SETI Undeterred
Why I’m not giving up on the search for extraterrestrial life, Jill Tarter, Washington Post
“Our 50 years of searching is equivalent to scooping a single glass of water from the Earth’s oceans to examine it for fish. It is an experiment that could work — but if it fails, the correct conclusion is that there was inadequate sampling, not that the oceans are devoid of fish. Today, our searches are getting exponentially better. If we are looking for the right thing, it will take only a few decades to conduct a search that is comprehensive enough to be successful or to yield conclusive negative results.”
Going Off Source: Time away with SETI in West Virginia (1997), SpaceRef
“As you approach the 140 foot dish, you are confronted with a weather-beaten behemoth. It is old and dirty – not unlike the bridge of one of those aircraft carriers often used as a nautical museum. The structure is designed not only to bear the weight of the immense dish, but also to withstand the strong winds which bear upon it. The word “monument” seems to be more fitting than “radio telescope”.”
A waste of time and money (IMO). Wouldn’t any star “outshine” a civilisation orbiting it even in radio wavelength? Would the Earth still be “visible” against the background noise and the sun’s emissions just a few lightyears out? Instead, we coud take that money (stop the JWST and SLS, too) and fund the Terrestrial Planet Finder and later the Planet Imager- These are technically very challenging projects, maybe even more so than the JWST. Then we could start researching and developing interstellar probes that could fly with 0.2 c to reach nearby stars within a scientist’s working life.
All this really helps mankind to become an interstellar civilisation; however SETI, the JWST or SLS don’t.
What is the point of JWST? Even if we could look as far back as physically possible, it still does not make it possible to see “the” moment. And as far as I know, the JWST does not make it possible to directly image extrasolar terrestrial planets; but that is what we have to do, if we want to find alien lifeforms.
And if “basic science” is sucking up the “practical science” budget, then something is VERY wrong and it detaches science from the people and the real world. The result is a bunch of scientists populating the Ivory Tower of science and producing nothing of practical value (or interest) to mankind. This does not help public support for expensive space-science.
We need to stop making science for the sake of science (or at least reduce it) and conduct research into true problems/goals of our civilisation that help solve our problems on Earth and make our step outside the LEO and – ultimately – the solar system possible.
“Contrary to popular belief, no government funds are allocated for its
SETI searches – these are financed entirely by private contributions.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
I did not say SETI receives government funds, only that it is a waste of money. But I see what is causing the misunderstanding.
Yeah I saw that but just wanted to get that out there for the people that would interpret it that way.
SETI costs only $3-5 million per year, as far as I can find.
Though I do not want to see SETI ended at this time, I have come to the conclusion that the question posed by Enrico Fermi, “Where are they?”, is extremely significant. I do not feel the ‘fish in a glass of water’ analogy from this article is accurate, since when you factor in the billions of years of earth history that do not appear to have been influenced by extraterrestrial visitation; the absence of any observable intelligent ‘tinkering’ in the cosmos; and the fact that we have already proven it is possible for intelligent beings to leave their home worlds and head into space before destroying themselves; there exists ample additional evidence for the rarity of civilization. I must conclude that extraterrestrial intelligence is either vanishingly rare or even unique.
>question posed by Enrico Fermi, “Where are they?”
After listening to Jill Tarter and many others about search techniques (i.e. ATA), my impression is they are trying to pick up very faint radio signals if there are any and equipment used in previous years was relatively limited.
>we have already proven it is possible for intelligent beings to leave
>their home worlds and head into space before destroying themselves
What proof? I have yet to find anyone present credible evidence of extraterrestial spacecraft (“eyewitness” accounts and murky photos are limited value). Earthlings have left this planet but only for a brief period of time and long durations are only 220 miles away that requires continual re-supply (Progress tankers on ISS).
SETI is a non-profit organization, they are not “wasting” taxpayer money. Besides searching for those elusive radio signals, SETI has people researching different kinds of habitats that may support life, and if life can exist in other forms. While everyone argues about wars, economy, etc. while spending billions on just about everything else, I like to support those who actively with diligent process on asking what is out there?
The intelligent beings leaving their home world I was referring to was US!! I know it was a while ago, but we did go to the moon back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Though we did not have enough impetus to keep going, I think we have demonstrated the intelligent civilizations can survive long enough to develop interplanetary travel before they destroy themselves.
Or far far far away. Don’t Super novas have far reaching life killings effects???
Time and again the “Where are they” question is used to devalue SETI and point to the rarity of inteligent life in the universe, I actually think the “fish in a glass of water” analogy is a reasonable one although I would personally put it as like finding a fish in a glass of water taken fron the sea when we don’t even know what a fish looks like. We simply have no real idea what to look for or where to look, we can only make educated gusses based on our own experiences, we can not say if there has or has not been any Alien “tinkering in the cosmos” because we have only one example of alien tinkering to go by, that of our own. We must cotinue to put every effort into SETI as despite the odds the possible rewards in our understading of our place in the universe should SETI succeed are just too great to ignore. As the saying goes absence of evidence is definately not evidence of absence.
I think SETI is okay to continue doing, since it is privately-funded and pretty cheap. But I think any signal limited by speed of light is almost useless for deep-space communication, so aliens would use something FTL, if they’re communicating across deep space at all.