Prof. Mendez writes that an announcement of the full explanation for the Ross 128 signal will be made tomorrow, Friday, July 21st. One wonders how full an explanation will be possible.

Prof. Mendez has already stated that his immediate goal was to use the new data to decide between Earthly interference, and a novel phenomenon at stellar distance. Perhaps it is this binary decision, to which he refers. He couldn't be expected to have a full explanation of the details of a just-discovered astronomical phenomenon.

In any case, we should know more about this matter by sometime tomorrow.

From https://twitter.com/profabelmendez

>The #Weird!Signal was most likely caused by one or more geostationary satellites. The shape of the signal is still under investigacion.

Also

http://seti.berkeley.edu/ross128.pdf

This sounds like less than a 'full explanation' or a 'conclusion', both of which were promised for today's announcement. If they're still checking out the signals, it's merely a hypothesis awaiting confirmation.

The SETI Institute still seems interested in Ross 128, despite the supposed explanation of the signal. They are currently scrutinizing that star, also know as GJ 447, HIP 57548, and FI Virginis, on a variety of frequencies between 4 and 5 GigaHertz. They have been doing so since at least 1 p.m., when I looked in and noticed this. Their work can be viewed at:
http://www.setiquest.info

I think ATA is in Shasta County, in Northern California, away from radio emissions, like GBT.
Tullio

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I think ATA is in Shasta County, in Northern California, away from radio emissions, like GBT.
Tullio

Well I am a bit confused myself. Hat Creek is certainly in Shasta County; we were there in 2005 and saw the radio telescopes, but that was before ATA was going. I think it was run by the University of Southern California then. They were doing more conventional radio astronomy then. Then, Mr. Allen bought (or leased) the site, and planned to build a new array, or maybe convert the existing one for SETI work.

But he at one point also announced plans to build the ATA in another location further south, probably in Mountain View. I think maybe funding or technical problems prevented those plans being implemented. At any rate, here it is.
https://www.seti.org/ata

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I believe the Allen Array was partially built and then operated for a period of time which ended due to funding problems.
This was from the SETI institute also at CAL Berkley run by Seth Shostak. I don't know if it ever started up again. Maybe others have more current information ?

Who is then getting the 100 million?

It looks like there will be a proliferation of SETI endeavors emerging and/or expanding over the next few years. I think it would be better to concentrate these all into one effort as far as personnel, equipment and funding is concerned. The emphasis should be on space-based or moon based telescopes at optical, microwave and visual frequencies.

It might be conceivable to send a probe/explorer to the Alpha Centauri region if a significant advance in propulsion can be made. All we need is a sustained 1g push on a perhaps a mass of 1000 kilograms.

To reiterate my past rants. I think that we as a civilization need to concentrate on a proper space station, Moon base and then a manned trip to Mars (with return) I don't know if the cosmic ray problem can be solved for manned space travel.

There is no dearth of big radiotelescopes coming in action, like ALMA in Chile, FAST in China and the MerKat array in South Africa. But how many of them are interested in SETI search? That is the question.
Tullio

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The SETI Institute still seems interested in Ross 128, despite the supposed explanation of the signal. They are currently scrutinizing that star, also know as GJ 447, HIP 57548, and FI Virginis, on a variety of frequencies between 4 and 5 GigaHertz. They have been doing so since at least 1 p.m., when I looked in and noticed this. Their work can be viewed at:
http://www.setiquest.info

That's a nice link. :~)

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

There is no dearth of big radiotelescopes coming in action, like ALMA in Chile, FAST in China and the MerKat array in South Africa. But how many of them are interested in SETI search? That is the question.
Tullio

None of them really have the sensitivity to do the job of detecting signals from alien civilizations. They are all directed to much greater energy outputs of exploding stars, pulsars, gas clouds, etc.

If you want to detect artificial signals from a distance of 1000 light years (my estimate for the minimum to give you any hope of finding anything), then you will need large radiotelescopes in space, away from earthly interference. And by "large" I mean several kilometers across. It won't happen during our lifetimes. SETI is all very interesting, but the numbers just don't add up for now.

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And a proper space station would need to spin to produce artificial gravity, something that has never been done before.

I think that we could start on it in the near future. We would need a new lifting body and we would have to make it big enough so that vertigo problems are minimized.

