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SETI Disrupted By Cell Phones in Airplanes?
Iphtashu Fitz writes "If, as recently mentioned, the FCC does allow wireless access on airplanes, could it effectively mean the end of the search for ET? NewScientist has a new article that explains how radio interference from airborne cellphones could drown out faint radio signals from space. Among other concerns astronomers have is that the second harmonic of many cell phones falls in a frequency band that reveals the molecular signature of newborn and dying stars, which is among the 2% of frequencies in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum reserved for use by radio astronomers. Michael Davis, director of projects at California's SETI Institute, stated that a single cellphone on an airplane 100 miles from a radiotelescope could exceed recommended radio noise levels by 10 times. A potential solution that astronomers have suggested is to install a miniture cell transceiver on each airplane, called a picocell, that would act as a relay using a frequency that wouldn't interfere with their work."
Wouldn't an advanced civilization have developed a means of communication that can penetrate whatever disturbance would come from members of their civilization communicating while on aircraft?
Isn't it time to investigate satellites for this sort of thing? Pointing out instead of in? I know maybe this isn't ideal since the satellite is moving both relative to the earth and the sky, it would probably make it difficult to lock onto any signal that was found? I got a B's in Physics, someone help me out here.
Seems like this would solve a lot of interference problems though, and perhaps even give you much better results. Is it just the cost factor that keeps this from happening?
Nothing against ignorant slashdotters, but you really don't think SETI is just some software, do you?
SETI@HOME != SETI
Not mutually exclusivly anyways.
Pretty Pictures!
Why can't it happen? Isn't this essentially what happened with the in-flight phones they installed in the 90's?
-This sig intentionally left blank
I think SETI is one of the most serious wastes of resources ever dreamed up. All that ridiculous funding could go to something much more important than trying to find something that probably wouldnt contact us even if it could...if it even exists... nail this as flamebait if you want, but if "ET" wanted to let us know he was there, he'd find a way to get around our cell phone signals. ;)
This is just a bunch of wacko's griping because they're bored waiting for....nothing.....to happen.
This is not the first time that this argument has been made. ...but the first time was 20-30 years before cell phones were invented.
Humanity has unleashed a veritable plethora of rf emitting devices. Television broadcast towers, satellites, anything electrical... they all leak rf that's thousands (if not millions) of times more powerful then the signals coming in from distant stars.
Banning cell phones on planes BECAUSE of this is like using a Sharpie marker to turn a sucking chest wound into a smiley face. You (the pen wielder) might feel better, but it's not going to solve the real problem one iota.
The real solution is to invest in building radio telescopy infrastructure on the far side of the moon. Either there, or in a heliocentric orbit on the opposite side of the sun at 1 AU. Those are the only two places in the universe that have are always shadowed from Earth based broadcasts.
Additionally, there are frequencies that are absorbed by the O2 in our atmosphere, so radiotelescopes in space would have better 'bandwidth' to observe.
Finally, it's unlikely that the cell phone industry will finally be convinced to go to pico-repeaters because of the inconvenience that radio telescopy scientists encounter. It'll be because pico-repeaters will make cell phones work in places they don't currently. Deep garages, underground installations, steel buildings, small valleys... these are economically driven reasons to adopt the technology. Scientists (the normal kind, not the mad kind) are usually poor, so the money just isn't there.
Pick your battles, and pick a winning strategy to get the tech you want. Radio telescopes... they ain't it.
3 scenarios guys:
1) Other civilizations are below our technological level....which means we won't see them at all.
2) They're equal to ours...and since we're unable to do much of anything beyond our little neighborhood, we won't see them at all.
3) They're far more advanced than us...which means they have the smarts to avoid detection so we won't see them at all.
Keeping this in mind, explain to me again why we need to change the entire commercial aircraft industry (FCC approval + FAA approval + thousands of aircrafts + world-compatible technology) when there are easier ways to try and avoid our RF interference (satellites, moon, probes, etc). TFA didn't impress me.
Have you SEEN Arecibo? Or the VLA? Compare that in size to our beloved rovers. Then let's talk about cost of transport to the moon.
