Why Don't They Do SETI?

SPACE.com ^ | may 8 2008 | Seth Shostak

[chaos_5]

My first, naïve thought was that this was the legacy of America's frontier history. Innovation and the occasional gamble on a long shot were necessary and sometimes essential in an unsettled environment. So perhaps SETI sat more comfortably on American shoulders than on others.

Hmmm... Perhaps he is on to something.

[EggsAckley]

Frank Drake is a neighbor of mine. Extremely intelligent man...........and I had to giggle when I found out he likes square dancing. Heheheh.

[mnehring]

Why is SETI nearly exclusively an American game?

Maybe a massive radio antenna tasked to look for 'alien life' is really just a cover?

[GunRunner]

SETI is at best wishful thinking and at worst it's own religion. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on it.

There's plenty of wishful thinkers with cash out there who I'm sure are more than willing to foot the bill for what is in reality an enormous waste of time.

[MrB]

Let’s see, if we receive signals from some intelligent broadcaster,

the signals would have had to originate thousands of years previous to reception...

and what would have happened to that civilization in the “present” (gets weird when you deal in time and distance like this)...

doesn’t seem like a good use of time and resources.

[Smokin' Joe]

There's plenty of wishful thinkers with cash out there who I'm sure are more than willing to foot the bill for what is in reality an enormous waste of time.

Yep.

Consider, too, what intelligent life would want to attempt communications with a species which radiates the sort of crap that has overwhelmingly taken up our broadcast bandwidth for the past thirty years?

[KarlInOhio]

What if the first thing we receive is the alien equivalent of "Survivor: Alpha Centauri"?

[KarlInOhio]

Actually, the Dutch are closer to the Americans in this regard then many of their European neighbors. The Greeks, French, Belgians, Italians, and Germans are even more inclined to avoid uncertainty then residents of The Netherlands. (Only the British do substantially better: In fact, their score is lower than the Americans'.) ... Meanwhile, I note that both India and China score lower than the U.S. on Hofstede's index.

What is the coorelation between age and uncertainty avoidance? On average the European countries are older than us while China and India are younger.

[7mmMag@LeftCoast]

For those whom may be interested:

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Why let your home computer waste millions of CPU cycles running a screen saver when it could be analyzing SETI data? Computer users from around the world are able to participate in this major scientific experiment.

Have a blast, actually I thought Seti was the father of Ramesses II, during the 19th dynasty.

[AlexW]

“Let’s see, if we receive signals from some intelligent broadcaster,
the signals would have had to originate thousands of years previous to reception...”

Well, maybe not THAT far.
I remember when I was becoming a ham radio operator in 1958, there was a buzz about our first high power VHF signals, from the advent of television, would have reached the nearest star, 11 light years away, and the time was near that we might have some reply from a planet associated with that star. Just imagine someone on another planet seeing those old Amos and Andy films ;)

While I do listen to Kook-to-Kook AM, I am not one of the kooks, and I am an extreme skeptic that we are being visited, but I think it is fine that the world has a few big antennas and automatic scanning receivers looking into space. The cost is not that high.

[DungeonMaster]

the signals would have had to originate thousands of years previous to reception...

How many watts would they have to transmit on an antenna how big for us to receive it from 1000 light years away?

[ASA Vet]

Related story

[MrB]

Ask the ham radio guy, but I think once they get out of the atmosphere without being defracted, they travel until they hit something, regardless of the wattage.

[The SISU kid]

O.P.I. ping....

[utherdoul]

Do we even want to make contact with a space faring culture? If they can travel between the stars in a reasonable amount of time then chances are they could paste us flat without a great deal of effort no matter how many nukes we lobbed.

Or maybe I’ve been watching too many old Twilight Zone episodes and they make me paranoid. The whole “To Serve Mankind” deal being a cook book made quite an impression on me when I first saw it.

[LiteKeeper]

INTELLIGENCE INTREP

[JRios1968]

What if the first thing we receive is the alien equivalent of "Survivor: Alpha Centauri"?

Worse, what if we start receiving "Dancing IN the Stars??"

 

[Steve Van Doorn]

Or how about, “Target the third planet from Sol"

SETI project can not receive any single out side our solar system. We talked about this the other day here:
Earth 'Noise' Could Attract Alien Invaders

The diffusion of EM signals wash out after a couple light years.

[Smokin' Joe]

Or how about, “Target the third planet from Sol"

"But Daddy, they are messing up my vid reception during my favorite show! Please , Daddy! Just zot the planet! Please! Please! Please! (jumping up and down, or the species equivalent)"

Daddy: "Oh, all right, if will let me have a moment's peace..."

Yep. I can see that.

[JRios1968]

And then...