I have posted this before but since we are talking about what we should do :

I think that a brainstorming group of engineers and idea men (personettes ?) should be assembled at once. It would be my dream to be part of this thrust even though I know nothing about how things are done now in boosting to orbit. In my day I was a pretty good systems engineer and Operations Research guy ( wife says not so).
I suggest Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Filippenko, Steve Wozniak a few top engineers from Boeing, Hughes Aircraft and supporting staffs for latter stages of design.

This could be Trump's JFK moment all over again.

Yes, NASA has been Obama-ized where bureaucrats want to collect their salary without much effort. Trump needs to get it back on track. Our probes to Mars and the planets seem to be repeating the same somewhat tired and largely ineffective science. I am referring to the Mars Rovers which still don't tell us if life ever started there and the Jupiter probes which can't tell us if there is a solid core. The latter may not have been NASA but I am suggesting international efforts led by NASA. As for a Moon and Mars effort I think that we are no further away than we were when Kennedy announced the effort to get to the Moon and back.

Cassini is making a grand finale on Saturn and is discovering many things, also that the magnetic field axis is very close to the rotation axis, so the duration of the Saturn day is still on debate. The final plunge will be in September. I think this was one of the most successful missions to the outer planets, but also New Horizons has given splendid results on Pluto and Charon, and is going to the Kuiper belt.
Tullio

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Yes, NASA has been Obama-ized where bureaucrats want to collect their salary without much effort. Trump needs to get it back on track. Our probes to Mars and the planets seem to be repeating the same somewhat tired and largely ineffective science. I am referring to the Mars Rovers which still don't tell us if life ever started there and the Jupiter probes which can't tell us if there is a solid core. The latter may not have been NASA but I am suggesting international efforts led by NASA. As for a Moon and Mars effort I think that we are no further away than we were when Kennedy announced the effort to get to the Moon and back.

You have it backwards. It was W. who proposed the ridiculous mission to Mars in an attempt to out-JFK JFK. It won't work, but the Republicans keep pushing. Donald mentioned it too, even if he won't do anything about it. President Obama had the good sense to push it as far back as possible without killing it, to placate said Republicans as much as is feasible. You won't see good sense like that in the space program for the next 4 years. They are now even killing the earth-monitoring missions for Global Warming.

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Perhaps I should expand. In addition to having to grow food without any crops failures or toxicity for several months, and with no failures of the oxygen or water supply, there are radiation belts and micrometeorites that could easily puncture a large spacecraft and suck out all the oxygen. They are not much problem for robotic spacecraft with only solar panels and instruments to worry about, though they sometimes get knocked out too.

But among other things, Mars is toxic to all life.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/06/mars-covered-in-toxic-chemicals-that-can-wipe-out-living-organisms-tests-reveal

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Yes, NASA has been Obama-ized where bureaucrats want to collect their salary without much effort. Trump needs to get it back on track. Our probes to Mars and the planets seem to be repeating the same somewhat tired and largely ineffective science. I am referring to the Mars Rovers which still don't tell us if life ever started there and the Jupiter probes which can't tell us if there is a solid core. The latter may not have been NASA but I am suggesting international efforts led by NASA. As for a Moon and Mars effort I think that we are no further away than we were when Kennedy announced the effort to get to the Moon and back.

You have it backwards. It was W. who proposed the ridiculous mission to Mars in an attempt to out-JFK JFK. It won't work, but the Republicans keep pushing. Donald mentioned it too, even if he won't do anything about it. President Obama had the good sense to push it as far back as possible without killing it, to placate said Republicans as much as is feasible. You won't see good sense like that in the space program for the next 4 years. They are now even killing the earth-monitoring missions for Global Warming.

That's not the way I remember it or read about it. Please quota sources for your claim.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

That's not the way I remember it or read about it. Please quota sources for your claim.

I am not sure which part you are objecting to. It is hard to keep track of all the misinformation out there.
But Google searches are simple.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/21/us/president-calls-for-mars-mission-and-a-moon-base.html

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Global warming is a false religion in the sense that we are not able to do anything about it. Human activity is not causing it ; if in fact it is actually warming.

Global warming is a false religion in the sense that we are not able to do anything about it. Human activity is not causing it ; if in fact it is actually warming.

+10

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.