I'm all in favor of the phone-free zones on aircraft (hell, if we put the phone-users together, maybe they'll bug each other enough until they realize how much they're bugging other people), but a long-shot science program hardly seems reason to ban them altogether.
People want to use their phones for work, or to contact their families, and if they already had the ability to use their cell phones in the air they'd consider it a major inconvenience. Calling it "remotely inconvenienced" is an understatement.
And "screwing science" is an overstatement. SETI is a fun idea but the odds of succeeding on any given telescope or any given day are so low that it hardly seems worth shutting down the planet so you can go look for aliens. It's a tiny, tiny project tucked into the corners (free telescope time, free computer time) of the scientific world.
There can be situations when people MUST use their cell on the airplane. Banning them completely isn't a solution.
WTF? Airplanes were around for 80 years before cell phones were invented, people survived. I have never used a cell phone on an airplane (I don't even own one, for that matter), I'm still here. All airplanes now have their overpriced airphones for emergencies, if you MUST use the phone.
Pray tell, what are these situations where people MUST use their cell phone on an airplane?
Why don't the scientists just do their research properly?
SETI should launch a sat if they're serious about finding moon men.
There's already plenty of airborne radio equipment already. This is just pseudo-scientific crap.
Let's explore space from space, and worry about advancing humanity on earth.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I write this from my doctor's waiting room, and of the 3 people using their phone, I'm the only one doing so silently.
One old fart is planning a fish fry while complaining about his high blood pressure, while a very large woman text messages with the key beep volume set one click below WMD.
The problem isn't technology, but rudeness.
With the number of aircraft in commercial aviation, there will be at least a couple of manufacturers of pico-cell hardware that will want the market bad enough to bear part of the burden of getting FAA approval for the equipment. These companies will likely work to develop the process to tie into existing airframes, or work with builders (Airbus and Boeing) to get the equipment designed into the aircraft systems. Several major airlines will also front part of the cost, just to be able to provide a service that at first will be exclusive to a few airlines, or airframes.
Another aspect is the revenue potential. Nothing says that having cell communications coming from or going to an aircraft in the air can't be identified as such and billed some steep fee per minute to recoup the cost of install and hardware. It could appear on a bill as an aviation roaming charge or in-flight connection fee. Balance the charge right and it will pay for itself in months. Make it a steep fee and it might discourage much of the in-flight cell use. Make it a reasonable fee and some cell providers might eat the fee to the airline to provide the service.
There are so many ways to cover the cost of In-flight cell communications that to say the cost of FAA approval will kill this, would be the same as saying that cell phones will never happen because all of those towers will need FCC approval, and someone will have to certify all of those millions of portable cell phones people will be running around with.
If cellphones on planes were a legitimate problem, wouldn't it be a problem everywhere else in the world where cellphones are already allowed on planes?
That would probably change if they'd stop trying to kill all science not based in the bible.
Seems far-fetched to say, "The conservative head of the FCC is trying to kill SETI and Radio Astronomy by allowing airline cellphone use" but no less so than "The conservative heads of the Executive and Legislative branches of government are trying to kill modern biology by having creationism taught in schools" and these days that doesn't seem implausible.
Politicians need to get over the idea that the scientific realities of the universe are whimsical matters of opinion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
4)They're far more advanced than us and they are on their way now to put an end to all this nonsense. After all... The noisy humans might be causing interference with the "Aliens" FCC regulations. That or demand we convert to their religion or sell us beads for Earth and give us nasty diseases like most other advanced civilizations do when they meet less civilized societies.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Then you have the cost of hauling the stuff up there. Those radio telescopes are huge. That's a lot steel to even put in orbit, much less land on the lunar surface.
I still agree that it's a good idea, but not for the cost reasons.
I'm not sure where this is coming from, but it's not "right wing conservatives".
1. Most "right-wing (I think the word you're looking for, without being willing to say it, is Christian, or some other religious term) scientists" aren't trying to base science on the Bible. They do, however, try to figure out how plausible scientific theories can work in light of something they already believe to be true.
2. I graduated from a private Christian college, and this wasn't the attempt made by the biology professors there. I hardly think most "conservatives" are taking this approach to public schools when it's not done in private, already "conservative" schools.
