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SETI Gains Respect, NASA Funding
securitas writes "After having its funding cut off by Congress a decade ago, the SETI program has just received a NASA five-year grant (Google link) to participate as a lead team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which investigates the origin and future of life in the universe. For more information, see the Astrobiology Institute's announcement and the NASA press release."
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God, is that you?
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Sometime back, we read NASA withdrew funding for DARPA, IIRC. What's so compelling for NASA to pump more funds into SETI? Some kind of social engineering at work here, methinks.
It's ironic, but NASA seems to be getting more attention after a spectacular failure (Colombia disaster)
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
why don't we just stop putting money into the arts too? according to you, we can't afford such frivolous things such as curiosity and expression and searching for meaning.
If there is no evolution, then there is no chance that life would exist anywhere else in the universe because it would have had to have been Created only here
That makes no sense. The basis of most religions is that their god is omnipotent and ominescent, so why can't they have created multiple intelligent lifeforms. For that matter, the power of the god can explain evolution, too (how could such a finely balanced lattice have occured without something guiding it's creation)
The New Testament of the Bible (in which most Creationists readily and eagerly believe) repeatedly claims that there is only one Son of God and that only through Him is salvation possible.
He was human incarnate, not human. Why couldn't he have been "Ugly bug-eyed monster from Proxima Centauri incarnate" or "Betazed incarnate"?
You can be absolutely certain that if intelligent life were discovered tomorrow, on Earth or anywhere else the scriptures of most of the major religions would prove flexible enough to accomodate it.
And to bring this back on topic, it's good to see the funding, but I wonder is it because SETI is starting to get data that interests NASA for some reason (like the readings from Proxima Centauri mentioned in another post).
Rational thought is the only true freedom
> Its about time that SETI got some serious funding, its mainly been kept going by enthusiastic amateurs over the last few years and at one point in the early 80s it actually looked like it was going to close
Hey, I'm all for the SETI thing (did over 7500 units on SETI@home myself), but I don't think using our tax dollars searching for aliens in a time when we've got the largest national debt in history makes alot of sense. Yeah, it might be cool to discover life elsewhere, but ya need to prioritize. One last point...the money that NASA spends (like most other govt. agencies) is hughly inefficient compared to that of private industry.
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I didn't know NASA had enough money to donate, with all the cutbacks and whatnot.
Sounds more like outsourcing facilities to more competent business?
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
Well the strange thing about funding is that it isn't necessarily like all the money that an agency has can be used how it wants to use it. NASA for example might be short of funds for space exploration but have an excess of cash to be appropriated for certain kinds of research, and no matter how NASA might wish to appropriate the fund.
Logic, macros, and more
Isn't it time for Slashdot to partner with NYT just like Google did (link-wise)? After all, Slashdot is a rather large referrer to NYT articles.
Yeah, it might be cool to discover life elsewhere, but ya need to prioritize.
Personally, I feel you're the one who needs to prioritize - putting the national debt ahead of finding intelligent life?
There was a headlining story on the NYT yesterday:
Gen. Tommy R. Franks said today that violence and uncertainty in Iraq made it unlikely that troop levels would be reduced "for the foreseeable future," and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nearly doubled the estimated military costs there to $3.9 billion a month.
My math might be worse than Dubya's, but I figure it at about $130 million A DAY.
While it's great that we're "funding" SETI, perhaps some of the money we're pouring into Iraq would be better spent on science. Mars, anyone? Zubrin's plan calls for $30 billion for a long term program, just over 7 months worth of war. Which would you prefer, nonexistant WMDs or a manned landing on the Red Planet?
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
I doubt that the government is thinking, "Oh lets ride on SETI's coattails." More likely the government someone figured, hey, they actually seem to be getting somewhere, we can toss them a few coin and see what they come up with.
I know, its much to easy to think bad things of the government, but try to think objectively.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I think that SETI is a worthwhile endeavor, but you know, one has to wonder that if my doing the seti@home thing that eventually they will run out of units for folks to process and start pawning other NASA projects off to our PC's to crunch numbers beause undoubtedly they'll have so much stuff to do that they won't be able to get it done with the cutbacks in other areas.
I'm always disappointed when people quote the Bible trying to disprove science. There are 2 things to remember here...
1. The Bible is a blueprint. Very few theological scholars believe the Bible should be taken as an account of history. What we were given wasn't a reference manual, it was a lesson book. In my view (as off-base as it may be) reading the Bible to get an account of what happend a couple thousand years ago is missing the point and somewhat cheapening the meaning of the book.
2. God was speaking to scientifically primitive people. If he mentioned aliens on other planets how would they take it? How would they write it? They didn't even have the words in their vocabulary. God just described the book, it was up to people with no knowledge of space, biology, evolution, etc. to write it. God chose his words carefully like any good parent. He didn't tell us everything (or there would be no science) but he told us what we needed to hear.
Any anyone who reads this and exclaims "He's calling God a liar!" is REALLY missing the point.
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