1. I think Carl Segan said it best. "If there is not other life out there it would be a waste of space.
2. I think we have already sent enough messages. We have enough radio wave floating in space that would but a 13 year olds car radio to shame.
3.
I run seti at home because I'm able to participate in what I think the internet was designed for. The ability to harness this much power and use it for usefull research. Also one BIONIC comes online I'll use my pc's for more that just seti projects to further science.
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.