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US Air Force Pays SETI To Check Kepler-22b For Alien Life

Posted by Soulskill on from the best-defense-is-a-strong-offense dept.

New submitter iComp writes with this quote from El Reg: "The Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has announced that it is back in business checking out the new [potentially] habitable exoplanets recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to see if they might be home to alien civilizations. The cash needed to restart SETI's efforts has come in part from the U.S. Air Force Space Command, who are interested in using the organization's detection instruments for 'space situational awareness'."

5 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. nice...sub orbital hypersonic missile tracker. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the USAF wants to track sub orbital cruise missiles like DARPA is developing using the SETI ATA to look at close earth objects with high accuracy during the day when their optical tracking systems are offline. SETI wants to find alien civilizations at night. should work nicely.

  2. Military the first one, huh? by TheDarkener · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If there is intelligent enough life on Kepler-22b to see that our U.S. military, who can't seem to figure peace out on our OWN planet, is the first to probe theirs...they could see it as a potentially hostile first impression. Just sayin'.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    1. Re:Military the first one, huh? by inasity_rules · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is an interesting read.

      I find it sad that writers fear to explore religion in speculative fiction. The reaction (specifically of the majority of Christians -i.e. catholics) may not be what you think it is.

      --
      I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
  3. Explore, conquer, colonize. by captainpanic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Explore, conquer, colonize. We are humans. Resistance is futile.

    There's intelligent life on our planet, and we are happily killing it into extinction for our own expansion. Looking at the way we behave at our own planet, I think it is extremely likely that we would inhabit every planet we can reach if it is inhabitable. And then take over sooner or later, with or without a struggle.

    It's in the line of expectations that the military get involved early on. Humans have never explored anything unarmed.

  4. This is not as batcrap crazy as it sounds. by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Fermi paradox isn't just a cute bit of philosophy. Our galaxy should be teeming with life. We live on prime real estate, the Thrints should have colonised it back in the Cambrian.

    So either we're unique (inconceivable), ~8.8 billion years isn't long enough for any other species anywhere in the Milky Way to have kicked off colonisation (improbable), or something is silencing them (merely unlikely and scary).

    Maybe we should take a look at that third possibility, and take a good hard look around rather than shouting "Here we are! Hey, over here, life!" into the void. Paranoid? Yes, but we're gambling the species on it, and the costs are essentially pocket lint.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.