Donate Just One Monthly
And Become a FR Hero
Sponsors will contribute $10
For each new monthly sign-up
Posted on 05/23/2012 4:26:04 AM PDT by iowamark
Astronomer Jill Tarter, the inspiration for heroine Ellie Arroway in the novel and movie "Contact," is retiring after spending 35 years scanning the heavens for signals from intelligent aliens.
Tarter is stepping down as the director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., the organization's officials announced today (May 22).
But rather than go lie on a beach somewhere,Tarter will continue to devote herself to the search for E.T. She's shifting into a full-time fundraising role for the SETI Institute, which had to shut down a set of alien-hunting radio telescopes for more than seven months last year due to budget shortfalls.
"That was a wake-up call," Tarter told SPACE.com, explaining why she decided to focus on fundraising full-time. "I can't put it off any longer. It's really critical."
A long research career
Tarter, 68, got involved in the SETI search in the 1970s, joining a small group of NASA scientists who were developing new equipment and strategies to make systematic SETI radio observations.
She signed on after reading "Project Cyclops," a seminal 1971 NASA report that described how to use Earth-based radio telescopes to hunt for signs of intelligent alien life up to 1,000 light-years away.
"I hadn't ever been thinking about SETI, or intelligent life elsewhere," Tarter said. "But when I read that document, I was absolutely astonished by the fact that I lived in the first generation of humans that could actually try to do an experiment to answer this really old question."
"The fact that I was alive with the right skill set, at just the right time to tackle this important question, was what hooked me," she added. "That's why I signed up to SETI when I was getting out of graduate school. And I've stayed hooked. I just think it's an amazing privilege to try and take on this challenge, and answer this old, fundamental question."
Though Congress killed NASA's SETI efforts in 1993, Tarter kept up the search. She'd already been with the SETI Institute for nearly a decade at that point, helping to create the nonprofit organization in 1984. In the decades since, she has continued to shape and steer the Institute's sky-scanning efforts, long serving as director of its Center for SETI Research.
Today, the SETI Institute employs more than 150 people, and its scientists are engaged in a range of astrobiology work beyond just looking for radio signals. Tarter said she's proud of the progress the organization has made since the early days, when a handful of pioneering scientists ran the whole show.
The Institute "is far bigger than I ever envisioned it would be when we incorporated it in 1984 with very modest goals to save NASA money," Tarter said. "We have a very vibrant institution of astrobiology, and also education and public outreach, that most people don't know about."
Funding the search
One of the SETI Institute's main signal-scanning tools is the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a set of 42 radio dishes located about 300 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco. The ATA began scanning the heavens for "technosignatures" — electromagnetic signals that could betray the presence of an intelligent alien civilization — in 2007.
SETI had to shut the ATA down in April 2011, however, after budget problems forced the Institute's former partner, the University of California, Berkeley, to withdraw from the project.
The telescopes came back online in December, after SETI secured enough money from private citizens and the United States Air Force, which is interested in using the array to track satellites and space debris, SETI officials said.
In April 2012, California-based nonprofit SRI International came onboard, taking over management duty of the Hat Creek Radio Observatory (which includes the ATA).
The experience convinced Tarter that she could make a bigger difference in the SETI search by focusing entirely on fundraising — which she's been doing part-time for many years as the Institute's Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI — than by continuing to direct the Center for SETI Research.
"It was just eye-opening," she said. "We've got to get stable funding into the house to do SETI research. We have a new partner — we got that deal done, so we can operate the array. But now we've got to provide funding for people to actually use it and do clever things, and do research, and look in new ways."
Tarter added that the Institute needs to raise $2 million every year to keep SETI research going. That's the starting point, but she hopes to shoot for $20 million annually at some point, to expand the search and support a variety of SETI activity around the world.
A wealth of exoplanets to explore
Tarter said she doesn't particularly enjoy fundraising, but views it as so important to the future of SETI research that she feels compelled to take it on. She's excited about the Institute's current work, and its future.
The ATA, for example, has been listening for signals from the many alien planet candidates discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. To date, Kepler has flagged more than 2,300 such potential planets. While only a small fraction have been confirmed so far, the Kepler team estimates that at least 80 percent of them will end up being the real deal.
The current flood of alien planet discoveries is investing the SETI search with more purpose and enthusiasm, Tarter said. Astronomers can now point their radio scopes at many star systems that are known to harbor planets, some of which may even be Earth-like worlds.
"The Kepler worlds are really legitimizing SETI," Tarter said. "All of us that are even peripherally involved with that are looking and saying, 'You know, Earth 2.0 — that's just right around the corner. We can almost taste it.'"
Tarter's colleagues will celebrate the researcher and her career on June 23, during a gala event at the SETICon II conference in Santa Clara, Calif. SETICon II, which runs from June 22-24, will bring together scientists, artists and entertainers to explore humanity's place in the universe and the future of the search for life beyond Earth.
Probably a good chunk of change...I’ve been running @Home since before I was a FReeper.
Nope just a hatred of my taxes being pi$$ed away unconstitutional idiocy, and this is idiocy - big time.
1) It’s a microscopic amount of money.
one cent of taxpayer money spent on this is a waste.
it’s not federally funded
This is a falshood - otherwise know as a lie. Didn't you read the article? Last I looked the Air Force is a federal institution, and funded by the Univ of Calif is also TAXPAYER funded and big state universities get gobs of federal tax dollars. So don't try to whizz on our heads and tell us it's raining.