Just because you don't like the idea that there might be something beyond your experience does not give you the right to attack a large group who would not endorse the position you are presenting... oh wait, what was that about your sig?
Now, prepare for me to be modded out of existence so you don't have to deal with the fact that someone disagrees with you on something.
Please ignore any obvious problems in this post.
I don't care if people disagree with me. I like people disagreeing.
But I assure you that the conservative Christians here in Georgia don't agree, and that rational discussions regarding such topics as evolution are impossible to have.
The thing that bothers me is that they have no problem putting forward a completely unscientific hypothesis with zero support, and telling you it is fundamentally the same as a theory that has stood up to 100+ years of rigorous scientific thought.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
rendering an opinion and looking like a fool.
SETI is privatly paid for, no tax dollars are used.
About detecting:
The point is to find a signal that is evidence that another intelligent race has existed at sometime.
In that vain, they are looking for evidence, not direct transmissions. Like residual radio signals.
Talking would be great, not likly.
"if you want, but if "ET" wanted to let us know he was there, he'd find a way to get around our cell phone signals."
considering the power requirements to reach long distances, maybe not.
Just for clarification Just becaues you find evidence of another race, doesn't mean they have the capabilities to get to you.
there have been one or two unexplainable signals over the years. However if it's not repeatable, it's chalk up to noise.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Gaining knowledge should always trump some obnoxious lady in a grocery lineup asking her husband if they need more diapers. Frankly I think a good deal more constraints should be put on cellphones. No one should be allowed to drive and use one. No one should be allowed to get calls in movie theaters from one, and nobody should block legitimate scientific research. The thought that a generation of self-indulgent, self-important communication junkies would start screwing with astronomy is enough to make me sick.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If SETI doesn't get ownership of the sky, neither do you, they must be weighed equally.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
If we assume that 1% of them actually do harbor intelligent life (and that figure is probably way too high), that leaves us with 130 million stars, spread out over 11 billion cubic lightyears. Since we have an even distribution of stars, that means intelligent life will happen once every 85 million light years.
Plugging your figures in google calc I get 1 civ every 85 cubic light years. You lost some digits in your calcs, and didn't convert down as was cubic light years not a direction.
This is the query that I sent.
what is (11 billion cubic lightyears) divided by 130 million) in cubic lightyears.
Also the actual arms contain nearly all of the stars there are large portions of really empty space even within your small guestimate of volume.
Unfold it or assemble it in orbit. 305 meters isn't all that big.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I am an electrical engineer, and *do* know tha the signal strenght in free space is proportional to the inverse of the distance squared - meaning that it drops off a lot pretty fast (this is what makes cell phones and radio stations able to reuse frequencies). It is also dependent on wavelength - shorter wavelength, shorter propagation (the environment acts as a natural lowpass filter). Explicitly, the received power of a signal is given by: P_r = P_t*G_t*G_r*L^2/(4*pi*d)^2 where P_t = transmitted power, G_t = transmitter antenna gain, G_r = receive antenna gain, L = wavelength, d = distance. Antenna gains are based on the antenna pattern - for a isotropic radiator (omnidirectional antenna, like on yr cell phone) it is a pretty wide pattern. A radio telescope should be pointed UP, which would make the gain at any angle at some acceptable deviation from UP much smaller than straight UP. Also, are radio telescopes omnidirectional? Any telescope that doesn't gather the vast majority of its received energy from pointing a the sky would seem to me to be a pretty poor design - which is exactly why the soviet GPS causes problems with radio telescopes! If satellites point down and shoot most of their energy at the planet, telescopes looking straight at them are going to be significantly interfered with by those satellites. Furthermore, if a radio telescope can pick up EMF from a cell phone's internal circuitry the EMF produced by the computers used to run the telescope would cause even bigger problems. Did you know that the clock speed of processors is in the RF range and has been for over a decade and that many aspects of processor design are similar to RF circuitry design with crosstalk, coupling, and shielding concerns? A 3GHz processor operates at a clock frequency much higher than a lot of cell phones. Even stronomers with cell phones in their pockets would screw with the data because they're standing right near the things!
"Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation." - Richard Feynman