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| Personal background |
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| I'm an engineer at NASA's Ames Research Center, and a middle-aged boomer raised on Star Trek. And LOTS of Coke. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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Extraterrestrial life cannot help but exist. The only question is how many planets have intelligent critters who are sufficiently communicative to devote HUGE amounts of resources into the generation of radio waves in the 21 cm band for long periods of time? It is, after all, obvious that such critters would recognize the 21-cm band as the "obvious" choice for transstellar communication (after all, we do). Yet, transstellar communication cannot take place if everyone is listening. So, who goes first? Us? Them?
Of course this all assumes that the LGMs out there are all as technologically sophisticated as the "pinnacle of the universe," Man. But might it be true that there is a more facile method for contacting extraterrestrials than radio, one that Man has yet to discover? And if so, can we count ourselves, within the structure of the Drake Equation, as a "technological species?" Or are we still primitives (with admittedly REALLY nice oxcarts)?
So, if we get the gumption (and the dollars) to transmit into space a message about ourselves for the next few eons, are we advertising ourselves as a species that has arrived technologically on the cosmic scene, or showing ourselves to be parochials, unable to master even the basics of REAL transstellar communication? |
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