I believe extraterrestial life does exist and it will be discovered duringthe next 20 years. It will make a big splash in the world but not have much of any real impact this century. I run Seti@home because while it is only a remote possiblity that it will find technologically advanced civilizations it is still possible, so why not.
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.