SETI Halted: Now In Hibernation

Bummer. 

SETI may be looked at as "science fiction" by some but the principle is true.  If we no longer dream and if we don't look beyond the present and immediate and pressing needs then we have no hope of a different future and perhaps even of any other future at all.

I guess Steven Hawking and Lord Rees can breath a sigh of relief now

1.5 million dollars. That's pocket change to what some 'so-called' sports stars make in a year. Pennies compared to what Uncle Sam spends on freakin' nonsense. Since the shuttles are down to their last flight with Endeavor and it takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million to launch one why can't they take part of that and fund SETI? Damn fools!!

This is an outrage.

Ok, a bit strong, but still.... if I didn;t know better I'd say we were watching a systematic effort to curtail further research and development efforts at the government level.

At some point in time the money supply does get tight and evens dries up.

America! The USSR of the future!

Lol, them relying on the UC system was their biggest mistake. Granted all states are cutting higher education budgets right now, but California is in by far the worst mess.

Forget it. This country is headed for the shit can and nobody gives a damn.. All those idiot politicians couldn't get a headache together if they tried. Cut back on higher education, lower education, tax the poor, enable the rich, take away this that and the other thing so that the working poor has less and less. And they wonder why the people don't trust them to do the right thing. How much more do you think the people of this country are going to take before they rise up and start really kicking ass. Give it time. They want change...they'll get change only it may not be what they are expecting. Okay...I'm done. Rant over.

2.5 million per year? The minister of transport in my country (which has no roads), embezzles that much in a week. It's a bit hard to believe that a country that still has some resemblance of an economy can't scrape that together.

This is just sad. What could be more important than the search for life on other worlds? The quest to prove that we aren't alone, that somewhere out there, there's someone else reaching out across the stars, searching for the answer to the same question. And why? Because of some pieces of meaningless paper that some one decided was worth more than your dreams? 

This is why I still think money is one of the worst things mankind ever made, that and banks.

SETI was a waste of time and money.

So this means we are no longer pumping out noise to try and make contact with aliens? Good. And Yes I agree SETI is a waste of money. Lets actually have a few new planets colonized before we try contacting possible non human life.

Yeah, what lots of people don't realize is that meaningful communication with another civilization just isn't possible. Say you hear something meaningful from a system that's at a moderate distance away, say 50,000 light years (or half the way across our galaxy). That means that the signal was sent 50,000 years ago, and any return signal won't arrive until 50,000 years after that. Needless to say, that would make for a pretty boring conversation. Much further away than that (say, to another galaxy altogether), and there's a good chance that whoever sent the signal in the first place just isn't around anymore.

Now, sure, it would be cool to know for sure that there was life out there somewhere, but honestly, I'd be more surprised if we ended up discovering that the rest of the universe was completely sterile.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that, barring any new and exotic discoveries of physics, we ain't gonna be meeting them face to face, either. The distances are vast to the degree that defies intuitive understanding.

highly unlikely we are but tiny particles within this universe... so SMALL in comparison, anyone who says we are the only planet/intelligent lifeforms within the universe really needs to keep their mouth shut because our universe is big, billions upon billions of galaxies... I expect the people who said we're the only intelligent lifeforms/life at all in the universe to eat their socks and dirty underwear the moment we discover we aren't alone. I'll also be laughing my ass off and holding my sides

they must have found something.

SETIs true value would be to warn us of the approach of some other species' generation ships....

At least now ET can relax... use his inter-ship communications again.

He reckoned it was a bugger having to space walk between ships just to let his neighbours know there was a party going on at his.

Now that SETI's gone he can hop on the phone again... tho I reckon Google is probably still listening, so's it can cash in up there as well.

I'm all for space exploration and research, but lets be honest; SETI isn't doing much to further either of those. Yeah, it's a cool idea, but it's not doing anything "useful." It would take over four years to get the closest star, traveling at the speed of light, and it's incredibly unlikely to have any planets that can support life.

Yes, there is almost assuredly life out there somewhere, but if we ever find it, it's doubtful that we will be able to do anything useful with that information. As LightofAbraxas said, the distances and time involved are absurdly huge. If aliens did somehow make it to us, there are other methods of detecting them besides SETI. And if they did make it to us, they're obviously way more advanced than us and an early warning won't do much good.

It's a shame that SETI is being put in hibernation, but it hardly demonstrates that the government has some secret desire to kill research. NASA got a budget increase last year, and a bill just entered the senate calling for a return to the moon. There are more usefull space related projects that money could go to.

they must have found something.

They found the WOW! signal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for the full 72-second duration that Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again ....

Earth-borne signal to be very unlikely, due to the requirements of a space-borne reflector being bound to certain unrealistic requirements to sufficiently explain the nature of the signal.^[9] Also, the 1420 MHz signal is problematic in itself in that it is "protected spectrum": it is bandwidth in which terrestrial transmitters are forbidden to transmit.

really now? I thought Obama's plans to scrap that were in play, unless he got his head out of his ass and saw the light. Respectfully We should go back to the moon to make a permanent presence there, I mean it's another few thousand miles of land we humans can colonize, though we'd have to dig under the surface to make a good presence to begin with since it has no atmosphere and that means no protection from space radiation. After that the next step would be Mars and the Asteroid Belt. Better yet it would be a good idea to have two separate projects for that, kill two birds with one stone.

