Profile: Donald Hanson

Personal background
I am a fast food worker with a love for astronomy and the sciences. I am an avid reader of Science Fiction and I read many articles on the science frontier. I am a Star Trek fan of many years, but this isn't what fueled me in my love for the stars. When you look up into the sky you see thousands of points of light that are like our sun. In those sun are planets. And they beg for exploration. I beleive we will explore the stars. Not in my lifetime, but someday. In the meantime, we have Mars, our own moon and countless other places in our solar system we can colonize. When we accomplish this, space exploration will finally pay for itself. Some say this goal is farfetched and too costly, but resources on earth are dwindling and it will be necessary someday probably soon.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Extraterrestrial life exists, the universe is too huge for us to be alone in the universe. We will try to detect it from Earth, but the only real way to discover it, is to send probes and explore. In nearby star systems and our solar system, we can only hope for the discovery of life. The discovery of real intelligent life would lead to moral and ethical dilemmas. First, we'd feel an overwhelming need to communicate with them and tell them they aren't alone. Then we'd reflect on our science fiction. For it will have become reality. We will then be faced with the million possible scenarios that science fiction has written on the subject.
The benefits of discovery are exponential. There would be new cultures to learn, new histories, their sciences and mathematics, and with this discovery, an overwhelming need to explore harder and farther.
A beacon. . . It could be suggested that this could be both the kiss of life and the kiss of death for our civilization. While as a science lover,I would say that a beacon would be necessary for other worlds, probably more advanced than us to detect us, but that is where we run into the problem. Most likely, only worlds that were as developed as ourselves or most likely better would detect us. As a lover of science fiction, a beacon is a marker for invasion. While the distances from point A to point B in space are extraordinarily far apart for us, it may not be that way for some other culture. This could lead to friendly or hostile contact. I am more afraid to say it would be hostile. History suggests this with the New World invasion from Europe.
If we were going to broadcast information, I would seek to send out a font of knowlege of the mathematical type. Math is considered the universal language and would be the best median to use.
I run the SETI program at home because the search for extraterrestrial life is an important project that should be funded. If there is life out there announcing itself for us to detect, then we should be scannin
Your feedback on this profile
Recommend this profile for User of the Day: I like this profile
Alert administrators to an offensive profile: I do not like this profile
Account data View
Team None



 
©2024 University of California
 
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.