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J_Frank_Parnell mandrill/human hybrid
Great Old One Joined: 18 Jan 2005 Total posts: 284 Location: Kisielice Gender: Male |
 Posted: 01-04-2006 17:30 Post subject: SETI to make contact within 25 years |
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This is from sky news (http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13516519,00.html). Tried uploading it to the breaking news jobbie yesterday but it never appeared.
anyway, here's the story:
Talking To The Alien
Updated: 12:50, Thursday March 30, 2006
Aliens will be talking to us within the next 20 years, according to space boffins.
Dr Seth Shostak of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence group said they may have even already landed.
"We'll know we are not alone between the years 2020 and 2025," he told The Sun.
"This will be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, story of all time."
His group, which is linked to the University of California, is building 350 telescopes to listen for aliens.
Dr Shostak believes ETs could already be listening to Earth.
And he thinks alien life may have landed in clumps of bacteria cells.
so wot u reckon? |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 17:45 Post subject: |
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COOL if it pans out. I'd like to know how come the precise window of contact  |
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| Heckler20 The Sockpuppet of
Cthulhu's Prodigal Son Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Total posts: 4702 Location: In the Nostril of The Crawling Chaos Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 17:49 Post subject: Re: seti to make contavt within 25 years |
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| J_Frank_Parnell wrote: |
so wot u reckon? |
I reckon if it had been printed a couple of days later it'd be an April fool gag.
As it wasn't I'd have to ask how exactly this 'scientist' knows the exact date for alien contact? |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 9109 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 18:13 Post subject: Re: seti to make contavt within 25 years |
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| Heckler20 wrote: | | J_Frank_Parnell wrote: |
so wot u reckon? |
I reckon if it had been printed a couple of days later it'd be an April fool gag.
As it wasn't I'd have to ask how exactly this 'scientist' knows the exact date for alien contact? |
Yes, I'd like to know how they predicted a date. Suppose the aliens don't want to work to our schedule? |
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| Heckler20 The Sockpuppet of
Cthulhu's Prodigal Son Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Total posts: 4702 Location: In the Nostril of The Crawling Chaos Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 18:29 Post subject: Re: seti to make contavt within 25 years |
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| Mythopoeika wrote: |
Yes, I'd like to know how they predicted a date. Suppose the aliens don't want to work to our schedule? |
Well weren't they supposed to turn up before the end of January?
Talk about left standing at the altar (or the Altair I suppose?) |
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| graylien Great Old One Location: Norwich - home of the Puppet Man! Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 20:07 Post subject: |
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I suspect that whoever wrote that article either completely made it up or else quoted Mr Shostak out of context. He's always been extremely sceptical of UFO sightings and his latest piece on the SETI website merely suggests that there just might be some kind of very primitive life elsewhere in the Solar System.
He does mention a 20 year time-frame in this entry from his old blog, but he's hardly making any definite promises:
| Quote: |
How Soon Will We Find Extraterrestrial Life?
There’s kind of an unintended race underway in the search for life beyond our world. On the one hand, we have NASA and the Europeans busily launching small bundles of intricate machinery to Mars, looking for signs of water, organic chemistry, and, eventually, life. Beyond the Red Planet, there are at least four moons (Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, and Titan) that are dark-horse candidates for hosting biology, so we’re sending robots to some of these worlds, too. It’s possible, then, that within a decade or two, one of our sheet-metal scientists will find the proof that microbes (or maybe something a bit larger) exist on one or more of these worlds.
However, and somewhat coincidentally, within that same time frame, two other kinds of searches for extraterrestrial life will also shift into a higher gear. Within a decade, NASA will launch its orbiting Terrestrial Planet Finder (the Europeans will launch a similar telescope, called Darwin). This scope will be able to capture the light from planets the size of Earth, unknown worlds orbiting stars many dozens of light-years away. The TPF and Darwin will not only be capable of seeing these planets, but will make a crude spectral analysis of the light reflected back from their atmospheres. If they find gasses such as methane, oxygen, or water vapor in the right quantities, that will provide some fairly convincing evidence that these planets are veneered with life.
The third salient in the multifaceted attempt to discover living things elsewhere is the improved technology that will be deployed for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. As a prime example, the
Allen Telescope Array, being constructed in northern California, will be able to check out a million star systems or more in the coming two decades, listening for the type of radio signals that only transmitters can make. That’s a thousand times as many stellar targets as have been carefully examined so far.
