SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner have announced Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million project that will increase the intensity of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or their signals):
Speaking at the launch, Prof Hawking said: "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean. "Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos - unseen beacons, announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence. Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer - to search for life beyond Earth. We are alive. We are intelligent. We must know."
Those behind the initiative claim it to be the biggest scientific search ever undertaken for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. They plan to cover 10 times more of the sky than previous programmes and scan five times more of the radio spectrum, 100 times faster. It will involve access to two of the world's most powerful telescopes. - the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.
Yuri Milner is known for his creation and funding of Breakthrough Prizes, which award $3 million to researchers for achievements in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. Also reported at Washington Post, NPR, El Reg, and Scientific American.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday July 21 2015, @07:08PM
I no longer consider it worthwhile to search. Not as an absolute statement, but at least for our current situation.
Looking is entirely besides the point. It's just us screaming into the darkness, while simultaneously spending billions to listen intently for signals indicating intelligence. Meanwhile, what is going on with us again? Somebody else had a very good point, and I'm expounding on it. That point is simply that we don't have the luxury of sitting around scanning the stars for intelligence. We need to apply *our* intelligence and efforts into surviving the lengths of time it will take to enjoy the luxury of searching for other life and then communicating with it.
Your other point is simply a funding drive. It's no so much the science, as it's the marketing to get funds to perform *other* science? Put in the other science first. It will help keep us alive.
The marketing will take care of itself soon enough as the powers that be made *damn* sure to tank the entire planet for short term profits. When we're suffering just a little bit more, it won't take much to get a plebe to part with some coins so we can effectively create new land and opportunities elsewhere. Watch the movie Elysium.
The state we are in, is one of dire emergency. I'm not interested in spending money when the end goal of the entire project isn't viable in the remotest sense, even if it's wildly successful. In other words, we're just spending money to scream out our suicide note a little longer, or look for something out there to scream it towards.
Perhaps my outlook is a bit dark, but I just don't think the timing is appropriate given how bad our situation really is.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.