Slashdot Mirror
SETI Running Out of Money
New submitter opusman writes "According to an Australian space analyst, SETI is running out of money. Despite needing only $2 million a year, a relatively small amount in space industry terms, they are facing a financial crisis. From the article: 'Getting on board a spacecraft is tricky. There are few places for professional astronauts. Even when Richard Branson and a group of other visionaries makes space tourism more affordable, it will still cost huge sums to fly. But getting a foothold in the greatest quest of all can be done for just a few tens of donated dollars. Which is why it beggars belief that the SETI quest is on its knees.'"
Sounds like they need a Kickstart project.
This signature intentionally left blank.
It's quite sad that this happens now, when with the recent discoveries in exoplanets SETI could have actual targets for the first time instead of trying to find a needle in a haystack.
He started it, he could donate 40 years' worth of new budget and never even feel it.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
The money spent on space programs produce measurable, visible results. It also has milestones to show whether a project is on track, off track, or slipping.
For someone to support SETI, on the other hand, has to have faith that maybe tomorrow will lead to results and all those years spent waiting for something to happen wasn't lost opportunity cost.
Donating to SETI is perhaps more closely modeled on charity for religion rather than vis a vis to other space programs.
I can put my hard-earned money towards:
a) Fusion research, which might work in 30 years, or
b) SETI, which will NEVER find ET.
Guess where I'm putting my money.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
> gigahertz and terahertz frequencies
Or something else entirely. Look at our own communications, which are rapidly switching to all-digital. Unless you know how the digital is encoded/modulated/carried, all you're going to hear is random noise. And who says aliens use anything like we do?
I postulate that a technical civilization would only stick with radio for approximately 100-200 years before moving to something better -- and something that we probably don't even know how to listen to. When measured against just the age of our local group, that's very narrow odds.
Be better to spend the money actually GOING to the stars than just listening to them, in my opinion. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
The question is not will all alien species use radio, neither is it a question about the relative benefits of going to the stars vs listening to them, the cost of going to the stars is currently around infinity, which means if we could afford to go to the stars we could afford to finance the seti project and still have enough money go to the stars.
The question is this: is it worthwhile spending 2 million per year listening for radio signals from other stars. I think it is, as 2 million is such an insignificant amount of money in terms of humanity's resources. We probably spend that each day on cocktail umbrellas.
Yeah... I actually feel embarrased now that back in the late 90s, I actualy signed up for and used SETI@Home for a brief period of time. As the years have gone by, the service has just begun to seem like more and more of a joke. I don't even remember what year it was I came to the conclusion that it *was* pretty much a joke... maybe 2004-2008? Of course, I haven't touched SETI@Home since the late 90s, though, but the more I hear about it the worse it sounds. Over the years, I have also gone from wondering "does any other intelligent lifeform exist" to a more skeptical viewpoint, that it's all bullshit and made up by morons who have nothing better to do that spout bullshit.
Good riddance SETI.
I did roughly the same, and agree with your conclusion. Folks should just let the dying dog die. There are (many) vastly superior space related projects underway that might actually have interesting or useful results someday. Moreover, it's a project that encourages people to consume as much electricity as their computers are capable of. At scale, I bet SETI produces more carbon output than most coal power plants.
Good riddance, SETI.
Unless you know how the digital is encoded/modulated/carried, all you're going to hear is random noise. And who says aliens use anything like we do?
you miss the point entirely.
it's not that we expect to overhear their personal or broadcast communications so much, but rather it's about listening for "hello, here we are" broadcasts or even directed transmissions. we can now locate habitable planets. such messages obviously wouldn't be encrypted, and would necessarily be something very simple that would have a high chance of being understood by completely alien species with different thought patterns, senses, and levels of technology.
for inspiration, check out the pioneer plaque,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque
that attempts to describe our location in the galaxy. or, the voyager golden record,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
showing mathematical and physical quantities, the solar system and its planets, DNA, and human anatomy and reproduction.
Your example says absolutely nothing about violation of causality due to a change in the maximum speed at which information can propagate. You are either describing a situation in which there is improper time coordination, or you are assuming time travelling signals to start with.
While there are no known methods by which information can propagate faster than light...
If something were to be discovered which could do this it would not necessarily violate causality, it would merely prove that relativity is either incorrect or incomplete (even if it were to allow instantaneous travel to any point in the universe, and the new maximum speed is therefore infinite.)
In order to violate causality you would need to be able to receive a message you sent before you sent it.
Instant propagation of information would likely allow a universal clock across all space, and you could coordinate time by that. You would need to adjust for the faster travel time if you are synchronizing your clock based on the speed of light, but it would be trivial to do that anyway.
Under relativity it is undefined what would happen if you could travel faster than light, as the theory does not allow this. It is basically not usable in this case, and trying to do so would be foolish (it simply does not cover what you want to do, and you obviously have information that Einstein did not when he came up with it if you are communicating FTL.)
If I could send this post beyond the edge of the known universe and back with zero travel time I still cannot read it before it is written, and causality remains very much intact.
The only thing that would change is that if you are three light hours away, I could get a message to you three hours before an electromagnetic signal would be capable of. We would be able to converse in real time instead of with the delay, nothing else.
If you could produce the post I just wrote before I wrote it, you would have a causality violation. No rate of travel allows this, no matter how large it is.
I am not sure why this is so hard for many people to understand.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
human anatomy and reproduction.
So our first message to the rest of the universe is porn. Gotcha.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-