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Congress Is Quietly Nudging NASA To Look for Aliens (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The search for extraterrestrial life, in general, has continued over the past decades, of course, carried out by academic institutions around the world, by people like Tarter, one of the field's best-known seti researchers (and the inspiration for Ellie Arroway, the protagonist in Contact, Carl Sagan's 1985 classic science-fiction novel). But they wouldn't get any help from the feds. "[Senator Bryan] made it clear to the administration that if they came back with seti in their budget again, it wouldn't be good for the NASA budget," Tarter says now. "So we instantly became the four-letter S-word that you couldn't say at headquarters anymore, and that has stuck for quite a while."
That could soon change. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives recently proposed legislation for NASA's future that includes some intriguing language. The space agency, the bill recommends, should spend $10 million on the "search for technosignatures, such as radio transmissions" per year, for the next two fiscal years. The House bill -- should it survive a vote in the House and passage in the Senate -- can only make recommendations for how agencies should use federal funding. But for seti researchers like Tarter, the fact that it even exists is thrilling. It's the first time congressional lawmakers have proposed using federal cash to fund seti in 25 years.
That could soon change. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives recently proposed legislation for NASA's future that includes some intriguing language. The space agency, the bill recommends, should spend $10 million on the "search for technosignatures, such as radio transmissions" per year, for the next two fiscal years. The House bill -- should it survive a vote in the House and passage in the Senate -- can only make recommendations for how agencies should use federal funding. But for seti researchers like Tarter, the fact that it even exists is thrilling. It's the first time congressional lawmakers have proposed using federal cash to fund seti in 25 years.
Now they're worried about illegal aliens from other worlds.
I'm not saying it's aliens, but...
... illegal.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
There were a couple of recent FLIR videos taken by F/A-18s off the coast of San Diego that were interesting. I'm not saying they were aliens, but they had the kind of aura of respectability, or at least more than your usual MUFON chapter can muster, that might interest a congressman.
Yes, I want to find alien civilisations, but wouldn't it make more sense to invest in better instruments first? We've still barely begun with exoplanet studies. How about better ways to get data on those. Once we have a good map of where the potential earth-like planet are, we'll know where to point the radio telescopes. Maybe we'll even get a spectrum showing a planet with a high level of free oxygen - it may not be intelligence, but evidence of any alien life at all would be welcome. Even single-celled.
OK, the idea is great, we can't find intelligence on Earth, let's search in space. And I am the first to tell you that the chance of us being alone in the universe is minuscule ("would seem like an awful waste of space" to quote one of the greats). But we say we are certain that we are not alone, because of the vastness of the universe and then we seem to forget that reasoning when it comes to SETI. The fact is, we can't pick up a "technosignature" across significant distances and yet, even for a universe "densely packed" with life, we would still expect distances to be at least in the order of thousands of light years. With our current technology, we can detect "earth like chatter" over just a couple of light years. There is hope that if the Square Kilometer Array project is completed we could perhaps detect over 100 light years. Which is nothing in the cosmic scale. So, to detect someone you need them to send you a targeted powerful emission. If you look up the literature, we haven't really been doing it ourselves - now and then we select a target and send a signal. Well, when I talked about the vastness of the universe, that includes time as well (which explains the "thousands of light years" being optimistic - it still has to be simultaneous civilizations). So you target a few star systems and you broadcast to them, you have to remember someone has to be "listening our way" at the exact time they arrive - given the cosmic time scales measured in billions of years, the minutes, hours or even days you might broadcast for, are nothing.
You can thing of it simply: if other civs are like us, they are mainly listening, so no-one will hear anyone. And it makes sense, listening is easy, transmitting is hard, why put effort on it when you won't really hear back (at least anytime soon)?
Obviously $10 million is peanuts for the US government (perhaps one set of wheels for an F35?), so pursuing such activities in this case is not damaging (and if used right it could help with radio-astronomy's popularity - although I think Contact has done that as well as it can be done already), but the little money that goes into space science could be spent better.
PS. Yes, I still think crypto-currency mining is more wasteful than SET@home...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
...have there been any credible studies that actually took a hard look at the implications of learning there is in fact intelligent life out there?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
and they made religions obsolete, and made the nation state with governments obsolete, and made military and police obsolete, and turned this planet in to a utopia, or on the other hand a planet with human slaves mining resources so they can take them to their home planet
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Compared to all the other hideously expensive bullshit the government spends money on annually, SETI is a drop in the bucket and so worth it for what it could tell us. The only reasons Congresscritters don't like funding it is because uninformed and unimaginative taxpayers don't like it.
Now, the real question is: Why all of the sudden would they want to fund it? Even though the language is extremely vague, if they suddenly want to fund it again they must have an ulterior motive (being politicians and all).
Is that you amanfromars1?
Since the US is really an Oligarchy, and that Oligarchy has grabbed over 50 of all wealth, they're looking for the next financial conquest - and why not spend other peoples money to find it!!
https://www.theguardian.com/in...
$10E6 would be useful for improvements to detect and identify radio signatures in various ways. It could be used for satellite dishes and algorithm research; I'd personally like to see it put towards improving BOINC, which helps a lot of projects, including SETI.
They should point one of those honking great telescopes at Congress and look for assholes. You can bet they'd be happily counting away for weeks afterward.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
no wait, sorry, it's been done already
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Sent from my ENIAC
I'm not believing in them unless I see hot green alien women wearing what is usually considered too few clothes....mmmm, the forbidden pleasure!!
The WH just cut the NASA program responsible for validating greenhouse gas emissions: https://smmry.com/http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/trump-white-house-quietly-cancels-nasa-research-verifying-greenhouse-gas-cuts
I think I'd rather spend the money bringing this program back rather than feeding ICE more information on potential immigrants.
Hey NASA, you guys might want to check out this strange orange humanoid that has been hanging around the White House.
Thanks Republicans, for EXPANDING the government.
Btw, why do you think you got elected ??
The only upside here is extraterrestrials are only SLIGHTLY more relevant US interests with NASA than Muslim outreach.