The government needs to realize that in order for these plans to happen they will have to allocate a large sum of money, I've heard all the high voices of people saying we would have done other stuff with the money spent on space stuff but you have to realize all the avenues of technology we have now thanks to that spent money.

As for SETI--I think listening is fine and broadcasting isn't needed.  Listening isn't that expensive.

At least now I know why Charlie Sheen is melting down in public.  He knows the truth and the truth is breaking him down as shown here...

Personally I think we need to get out heads out of space until we learn how to take care of the planet we live on first...no point in screwing somewhere else up since we're so close to finishing this one off. I'm sure the neighbors would appreciate it.

It hurts my heart to hear people say this. While there is a measure of reason within it.. We can afford to seek out new life and new worlds. The price of it is simply microscopic in comparisons to most other endeavors within our government, and the governments of other nations. These are the things that inspire us! Lets us make new discoveries, new dreams..

To go outside at night, to look up into the sky with an awe inspired eye.. And to let the mind wander, to simply imagine what, or who is out there. To know for absolute certain that we are connected to the universe in yet another way.. Intelligent life. Making such a discovery would change the entire world. As Michio Kaku said, it would be on the same level as our species discovering fire..

Can we talk with such beings, over so vaste a distance? No, probably not. But it would be a glorious start

It is in my opinion, that the next 50 years here on Earth will decide our fate. We either survive and continue forward to a wondrous start of exploration of our solar system in its entirety, or we are trapped here, on this one small blue dot in the middle of no where; and at the complete mercy of a space rock with our names on it. Or the even worse threat: Super Massive Volcanoes that could at any moment greatly reduce our ability to get a tan. For years. It happened once, 75,000ish years ago. Our entire species was almost wiped out. We went from millions in number, to a few thousand in just a few years.. Something like that today would wipe out billions. So it is best, for our people, that we not keep all our eggs in one basket. Life's prerogative is to survive and live life to the fullest.

We have an obligation to the Earth, to protect it as best we can. It is the place of our birth after all. However, we have an even greater obligation to our species. To what we could one day become; explorers of the galaxy! Ahh.. So many things that we yet do not quite understand. Sooo many discoveries have been made in physics, and astronomy, chemistry, bio-tech and computer technologies over the last ten years, it almost blows the mind! The discovery of how lifeless compounds become living things.. The first artificial lifeforms were created not long ago, from scratch! Soon such a technology could help clean the planet of some of the toxins that our advancement has placed upon it. Quantum computers are in the early testing phases, a computer that would have an intellect far superior to our own is around 20 years off, for practical use anyway.. Replicators, yep that's right, replicators are also in the works. Think about that for a moment. Food and clothing for everyone out there that would want it. Power, clean power from the new plants that are being built (if it works as intended anyway) in France.. A few dozen of those machines could power the entire planet. A truly marvelous revolution is there, just on the horizon of tomorrow. Will any of these things come to pass? I don't know. I hope so. Will we just end up destroying ourselves through senseless conflict or lack of foresight? I don't know. I hope not. But what I do know is that taking away that which gives us our vision..our dreams.. It is then that we are certainly to fail not only at saving our world, but at saving ourselves as a whole. Our entire past would be rendered moot, everything that humanity has overcome, and all the things we have yet to overcome.. A sadness on a universal level. To have been given the chance to be alive, to see and understand and appreciate our world around us, from the smallest to the largest of scales, only to have been snuffed out by a lack of vision.. I can think of no greater a tragedy than that. The gift of awareness lost to the darkness of space.

I apologize for rambling on, however this happens to be a subject of which I am very passionate about. I'm one of those hopeless idealist who believes in humanity. We have done many great things.. Some of them were terrible things, others were good. I know as a people we have a long way to go, and that we have yet many more terrible things to do, and many more great benevolent things to do. I just hope that in time, that which is good far outweighs that which was not so good. Well, this is just one mans opinion on a subject that involves every single one of us, past, present, and future. Here's to us being around to see if it all works out.

PS... Don't ever trust transporters. Take a shuttle.

I never really thought that SETI would work in my lifetime (i.e. pick up an actual transmission) but it's been a wonderful platform for developing advanced signal-recognition and teloscopy technologies that spill over into other fields. See: SETI@Home --> Folding@Home.

We actually talked about this in an introductory economics class- SETI is a textbook market failure because although it doesn't turn an actual profit by doing what it's supposed to do, it creates other benefits for people who don't have to pay for it. Therefore, it will end up being underfunded.

Agreed. The cost is considerably less than bombing than dubious military actions.

SETI was a model of public participation in Science. That defrayed the cost tremendously instead of "buying" a new super-computer to do it.

It also opened the field of parallel computing, if I remember correctly.

SETI@home was it called?  Yes, it is a great shame that they have cancelled the funding.  Private "profit or not" (ie. profit or don't bother) just doesn't work for everything.  Some things are just better to be provided by the government.  Government is a necessary part of society - too much and things get bogged on and inefficient, too little and things that don't make a profit will never be undertaken.  And that is quite a lot of what we are capable of and is worthwhile for our country and our species.

Best regards,
Steven.

Total shuttle costs per launch are roughly $500M, based on NASA's shuttle budget and the number of launches per year during normal operations.  I don't even think the fuel costs are $10M.