The Church should prepare for aliens?

The western Church, Catholic and Protestant, has a very poor record of dealing with events and discoveries. People were burned at the stake for claiming the Earth was not the centre of the universe, and many more discoveries were resisted for a long time by the Church, because they might damage its influence. Astronomy is making huge strides now, as is space exploration, and it is quite probable that some form of primitive life (politicians?) will be discovered on another planet. Should the Church be preparing itself for this, so that we don't go through the same old denial as before?