Space is big. Really, really big. You have no idea how mind-bogglingly, stupendously big space is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist's but that's nothing to space. . .
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.