Comments on: You can help bring SETI's ear back online

By: Sci Friday « Planet Pailly

Sci Friday « Planet Pailly — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:30:28 +0000

[...] You Can Help Bring SETI’s Ear Back Online from Bad Astronomy Blog. Funding cuts threaten to shut down the Allen Telescope Array, a critical tool in the search for extraterrestrial life. [...]

By: Астрономия за неделю. 20 — 26 июня 2011

Астрономия за неделю. 20 — 26 июня 2011 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:14:25 +0000

[...] работ по проекту SETI нет и не предвидится. Фил Плэйт из Bad Astronomy пишет, что для восстановления работы телескопов [...]

By: Donaties moeten SETI-telescoop gaan redden - KIJK.nl

Donaties moeten SETI-telescoop gaan redden - KIJK.nl — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:01:17 +0000

[...] Bronnen: SETIstars, Bad Astronomy [...]

By: frankenstein monster

frankenstein monster — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:15:02 +0000

@30 right. stopping anywhere before 160k years of continuous listening and broadcasting in all directions is simply giving up too early. Heck, I would give it more time so that we can receive a response from SMC and LMC too. and while we are at it, maybe its M31 and if not, M33. Let’s just give up on giving up and keep trying till we find someone.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:13:44 +0000

The amount of time we devote to SETI should be roughly equivalent to the diameter of the galaxy. We have been eavesdropping for maybe 50 years. According to my calculations it will be safe to throw in the towel in about 80,000 years. And really, communication is a two way street. Perhaps, like us, ET is building enormous ears but no voice box.

By: paul

paul — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:56:21 +0000

#14, Sam H. You forgot g) ET’s SETI doesn’t get proxmired. Perhaps ETs have their own individuals who view any expense without a guaranteed six month ROI as a frivolous boondoggle. Radio is cheap and easy, and we ought to be beaming our own broadcasts, instead of cowering in fear in our obscure corner of the galaxy. If we ever did decode a signal, my money is on we’d be too timid to respond.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:29:09 +0000

RM wrote: “Wonder why the great Paul Allen (who has decided to dedicate the second half of his life to suing every major tech company over the ridiculously general patents one of his previous companies was granted) can’t come up with the piddly $200K himself.”

This is a puzzlement — especially since, according to the WSJ story, he has pledged to give away much of his fortune.

By: frankenstein monster

frankenstein monster — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:14:37 +0000

@13 mcb thank you for a very succinct demonstration of the very incapability to see the big picture, short-sightedness, excuses and rationalizations, that are the major cause this civilizations decline.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:08:47 +0000

Joseph G wrote (#20): “…I think at some point we’re going to find that life, complex life, in particular, is a much rarer thing than we’d like to believe.”

I tend to agree. But “very rare” does not equate to “unique”, in my view. Consider the number of planets we’ve already found, just in our own galactic neighborhood. And we can’t even see the Earth-sized planets yet. It’s plausible that complex life is rare, and intelligent, communicative civilizations extremely rare — but in a galaxy teeming with planets, the odds might still favor multiple occurrences of communicative civilizations existing simultaneously.

Whatever the true situation is, we can easily afford the relative pittance that lets us keep looking. Whether we as a species will remain interested in doing so is another question.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:06:48 +0000

Sam H wrote: “Even though we think we know lots about the universe, we are eternally scraping off the icing. Given how much our own planet continues to stun us at every turn, I sympathize with supervisor Karellen: there are “powers and forces that lie among the stars — forces beyond anything you can ever imagine”.”

I sympathize with Han Solo: “I can imagine quite a lot.”

That said, I also subscribe to the dictum ascribed to J. B. S. Haldane: The universe is not only queerer than we can imagine; it is queerer than we can imagine.” (And I quoted it to someone at SETICon last year.)

But I feel we can learn to understand the universe, if we keep trying. It’s the worship of ignorance, seemingly so prevalent today, that puts our quest in doubt.