Search for alien life put on hold

[IDemo]

By Mark Milian, CNN
April 25, 2011 7:55 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Interstellar radio has lost one of its most avid and high-profile listeners.

A collection of sophisticated radio telescopes in California that scan the heavens for extraterrestrial signals has suspended operations because of lack of funding, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute operates the Allen Telescope Array, the field of dish-like scopes some 300 miles north of San Francisco. The telescopes are a joint effort of SETI and University of California-Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Lab and have been funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated more than $25 million to the project.

A state budget crisis and reduced federal dollars have choked the project of funding, said Karen Randall, SETI's director of special projects. SETI put the Allen Telescope Array on hold a week ago -- a situation publicly revealed by Franck Marchis, a principal investigator for SETI who doesn't work on the affected project, on his blog.+

http://us.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/04/25/seti/index.html?hpt=C1

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. They can point them at the republican side of the house and just use flashlight

batteries.

[laconicsax]

2. SETI is money better spent.

There are other projects that could actually contribute to our understanding of the universe.

[crikkett]

6. Exactly. Why invest in SETI when you can invest in a new class of drone aircraft

or Laser Cannon?

[laconicsax]

9. Or, why invest in SETI when We could invest in particle accelerator research.

Or invest in stem-cell research.

[originalpckelly]

3. "We are sorry, this telescope is no longer in service...

if you would like to make first contact with the human species, please try again."

[1620rock]

4. Another battle lost in the war on science.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, we have more important issues to deal with.

Maybe we're alone in the Universe, maybe not. Feh. Won't add to any banker's bailout bonus, so it's obviously irrelevant.

[DirkGently]

7. Any human endeavor which does not turn an immediate buck is clearly a waste of time. Profit! Profit!

[laconicsax]

10. SETI is an endeavor unlikely to yield any sort of benefit.

Best case SETI scenario:

Transmissions detected that unequivocally prove extra-terrestrial intelligence.

What next? We know definitively that we're not alone, but there would be no way to make first contact, no way to signal back, and nothing of any real value gained.

There are current scientific endeavors that would be a much better use of the same money.

[DirkGently]

11. Again, that's a narrow view of "value." The value of knowledge is intrinisic, not quid pro quo.

... and I doubt the cost couldn't be covered by canceled a couple of Predator strikes per week, say.

[laconicsax]

12. This has nothing to do with military spending.

SETI's funding is almost exclusively private.

Maybe you could elaborate on the value of SETI? Knowledge does have intrinsic value, but if that knowledge can't be applied to anything else, what value does it have? Knowing that extra-terrestrial intelligence exists is about as useful as knowing who won the MLB 1985 All-Star game.

Is knowing for the sake of knowing worth the effort?

[DirkGently]

13. If you have to ask the question, we will never agree on the answer.

[progressoid]

8. We've already found alien life on earth...

[Phoonzang]

14. Great so one of the few things that could possibly lead to humanity pulling its

head out of its own ass has been shut down. Ug. Surely Paul Allen could fund the operations himself?

[Sadena Meti]

15. Just work on the data we have

With the SETI@Home project, it will take at least 10-15 years to go though all the data already collected. I'm sure funding can be acquired in the time frame.

Besides what we really need is a Southern Hemisphere scan, not more Northern Hemisphere scans.