But let’s all mock someone smarter than us
She may be smarter then you, in fact from your koolaid comments I'm sure she's smarter than you, but she's not smarter than the rest of us. Unless you count the fact that she's run a good long career out of conning people out of their money for someting that's of the same scientific value as perpetual motion, cold fusion, and 300 mpg carburators (supressed by the oil companies of course) as being smart.
single greatest accomplishment in human history.
Really? You really think that? Then there isn't any hope for you at all.
Then I congratulate you on having the guts to back up your convictions. A lot of people on these space threads don’t. (I still don’t agree with you though.)
Now that she is retired and has lots of spare time she should read the book “Rare Earth”..
my son kept his computer constantly on(that we bought him and powered)for years constantly checking for SETI.
when he burned it out, I let him buy his own (actually he makes his own computers now...or assembles them or whatever you call it) when his own finances were involved he stopped using them for SETI.
Considering even our righteousness is filty rags I the sight of our holy God, I know she sinned. We commit sins because we are sinners by nature we can do nothing else.
And of course I’ve not spent every waking moment advancing the gospel. I regret I haven’t done more. I intend to dedicate more time and treasure to the mission He put all believers on.
The single greatest accomplishment in history occurred at Calvary. Jesus Christ paid the price for sin and redeemed for Himself a bride.
That should have said, even our righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of God.
I struggle to type on my iPad
when his own finances were involved he stopped using them for SETI.
That attitude is very revalent on space thread. The space kadets are shrill about the usefulness of spending other peoples' money on their space dreams. At least Psycho_bunny donates his own resources to the cause.
So what?
Lets see, ya got 5,000 government employees per day retiring at 50 years old, on tax paid lottery style pensions, with tax paid top shelf medical benefits, and your hysterical over this?
Come on.....
I find it interesting as all get out.
but I will leave it up to capitalists (not interested in government involvement anymore)
Space X and Virgin Galactic etc are a good start with space exploration.
as far as finding intelegent life elsewhere? perhaps they will find US. and that might NOT be a good thing(even Stephan Hawking agrees with that).
There is only about one means of speed of light interstellar communications with enough power to overcome interference to send messages across such vast distances.
It is called a stellar Aldis lamp. An Aldis lamp is a “shutter lamp” used by ships at sea to silently communicate with each other.
By creating a much larger version in space, between the local star and the target star, that by applying a small current will change from transparent to opaque, simple code messages can be sent one way.
If we created such a lamp, it would likely be between the orbit of Mars and the orbit of Earth. Aiming it would be difficult, because it would have to stay between our Sun and where that target star system was going to be.
By your logic wasting the taxpayers’ hard earned dollars is OK as long as somewhere else greater waste is occurring.
So what?
Lets see, ya got 5,000 government employees per day retiring at 50 years old, on tax paid lottery style pensions, with tax paid top shelf medical benefits, and your hysterical over this?
By your logic
My logic makes total sense, when compared to your hysteria over SETI. Based on the fact SETI is not choking off the American people, like government at all levels, with their tens of hundreds of thousands of over paid bloated bureaucrats and their lottery style tax paid retirement pensions which are causing extreme economic damage to America.
It would have to be kind of large wouldn’t it? I.e. about 864,000 miles in diameter to completely obscure the sun. Smaller if you’re will to settle for just dimming it somewhat.
When you learn to discuss something rationally let me know. I'm tired of blowhards who are unable to discuss anything without resorting to distortion (in your case) and outright lies (by some of the other space kadets)
My logic makes total sense,
No it doesn't. You're condoning a small waste of taxpayer funds because there are larger wastes. NEWS FLASH!! This thread is about SETI, not government retirees' fabulous pensions. You're simply trying to change the subject.
Who's retiring at the age of 50 in the federal government? Maybe GS-1811 gun toters, but so do police all over the country. I'm not in the government, but I'm told that feds have to have at least 30 years in and can't go until after they are 55. Did I miss something? I do hope that Obama retires now that he's 50!... well, maybe we'll do that for him!
Not really. If you stand outside and look at the Sun, you can shield your eye with a nickel. Just put the device in space far enough away and it can be just a few hundred meters on a side, mostly to insure coverage because of the movement of the Sun and the target, which could be hundreds of light years away.
You didn't do the math. I hate it when people spout off nonsense that is so easily shown to be wrong. At 100 ly you're looking at covering a target at least 5.87x1014 miles away. you can cover the sun with a nickel because you hold it close in front of your eye and your eye, the target receptor, is relatively small. BUT you can't get close to your target receptor. to carry out your analogy, if the earth were the target and you were attempting to black out the sun, the equivalent of the shutter at 100,000,000 miles from the sun on a target 100 ly away would be 92,000,000 (distance from earth to sun) times ( 108)/5.87x1014 = 92million times 1.7 times 10-7 or your shutter would have to be about 15 miles from the sun to give the same size on earth that a target 100 ly away would see. in short you need a shutter that would cover the sun at 15 miles from the sun. How much of the sun would that nickel cover if it were only 15 miles from the sun?
Not to mention that your target would be about 200,000,000 miles in diameter (about the diameter of earth's orbit), but that makes the geometry a little more complicated and basically shifts the optimum point where you could get away with the smallest shutter to about 1/3 of the distance between the sun and the target system. Not something that anyone could do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.