So the race is on. It could be that all contenders will be scratched, and we will fail to find life of any kind with these efforts. On the other hand, I’m betting that at least one of the horses will cross the finish line in the next 20 years. Which one? Wait and see.
source
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Shostak is also involved in raising funds for Space World (which boasts a website described by The Register as "the worst implementation of Flash known to earthlings"  ) so I imagine he's doing the rounds trying to whip up press interest in extraterrestrial life - a subject most people are probably heartily bored of by now. |
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| Kondoru Unfeathered Biped Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Total posts: 5788 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 20:27 Post subject: |
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| Hes passing round the hat. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 01-04-2006 22:44 Post subject: |
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Well, who'd believe anything about someone called Dr Seth Shostak!
Clearly a name from a pulp SF story!
(Almost as good as Dr. Strangelove! ) |
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| eburacum Papo-Furado
Great Old One Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1587 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-04-2006 10:09 Post subject: |
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This is politics, not prophecy. The Nasa budget cuts are falling most heavily on the Astrobiology program, and threaten to delay the launch of the Terrestrial Planet Finder indefinitely.
See
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/060330_seti_thursday.html
| Quote: | | Astrobiology is the core science of space exploration, and it's proposed for a 50 percent cut. The 2005 budget was approximately $65 million. For 2006 and forward, Cleave cut the program to $32.5 million. |
Shostak is trying to foster enthusiasm for an astrobiological program which might bear fruit within 20 years; the discovery of life elsewhere could turn out to be the most important information humanity ever acquires, depending on the circumstances.
But he has got a difficult task ahead. |
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| Kondoru Unfeathered Biped Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Total posts: 5788 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-04-2006 21:11 Post subject: |
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| Yes, hes not called Carl Sagan.... |
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| graylien Great Old One Location: Norwich - home of the Puppet Man! Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-04-2006 21:46 Post subject: |
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| But would the discovery of some kind of primitive bacteria floating around on the moons of Jupiter really be that important after all? |
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| Traprain Yeti Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Total posts: 33 Location: Outside Auld Reekie Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-04-2006 23:30 Post subject: |
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| graylien wrote: | | But would the discovery of some kind of primitive bacteria floating around on the moons of Jupiter really be that important after all? |
Surely it would tremendously important? If "life" is found on two separate environments within the same solar system then the prospects for life (and intelligent life) existing elsewhere must be huge. |
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| graylien Great Old One Location: Norwich - home of the Puppet Man! Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-04-2006 08:22 Post subject: |
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Yes, but why is that so important? It's no more than the cosmic equivalent of finding some new kind of beetle in the rainforest. It's not going to cure cancer, or end war, or significantly improve the day-to-day life of the man in the street.
I'm not saying that it's not interesting. But that's not the same thing.
I find it fascinating that even though the likes of SETI take great pains to distance themselve from Ufology, they have swallowed the Ufologists' central conceit - namely, that the discovery of life elsewhere in the Universe will be the most important event in the history of mankind. |
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| eburacum Papo-Furado
Great Old One Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1587 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 03-04-2006 09:35 Post subject: |
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Finding primitive life in Jupiter or Europa or on Mars might not change human history very much; but the situation could be very different.
Detection of a nearby civilisation could eventually lead to contact, and most probably contact with a civilisation older and more advanced in some, or many ways, than our own. We can hope to benefit from such contact. And of course if we make contact with an aggressive species who decide to attack or subjugate us in some way, the impact of such a discovery will obviously still be great.
Detection of an advanced civilisation anywhere in our galaxy would be extremely important, as it would indicate that our own civilisation is not necessarily doomed to regress into medievalism, but has the potential to become something greater. Even if we do not make contact with such an advanced but distant civilisation it will demonstrate that humanity could aspire to such levels on our own. |
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| Traprain Yeti Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Total posts: 33 Location: Outside Auld Reekie Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-04-2006 10:58 Post subject: |
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| graylien wrote: | Yes, but why is that so important? It's no more than the cosmic equivalent of finding some new kind of beetle in the rainforest. It's not going to cure cancer, or end war, or significantly improve the day-to-day life of the man in the street.
I'm not saying that it's not interesting. But that's not the same thing.
I find it fascinating that even though the likes of SETI take great pains to distance themselve from Ufology, they have swallowed the Ufologists' central conceit - namely, that the discovery of life elsewhere in the Universe will be the most important event in the history of mankind. |
I certainly agree that it wouldn't be the most important thing ever, just pretty important confirmation of a theory that is already generally accepted.
i.e. to take your beetle analogy, it's not just equivalent to just finding a new beetle. It's proving that other "forests" other than our own can harbour life.
On it's own, any discovery of life existing outside the earth wouldn't materially improve anything I agree but that doesn't mean it is not important. Was Galileo’s discovery about the earth revolving around the Sun unimportant? |
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