Learn more about life-extension, and/or cryonics, and/or hope for reincarnation. That's the only answer at the moment, to being born too soon...

"Or are we just cataloguing them for some point in the future when we are capable of discerning whether they do hold life?"

And the Sun could have exploded anytime in the last 8 minutes. (sleep well, knowing that) That's what comes of a big Universe, and a finite speed of light....

It depends on all the local conditions and physical history, not just the mass. You could have such a planet with a thick, thin or no atmosphere.

Yes. density also matters, with respect to gravity at the planet's surface.

Yeah, I thought that was technology too, not a natural sense...

That's nice for a space station, but rotating rings are awkward as spacecraft. However, you don't need the entire ring for its benefits. A spacecraft module reeled out on long cables with engines and propellant as a counterweight could suffice for cruise, then de-spun and reeled back together into one unit for major…

But some of us want the option of coming home again...

Bandersnatch...Known Space sentients who will let you come and hunt them, as long as they can hunt you back.

Well. All. Right.

Which is no excuse for not proceeding in a logical and internally consistent manner. That damages the entertainment value for many of us, and entertaining is what 'only a movie' (or TV show, or comic, or book) is supposed to do...

"It's still goofy how stone-aged furballs effortlessly kick the asses of the Empire's finest. And the Emperor specifically said those were a legion of his best soldiers!"

That was one of my thoughts, too; "Hmm. Well, he didn't die alone..."

Vader should have recognized C3-PO in 'The Empire Strikes Back,' having rebuilt him as a child. Though I once saw a Star Wars comic that addressed that issue, very interestingly...

I well remember David Brin, at the 1985 AdAstra con (Toronto) ranting about how when he saw Vader destroy the Emperor, he still had visions of him crushing the throat of that blockade runner crewman early in the first film. As far as he was concerned (and I do see his point), saving his own son doesn't balance the…

The particular limits to the way FTL worked, strongly shaped 'The Mote in God's Eye' stories, as well as Niven's 'Known Space, where hyperdrives were sensitive to space curvature, and you had to be pretty well outside a solar system to use them, or hyperwave communicators. This was important in parts of the Man-Kzin…

'2001' and 'Contact' may be about as close as you'll get.

"Came out seven months after Alien..."

I believe the term was used in Disney's 'The Black Hole,' as well, though at least that was a context where you'd expect it, even if used incorrectly...

Amen to that. (from Rochester)