*A HALF A CENTURY SEARCHING FOR ALIEN SIGNALS

We are now in the 50th year of the Nature tome by Philip Morrison (left) and Giuseppe Cocconi (right) on "Searching for Interstellar Communication."  There is an abundance of books on the subject, and I'm just getting around to reading Confessions of an Alien Hunter, by Seth Shostak, and The Crowded Universe, by Alan Boss, purchased last year.

During this period of Gulf Wars, crummy government, European PIIGS, global warming, ashy volcanos, oil spills, Peak Petroleum and mega earthquakes, let me again change the subject, extend the discussion of yesterday and bring you up to date on one of the ultimate questions:  Are We Alone in the Universe?

The Big Bang happened 13.7 billion years ago.  As our solar system is only 4.5 billion years old, the odds are that if there are others out there, given as much as a 9 billion years head start, many are much more developed than us Homo sapiens.  Perhaps some intelligent societies have gained a humanitarian virtue, and want to share with us some of their solutions, as, maybe, how to work together for the common good, the cure for cancer...whatever.

As indicated in Part One, sending missions to impart this knowledge takes too much time and energy.  Why not beam the answers like free TV signals?  Thus, the obvious strategy is for us to build sensors to receive and encrypt these clues.  This is just what Frank Drake of Cornell did, again, half a century ago.  So have many others for 50 years, and not a blip.

In 1974 I participated in a NASA activity called Earth 2020, and became close friends of the leaders of another project entitled Project Cyclops, a $10 billion effort to conduct the search.  One of the first questions in the early days was:  Are there other planets in the Universe?  So in 1976 I joined 19 other faculty members at the NASA Ames Research Center, and while the others focused on an interferometric technique, I was allowed to find a more direct method.

With the early assistance of Charles Townes, I used his idea that planetary systems lase, and you could thus measure discrete color peaks and track those exoplanets.  A secondary benefit is that you could then determine the atmospheric composition.  Well, my proposal to NASA went nowhere, for the First Energy Crisis had occurred, and I spent the rest of my life on renewable energy.  What I determined much later is that the field had selected  to search the microwave portion of the spectrum, for you could then track potential solar systems further out in space.  While it doesn't really matter much anymore because, as of last week, 485 extrasolar planets have now been detected, I still think that there could be significant benefits from what I called the Planetary Abstracting Trinterferometer (PAT), as Earth-sized planets with their atmospheres can be identified.

Interestingly enough, the SETI field has returned to Project Cyclops, now called the Allen Telescope Array for Space Surveillance, as the effort is funded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who is said to be worth $10.5 billion.  The system has 42 six meter dishes, on the way to 350 (see above), located at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, about 300 miles northeast of San Francisco.  The program is directed by the SETI Institute, headquarters of SETI research, as the Federal Government long ago abandoned the field.

I should mention that there remains a semi-active optical spectrum search, for some are convinced that advanced civilizations might determine Earth to be promising for life, and therefore could be beaming a laser signal to our planet.  So far, nothing detected.

If any signals are received and understood, this would eclipse Man on the Moon, and become the most monumental discovery ever.  Then there are those, led by Erich von Daniken, who insist aliens have already been here, left obvious evidence, and, like ET, left for home.  Some cite the Mayan culture as an indicator, and, just wait till 21December2012 when, maybe, they could return.

The ultimate killjoy is the Fermi Paradox.  Nuclear scientist Enrico Fermi more than a half a century ago posited, if they exist, where are they?

Also in the negative is Stephen Hawking, who recommends avoiding contact with aliens.  He fears they might not come in peace.

Carl Sagan, however, had the right attitude.  His Contact, made into a movie with Jody Foster, remains one of my favorites.

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