Whether we'll find ET, that's the question we might never answered. The thought of looking for it is inspiring enough to at least try. It's the well known needle in a haystack, but it's worth trying ;)
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.