It’s sad to hear of the death of Frank Drake, originator of the famous Drake Equation.

Of course Lovecraft never lived to hear his November 1961 equation, or even an intimation of it in early science-fiction. He never put its weightings so precisely, but I do recall that in his letters he sometimes put his mind to thinking along the same logical step-by-step lines, about the chances of other intelligent and enterprising beings elsewhere in the galaxy. I seem to recall a passage in which he estimated the likely time between the emergence of each new sentient species, and from that logically extrapolated according to the astronomy of his day (which was still discovering basic matters about the universe), concluding there was a good chance of other intelligences.

Though re-finding the relevant quotes would take a long time. Roll on the unified mega-index of Lovecraft’s letters, which will hopefully have entries for concepts such as “Extraterrestrials, likelihood of actual existence”. Possibly the forthcoming ‘Lovecraft and astronomy’ book will also have some identification of the relevant letters.