I have been associated with communications, electronics and later computers for 60 years next February. During this time I have witnessed the evolution of electronic technology from Crystal Sets and then basic radio transmitters and receivers, telephones and switchboards to multi channel narrow band satellite communications. The first hard disk I encountered was manufactured by Sperry (an English company) and had a storage capacity of 100 Kilo Bytes with each track having it’s own read and write head. It took about 5 hours to build up speed before it could be used. In electronics, mankind has advanced further in the last 50 years than in the previous centuries. Our social development has still to start moving though. There is no doubt that life forms exist elsewhere and that this planet is a small cog in the machinery of life. We must continue to look to the stars and I hope that our children remember to do so.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Extraterrestrial life certainly exists and maybe it's here right now but we have not noticed it yet. We will discover things like this when we learn more about ourselves and this will lead to greater understanding of our environment. Transmitted beacons and satellites serve to highlight our ability (or otherwise) to communicate rather than provide useful information about ourselves. Successive satellites will indicate our rate of growth and direction of progress in the communication field and the recipients may view this with caution. At the very least SETI@home will give us information on where not to look. My advice is don't back off - keep going!
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
