I definitely believe that life exists outside of our solar system but I doubt if any intelligent life will be found within our system of 9 planets. The first indication of such life may very well be a radio signal such as the SETI project is searching for. I believe that we should transmit signals in the hope that someone else will receive them. The content of such a signal is probably not important. I run SETI@home to utilize my computer to the fullest. I am able to run the program in foreground 100 per cent of the time.
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.