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SETI Founder Outlines Ambitious Future Plans

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the just-send-money dept.

Lanxon writes "'In the universe there is intelligent life, I'm confident about that,' SETI founder Dr Frank Drake (of the Drake Equation) affirmed earlier today during a talk at the Royal Society in London, 50 years after SETI was founded. One of his visions to prove this, and to show that the last five decades were not a waste of time, is to station a radio observatory not in near-Earth orbit, but on the far side of the moon. He also suggests that another craft could later be stationed 500 times further away from the Sun than the Earth, using the Sun itself as a giant magnifying lens to resolve alien worlds."

7 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Laudable, but misguided by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I personally think SETI is misguided, even though its aims are commendable. There probably is intelligent life out there, but it is a possibility that earth could have been the first planet on which it developed.

    But I see two very great problems with SETI.

    First is the limited range; nobody more than around 150 light years away would be able to detect intelligent life on earth.

    If we do find them they're likely to be more intelligent than us, they may turn out to be hostile, and they may discover that we are tasty, or good speceship fuel, etc. They may be intelligent enough that we don't even appear sentient to them. I'm not sure I want us to find intelligent extraterrestrials.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
    1. Re:Laudable, but misguided by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's no reasonable explanation for why they would want to enslave us, or eat us, or otherwise exploit us.

      It's conceivable that they might want to wipe us out and repurpose Earth, as it does have some useful minerals, but especially given our nuclear arsenal and the (minor) headaches that would cause, I don't see why they'd go for Earth over the many uninhabited rocks in the universe. Direct harvesting of solar energy would be far more effective than exploiting us, whatever their goals are. We're far less useful than robots.

      I'm sure the people of South America, with all the environmental problems they were having, probably thought the same. But the Spaniards saw value in stuff that the Incas and Aztecs took for granted. Who's to say that ET won't come here and take a liking to our stocks of salt water for reasons unbeknownst to us?

      --
      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    2. Re:Laudable, but misguided by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Look at what has happened in the past, when two cultures of the same species met on our planet. Group A sails over the ocean, and discovers a strange culture B on another continent. Despite the fact that this was a meeting between members of the same species, group A doesn't recognize that group B is even human. Group A proceeds to enslave, kidnap, kill, and steal the land and resources of group B.

      This pattern has been repeated a bunch of times in our own history. So, when humans meet aliens, the inferior group will be lunch.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    3. Re:Laudable, but misguided by thesandtiger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Often, but not always. And it is possible that some of that may be attributable to our genetic legacy and one of the primary drives for evolution on Earth.

      But, what if life on another planet started off with a different scenario, and rather than massive competition for resources, cooperation was the overriding measure of fitness? Any species there that attempted to consume another might quickly go extinct, while species that were cooperative might thrive.

      I'm not saying aliens couldn't be hostile, just that there may be other paradigms out there than the "red in tooth and claw" one that is *usually* the case with species interactions and evolution on Earth.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  2. Lasers, Xrays, etc. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm no expert on this, but it seems to me that radio waves may likely be obsolete to advanced civilizations. They are quite possibly using something like lasers, x-rays, gravity waves, etc. True, if they are in the same stage we are, they may be using lots of the radio spectrum, but that greatly limits the kind and number of civilizations we may detect. Looking for something like a Dyson Sphere (star-orbiting solar arrays) may be a more productive approach, or at least a good supplement.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Re:Why I left SETI... by Bragador · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not because you have faith that something exists that it does exist.

    Also, the SETI institute and seti@home are two different things even though they have the same goal.

  4. Re:Oblig quote/unrelated observation by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Richard Dawkins wrote that not being able to prove or disprove something does not prevent you from assigning probabilities. There is observable scientific evidence supporting ET life: There is a huge number of stars, some similar to ours, some with planets like ours. We can't prove (yet) there is ET life, but we can say it is possible and even probable. Floating Bearded Guys in the Sky on the other hand, don't have even that.