Is there any particular reason why we shouldn't look for it?

Not really ... and especially not in the time frame that companies would need to turn a profit. A company like Virgin funding a small sub-orbiter to take up rich tourists is one thing, a full fledged private space program is, at the moment, beyond the reach of a private enterprise. It's the same reason why government funds most basic and translational(medicine)/engineering research. Yes eventually the research from those grants become products that companies improve and iterate upon, but that takes an enormous amount of time from the basic research stage to the final product a company does. No company, especially not in today's business environment which tends to be very short-sighted, is willing to wait that long for a possible return on investment. Privatization is not a cure-all for societal ills and many things have been privatized which really shouldn't have been. In fact most of NASA's ills have been in trying to cut costs and operating like a business: "better, faster, cheaper" not only in the end costs money, in space, it kills.

The reason for this is simple. Space is, for lack a of a better word, hard. Very hard and very costly. It is extremely expensive to put objects into space and with exception of satellite communication systems, very unprofitable. Most people who make statements such as yours have no conception of just how difficult space is and why projects seem to generate so much waste. Most programs run far over budget and over time because the fact of the matter is most things fail. The slightest mistake fixable on Earth is disastrous in space, so you if don't put up something perfect the first time it becomes ever so much junk in orbit or litter on the surface of Mars. And given the cost of putting it up there and the equipment itself, you've just wasted many millions of dollars and years of work (and people if it is a manned mission) in about 30 minutes of launch - that's even if the rocket takes off alright which is not a given (and if it doesn't you've wasted them in about 10 sec). No company wants to take that kind of risk.

We may eventually reach a point where we obtain the technology to lessen the costs of operating in space and I try not to prognosticate about when that will happen since the evolution of technology can be difficult to predict. However, we are not yet at the point where space is a profitable business. Licensing technology can only get you so far. You have to actually do something once you're up there and there exist no mechanism to generate profit from the space travel itself. Not to overuse the old meme:

1. Create Company for Space Travel
2. ???
3. PROFIT

The licensing of tech to other projects does not make up for the costs of space and hasn't in awhile. It's been years since the space program has yielded new technology that became profitable for earth-based use. If you want space travel to be truly profitable in a time scale that companies can sell to an investor you have to have a way to make the travel itself profitable. Right now it is for symbolism (the space station) or scientific curiosity (the rovers, space telescopes) which while noble (at least the latter), neither is generally profitably in the short term necessary for a company.

At the moment alternative travel technologies are not practical beyond the toy phase - if that, most of those are drawing board only, concepts on their way to becoming ideas - and right now just getting stuff into space is the expensive part. To be perfectly blunt, we have a huge infrastructure built around rockets. Moving off of that infrastructure for space travel is expensive in and of itself and would consume a huge amount of time to prepare the alternative system for regular use if and when an alternative system was proven to be better. It would require an enormous government effort and time before an alternative system was ready though I agree it will be necessary to do if we were serious about cutting costs for space.

As Orcishgamer noted, we'd rather blow ourselves up. Since humans seem incapable of being civil to each other and we have to spend money on huge militaries to defend against each other and kill other humans, it becomes a choice between spending huge resources on space travel to nowhere or caring for our population. The trouble with the XKCD comic is that if we don't care for our population on Earth (or the planet itself) we'll never get to the point of reaching space in any meaningful way (i.e. actually reaching other habitable planets). Those space-farers probably also look upon the remains of civilizations who pushed too soon before they were ready and destroyed themselves as a result.

i recon we could use justin.
First manned testflight. we shove justin in a rocket and don't see him again for 180 lightyears :)

How does
make grammatical sense?

???
Profit

:)

The russians are trying that - still not profitable, only reduces costs.

I agree but ... it's amazing how easy something can sound when someone says it and how hard the practical realities of something can be. We're still waiting on cold fusion. ;)

I'd rather push when the timing is right. :) Progress is still being made ... just slowly and that's just the way of research. Fields ebb and flow. Sometimes one sector of research moves fast (although you might be shocked by just how slowly individual research actually moves even in a fast field) and yields unexpected results for another slowly moving field. Right now space propulsion research has slowed since we've optimized our current system, rockets, to just about as good as they can be and there is no clear path forward and no reason to pursue one if there was. What we need is that unexpected result and then some impetus to follow through. We don't have either at the moment and so we must wait until the timing is right. I've heard it said that patience is a virtue and that good things come to those that wait. Our venture to gain will have to wait.

Speaking of research, I should be getting back to mine. :)

But if you're patient, it might even fly longer than a minute before it crashes with you in it!

Yeah it's very cool. We learned about the Gliese 581 system last semester, shortly after scientists announced their discovery of it. It's really exciting to see astronomy progress so quickly.

I agree that the use of lightyear is wrong in this context but it's a bit pedantic to have a crack at someone's grammar in a throw away Justin Bieber joke.

I got a laugh out of CyPhErIoN's post anyway.

Which is?
Since there's obviously moolah involved, it's a fair point. People who back the search want to maximize their probabilities of being named when the first alien microbe is found I suppose.

It's just that this if (!water) life = 0 additude permeates everything to the point where most people think that life simply cannot exist without it anywhere in the universe. Which in turn feeds the lookfor(life) where(water) process further. And that's the huge fallacy.

population genetics and molecular evolution

highly related, slightly different
:P

Last time i looked it is either :

"Does this/it make grammatical sense?" when meaning to express a question
yours is a command so you should use a ! at the end of your command.
You used the imperative of the verb to make.

Long story short , who cares? It's a joke.
(Anything involving bieber is a joke.)

A command or statement would be: "Quote" does not make grammatical sense!
The question form I used is: How does "quote" make grammatical sense?
The question "Does 'quote' make grammatical sense?" would be answered with a simple yes or no, where my question asks for an explanation or reasoning.

But yes, it is undeniably a joke.

I think we should just forget it miaghstir :)
I'm a builder , not a poet.
And I'm quite sure that i will make much more grammatical errors in the future.

med vänliga hälsningar
Cyph