FOIA: (USSR) Soviet Effort to Contact Extraterrestrial Life, page 1

The purpose of this document was to review Soviet scientific efforts relating to the problem of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

1. There is a comparatively high level of theoretical discussion in the USSR concerning the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the problem involved in detecting these civilizations.

2. Participation of many influential astronomers, radio experts, physicists, etc., in these discussions indicates a considerable importance attached to these problems in the USSR.
There is no evidence that practical steps on any large scale are being taken in the USSR to contact or to decipher messages from other civilizations, although there exist small projects, of the size of Ozma in some institutions, notably the Shternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow.

4. The Soviets have available a number of radio telescopes suitable for an integrated search program if they choose to begin such a program.

5. Considerable emphasis was made at the Byurakan Conference (1964) on the necessity of a systematic survey of the whole sky in order to locate artificial cosmic radio sources.

6. Such plans, if consistently carried out, would involve the southern hemisphere, possibly Chile, where the Soviet astronomers already have a foothold.

7. International cooperation in such a large undertaking seems unavoidable. Accordingly, Soviet steps to establish such cooperation may be anticipated at the next meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, in August 1967.

8. As in most Soviet scientific activities, there is noticeable emphasis on the practical benefits to be obtained from a systematic effort to contact other civilizations.

The following part is philosophical in nature and very well written and gives a HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM –

The idea that intelligent beings might exist outside of the earth was debated in antiquity (Anaxagoras, Plutarch, Lucian, etc.).

This speculation was frowned upon by the Catholic Church as contradictory to the Christian dogma of the uniqueness of man and his relation to the universe.
During the Renaissance the idea of habitable worlds was again revived (Nicolaus Cusanus , Giordano Bruno, Kepler, etc.).
The telescope showed many details on the surface of the planets which generally favored the idea of habitability.
It was assumed that man was the goal to which all creation moves and consequently, the celestial bodies did not have any reason to exist unless they served as homes for intelligent beings.

In the 18th Century, such scientists as Huygens, Fontenelle, Swedenborg, and others wrote elaborate treatises on the supposed inhabitants of other planets, and even the great philosopher Kant thought that at least some of the planets besides the earth might be inhabited.

Further development of this idea occurred in the early 19th Century.
Sir William Hershel, perhaps the greatest observational astronomer of all times, deduced from his own observations that the sun was really a dark body which very well might be inhabited. He theorized that the brilliant surface of the sun was actually its atmosphere and the so-called sunspots were simply the solid dark surface showing through the rifts of the atmosphere.
The very influential French astronomer Arago, as late as 1850, could not find anything wrong with this theory.

In 1832, Von Littrow accepted the idea of J. Lambert (1750) that comets were undoubtedly inhabited and their extensive atmospheres had the purpose of mitigating and preserving the heat of the sun which must vary greatly along the eccentric orbits of those bodies. Both men were leaders in the mathematical theory of comets.
On the moon the German astronomer Gruithuisen could see cities
and railroads, and other astronomers speculated what function the
rings of Saturn might have to make conditions there more comfortable for the intelligent beings which were undoubtedly there.

In the second half of the 19th Century the science of astrophysics was born and quickly showed that the conditions on the sun moon, comets, and the majority of the planets were such as to preclude the existence of any life there. The only possibly habitable planets were Venus and Mars, and life on these was highly problematical.
It became unfashionable to talk about inhabitants of other planets, and Lowell's ideas about the artificial origins of the canals on Mars was generally ridiculed.

A few hardy souls here and there continued to maintain that
Mars must be habitable regardless of what scientists observations
Indicated.
In the U.S. such were E.C. Slipher and W.H. Pickering,
in the USSR, G.A. Tikhov and especially K.E. Tsiolkovskiy.
Tikhov remained essentially a scientist and only tried to prove that terrestrial plants can adapt themselves to the conditions on Mars.
Tsiolkovskiy was a dreamer who threw caution to the winds. One of his books, constantly quoted by Soviet astronomers, has the revealing title "Dreams about the Earth and the Heavens."

With the development of rocket technology Tsiolkovskiy became in the USSR almost
infallible authority to be quoted along side Lenin and Marx.

The novelists, as usual, were years behind the scientists.
H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," appeared in 1905.
It was and still is extremely popular throughout the world, and many remember the panic in 1938 when this story was dramatized on the radio. Millions of people believed the Martians were landing in New Jersey and marching on New York City.

However, the scientists were rather cool toward the possibility
of life on Mars or elsewhere outside the earth.

Perhaps the lowest point in the belief of extraterrestrial life was reached in the 1920's when Sir James Jeans showed that the collision of two stars, according to him the only possible mode of the formation of a planetary system, is an extremely improbable event, and it may well be that the Earth is a cosmic freak with some kind of mold on it called life.

Doubts were soon thrown on Jeans theory of the origin of the solar system, and quiet investigations on the origin of life on the earth and other celestial bodies continued.

[edit on 19-2-2008 by frozen_snowman]