Should SETI Be Looking For Lasers Instead?

colonist writes "Frank Drake, creator of SETI's famous equation, says the detection of extraterrestrial radio signals won't work, because Earth's own radio signal will only be around for 100 years. More and more of Earth's communications use cable and satellites, with no radio-frequency leakage to space. Instead, we should be looking for intentional signals in the form of high-powered lasers that could 'outshine the sun by a factor of 10,000'. Meanwhile, Paul Davies writes that we should be conducting SETI in our DNA. In turns out that an alien message designed to last millenia should be 'inside a large number of self-replicating, self-repairing microscopic machines programmed to multiply and adapt to changing conditions', otherwise known as living cells. Are we the message?"

Comments

What a horrible message.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we the message?

I guess that's akin to leaving a flaming bag of poo on the doorstep.

Regarding RF Leakage to Space

[Effugas]

We dump pretty enormous amounts of energy at RADAR wavelengths, 24/7, across the night sky. That'll stop approximately when we have no fear of hostile aircraft showing up at our borders.

You know, never.

--Dan

Re:Regarding RF Leakage to Space

[Inexile2002]

What a letdown to discover alien RF signals and find out their message was "ping". It would be undeniably cool to discover them, but if all we discovered was RADAR signals there would be no message to decypher.

Satellites?

[earthman]

And exactly since when do satellite uplink transmissions stop at the satellite? The uplink is a radio wave, albeit a directed one. It might still be possible to pick up an alien uplink signal.

Re:Optical SETI

[BarryNorton]

A diffuse source contradicts with LASER, but yes, it's possible. But in order for it to be detected over ambient light it would have to be something huge and noticeable like a pulsar - I'd hate to see their electricity bill, these aliens of yours ;)

Looking in the wrong places.

[JWSmythe]

I think we're really looking in all the wrong places. We're putting human assumptions on alien life.

We assume they would be using radio communication, or that they'd bother with a high-power laser. What if their communication is completely different. Like, something we haven't even considered to be a possibility yet, even in SciFi.. In a transmission media we don't even realize, we may be receiving communications from them, but we simply don't have the equipment to hear it.. We can't even decipher what any other creature on this planet is trying to communicate, why should we even be so egotistical to thing that not only would we know how to receive their communication, but have the vaugest idea of what they're saying.

I thought the idea of SETI was that we'd pick up an omni-directional broadcast, with some alien saying "here we are, can anyone hear me" A laser would be directional. It would have to be intended for Earth, and would need to be tracking many years ahead of where we are. We aren't broadcasting the same signal, why would they? There could be many planets near by with the same idea of listening, but if no one's talking, there's no communcation.

Maybe pulsars aren't just some celestial event, maybe they're beacons, and when we're ready to go to them, we'll find more information. But for now (and the next hundred+ years), we won't be going anywhere near them. Like, we haven't even managed to get a person to the next planet yet. There isn't enough "push" to develop to the next level. Imagine if every country spent their military budget on developing space travel. we'd alerady have a flag on Pluto, along with a bunch of empty beer cans from tourists.

But no, we waste our resources blowing each other up, or making sure we're on the virge of it every day. Remember the cold war? Ya, 40 years of "I'm going to kill you all", just for it to fall apart, and both sides realize that those people we were so scared of for so long aren't really that bad.

I grew up knowing the Soviet Union was the evil Red Army, who had so many weapons pointed at us because they hate us so much. Now, thanks to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the rise of the Internet, I now frequently talk to a Russian, and really, he's a nice guy. I've seen some beautiful pictures around where he lives, where not too long ago I would have believed was a frozen wasteland.

If only all of our governments would give up on this nonsense and cooperate in things, or better yet, ditch the whole "This is ours, you can't play with it" mentality, we'd make a lot more progress.

[rant mode off]