| Personal background |
|---|
PROFESSION: Operations and Test Manager for NASA on the International Space Station.
I lead the Test Teams that ensure the experiments flown to the ISS are functional just
prior to loading them into the Space Shuttle.
EDUCATION: University of Florida B.S. in Aerospace Engineering ('85); University of
Central Florida M.S. in Engineering Management ('93).
I am a 40 year old father who feels like a toddler every time he looks at the
heavens. The visible Universe is vast beyond belief. It humbles me to remember how
insignificant we truly are on a cosmic scale. At the same time I am filled with
awe that here on this tiny planet the Universe has organized itself so that it
can contemplate its own formation. I wonder how many other creatures reside on
other planets that orbit other stars look at the part of their sky that holds us
and think "I wonder if we are alone?" |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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With the Universe being so vast, even if the odds for the development of sentient life
are one in a billion,there must be millions of intelligent species out there. The
problem is that since the Universe is so vast, finding evidence of them would seem
to be a matter of luck. I believe it would be most probable we would discover other
civilizations via a stray radio transmission not intended for us. This discovery
would rock world culture. It would probably cause much distress among the world's\\
religions. The revelation of great truths often does this. It is possible that
militant religous fundamentalist groups may be driven to physical confrontation
with scientific establishment entities because their (religous) authority would be
brought into doubt. On the other hand the knowledge that we are not alone may
drive all of us to finally understand that we are all the children of a rare and
wonderful planet and help us to overcome our differences and be more tolerant of
our fellow humans.
The fact that we have been broadcasting artificial radio signals for nearly a century
now means we have been announcing our presence to the Universe. The tremendous
distances involved would imply that, unless the other civilization has achieved some kind of superluminous method
of travel we need not fear "invasion". If we do formally introduce ourselves, the only
common basis for communication would be mathematics. I would think we should share
the elements of a basic mathematically based language so they may use it as a
"Rosetta Stone" to decode the contents of a message saying in essence "Hello.
You are not alone. We see you, and we wish to be friends." We might also include
a discussion of our understanding of biology, cosmology and physics.
I run SETI@HOME because I wish to be a part of what I believe to be the most
noble use of technology possible: expanding the volume of human knowledge. |
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