I am virtually certain that intelligent life exists elsewhere in our galaxy and
the rest of the universe. However, I think the average separation distance
between intelligent lifeforms combined with the limitations of travel imposed on
us by the speed of light means that most if not all of those civilizations will
remain islands for the foreseeable future. SETI is probably the closest we will
ever come to confirming the existence of one of those civilizations. It sure
would be neat though if we got really lucky and were able to find a somewhat
intelligent (about the same level as we are) civilization that was only a few
tens of light years away. What a shot in the arm that would be to our
motivation to develop a more advanced form of space travel -- no more limiting
ourselves to shuttle flights into LOE, no more depending on other planets'
gravitational pull to slingshot us to destinations within the solar system.
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.
