SUBJECT: NASA'S SEARCH FOR E.T. ABOUT TO BEGIN FILE: UFO2767 MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK -------------------------------------------- ARTICLE / OKLAHOMA MUFON -------------------------- NASA'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE ABOUT TO BEGIN --------------------------------------------- Provided by: Oklahoma Mufonews Newsletter January 1992 Green Valley, W.VA. - It could be a crucial moment in human history, the start of a new age of exploration that leads to discoveries eclipsing those of Christopher Columbus. Or it may be an interstellar wild goose chase. Next Columbus Day, after almost two decades of skepticism and debate, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to launch a seven-year, $100 million effort to scan the heavens for the equivalent of two little words: "Greetings Earthlings" The program, called the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, will be humankind's most ambitious effort so far to pick up radio signals from beings outside out solar system. "It would probably be the biggest advance since the birth of language," said astronomer Eric J. Chaisson, senior scientist at Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute, who sat on the panel that helped plan the search. For the first few years, all SETI work will involve borrowing radio telescopes normally used for astronomy or satellite tracking. But in 1995, when a huge new radio telescope is completed at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory here, SETI astronomers will get the full-time use of the observatory's current workhouse-a 140-foot wide, white steel dish that looms above the farmland in this isolated Appalachian valley. Observatory Director George Seielstad, who navigates a battleship- gray diesel sedan (the spark plugs in gasoline-powered engines cause radio noise) around the observatory grounds, is typical of many astronomers in that he has come to suspect that life probably has developed on planets orbiting other stars. And on some of those planets, he thinks, intelligent life probably has built technological societies. But the odds against finding those civilizations, he figures, are - well, astronomical. Even if extraterrestrial civilizations pepper the starry night, scientists speculate they may not want to advertise themselves. Or they might be too advanced, or not advanced enough to use radio signals. Or their signals may be drowned out by the rising babble of earthly radio transmissions, especially those produced by the world's military forces and the growing number of global communications satellites. Or those cultures may simply be scattered too thinly in what scientists call the "cosmic haystack" - the universe's billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Chaisson, a former member of the panel of astronomers that planned the SETI project, compared the task to sifting the sands of the Atlantic beaches by hand in search of a single small diamond. Still, many scientists support the hunt. "The reward is so enormous." Seielstad said, "It's such a significant discovery that you have to find out. As humans, our intellectual curiosity sort of demands we find out if this is true." "At least this set of measurements will let us know something," he says. "You're trying. You're not just speculating. It's not just asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." "Anybody who thinks they know the chances of success is a fool," said astronomer Frank D. Drake, who has estimated that there may be a few thousand extraterrestrial civilizations scattered among the Milky Way's 400 billion stars. "But my guess is we have a real chance of succeeding by the turn of the century." Others think it will take much longer. In 1985, one astronomer at a SETI conference offered the "fairly optimistic" assessment that a successful search might take 5,000 years. ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************