I am sympathetic to this program,but I also would be extremely surprised to actually see success. I simply think we know enough even now to communicatewithout broadcasting in the electromagnetic spectrum. Successful quantum entanglement almost begsthat interpretation even if you have to walk one side of the entanglement acrossthe intervening gap and even if the information flow is at light speed. Broadcasting is then meaningless as an optionand that is the underlying assumption of SETI.
Thus having it shut down is aloss of data only for the data’s sake.
There is also still plenty ofdata to process, and I am sure we will not catch up on it soon.
On the other hand, I suspect anew funder will be at the table as this work is at least popular.
SETI Institute to shut down alien-seeking radio dishes
By Lisa M. Krieger
Posted: 04/25/2011 07:20:22 PM PDT
Updated: 04/26/2011 08:30:14 PM PDT
If E.T. phones Earth, he'll get a "disconnect" signal.
Lacking the money to pay its operating expenses, Mountain View's SETIInstitute has pulled the plug on the renowned Allen Telescope Array, a field ofradio dishes that scan the skies for signals from extraterrestrialcivilizations.
In an April 22 letter to donors, SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson saidthat last week the array was put into "hibernation," safe butnonfunctioning, because of inadequate government support.
The timing couldn't be worse, say SETI scientists. After millenniums ofmusings, this spring astronomers announced that 1,235 new possible planets hadbeen observed by Kepler, a telescope on a space satellite. They predict thatdozens of these planets will be Earth-sized -- and some will be in the"habitable zone," where the temperatures are just right for liquidwater, a prerequisite of life as we know it.
"There is a huge irony," said SETI Director Jill Tarter,"that a time when we discover so many planets to look at, we don't havethe operating funds to listen."
SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak compared the project's suspensionto "the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria
"We have the radio antennae up, but we can't run them withoutoperating funds," he added. "Honestly, if everybody contributed just3 extra cents on their 1040 tax forms, we could find out if we have cosmiccompany."
The SETI Institute's mission is to explore the origin, nature and prevalenceof life in the universe. This is a profound search, it believes, because itexplains our place among the stars.
The program, located on U.S. Forest Service land near Mount Lassen,uses telescopes to listen for anything out of the ordinary -- a numericalsequence of "beeps," say, or crackly dialogue from an alien versionof a disembodied "Charlie" talking to his "Angels." Theentire program was set up to prove what once seemed unthinkable: In theuniverse, we are not alone.
Lack of funding
But funding for SETI has long been a headache for E.T.-seekers. NASAbankrolled some early projects, but in 1994, Sen. Richard Bryan of Nevadaconvinced Congress that it wasn't worth the cost, calling it the "GreatMartian Chase" and complaining that not a single flying saucer had appliedfor FAA approval.
However, successful private funding came from donors such as Microsoftco-founder Paul Allen, allowing SETI to raise $50 million to build the 42dishes.
Plans called for construction of 350 individual radio antennas, allworking
in concert. But what's lacking now is funding to support the day-to-daycosts of running the dishes.
This is the responsibility of UC Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory,but one of the university's major funders, the National Science Foundation,supplied only one-tenth its previous support. Meanwhile, the state of California
About $5 million is needed over the next two years, according toTarter. She hopes the U.S.
Astronomers mourn
The Allen array is not the only radio telescope facility that can beused for SETI searches. But it is the best; elsewhere, scientists have toborrow time on other telescopes.
Meanwhile, other SETI projects will continue, such as the"setiQuest Explorer" (www.setiquest.org),an application that allows citizen scientist volunteers to look for patternsfrom existing data that might have been missed by existing algorithms. Througha new partnership with "Galaxy Zoo" (www.galaxyzoo.org), this project runs inreal time, so discoveries can be followed up on immediately.
Bay Area astronomers mourned the hiatus of the SETI program andexpressed concern about the future.
Rob Hawley of the Peninsula Astronomical Society called it "unfortunate. The Allen scope was awonderful experiment. "... Hubble gets all the press, but there are lotsof limitations."
Amateur astronomer Sarah Wiehe of Palo Alto
"If we miss a distant signal," she added, "it would be aterrible loss."
what it means
SETI's mission to explore the prevalence of life in the universe,including about 1,235 possible planets recently discovered, is compromised,according to scientists.
what's next
The program needs about $5 million over the next two years to supportthe telescope facility.
online extra
To learn more about SETI and its programs, go to www.seti.org.
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