BREAKING: Congress Wants To Spend Millions Searching For ET

a reply to: shawmanfromny


This is an "authorization for expenditure" bill where 10 million would authorized to be spent by funding SETI to that amount.

The other bill would be an "appropriation" bill where the check is handed out. They can authorize the amount but do not have to commit to it. Yeah, government!

SETI is fully a private sector funded activity after the funding plug was pulled in the 90's. I went to talk by Jill Tartar where it was explained that the ticket price was part of their fund raising efforts.

I am happy that the fund are being earmarked for SETI. But it makes me wonder, "why now"? If ET is flying around out there, I doubt they would be using radio waves to communicate! We went digital in TV signals in 2010 (??) so that was about 60 years of TV signals. I think that an alien species intelligent enough fly "anti gravity" spaceships would have something better than CB radios! Which makes me think, "They know it is waste of time but better than letting us know the truth."

That is my conflict about this announcement. Besides, 5 million a year is not very much. A graphene startup raised 50 million before even making a product on their own!

Good news nonetheless! Make kids excited about science and the masses about EBEs.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: Arbitrageur

However if the signal is close enough and/or powerful enough, it might be detectable above natural background

I was thinking the same thing-but it would have to be pretty damn close, maybe 50 light years methinks?

IF we ever got a signal, it would be a message from the past, just like your 'I love lucy' we could be getting messages from a long dead civilization-hell we had two world wars in less than 50 years let alone the cold war. Any species that sent any messages could have died out by natural or unnatural causes, or continued to thrive and that could explain some of the encounters of the second kind.

Maybe Schrodingers' cat could come into the equation, if we do get a signal that civilization could be alive or dead.

How about setting up something as simple as a tv that accepts broadcast signals, a radio, and a recording device to a satellite relay (if you're looking for tv/ radio signals). It's something I'd love to attempt, if I had the resources. Like "I Love Lucy", it's probably easier to get results that way than running it thru a computer and picking apart the signal like a small child with a plate of broccoli.

I am a fan of the K.I.S.S. method.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: Arbitrageur

However if the signal is close enough and/or powerful enough, it might be detectable above natural background

I was thinking the same thing-but it would have to be pretty damn close, maybe 50 light years methinks?

Yes, maybe even closer now, but as technology advances, we may be better able to process intelligent alien signals up to 50 light years away. That's still not much given the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across. One estimate I saw of intelligent civilizations in the Milky way was as low as 10 of them, but even if it's 100 or 1000, there still may not be any within 50 light years.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Correct.

I sent Carl Sagan $10 for the SETI program in the mid 1980's. They haven't found anything to date. Its a waste of taxpayer money, IMO. Although, I wouldn't mind having that job and the $70k to $120k salary. Shut it down.

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: ZombieZygote
Meanwhile there are millions of REAL lives currently living in poverty in this country. 😡

That's not going to change by throwing a few million bucks at it. However, if we find aliens and are able to figure out their technology, that could be "so long, poverty!"

Perhaps, but the $50 million per day that NASA gets of taxpayer money certainly could end it.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Agreed.

$10 million towards this type of 'search' is largely if not entirely a waste of tax payer dollars.

The truth about the presence of ebe's visiting Earth is hidden within the minds of a few, and behind the closesd vault doors of the most classified, top secret archives.

Bits of truth are riddled throughout human history, but the complete picture is mostly witheld from us.


I cant stress enough, however, that its not just the governments of the world covering it up. Of these ebe's wanted to be known, they'd have done so in a pretty obvious way.

Perhaps waiting for something.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
This is pure idiocy.

I've said this before-the universe is full of natural phenomena that emits low frequency radio waves and searching via low frequency radio waves is like trying to single out one person cheering at the superbowl while being blindfolded.

Nobody should understate the difficulty of detecting alien radio or television type signals. It is difficult in that many places we could search are so distant that the signals may be nearly impossible to detect above natural background noise.

However if the signal is close enough and/or powerful enough, it might be detectable above natural background in which case I hope you'll agree that "I Love Lucy" type television broadcast signals are nothing like naturally occurring electromagnetic radiation.

So it's not idiocy, but it would take some good luck to find a source close enough and powerful enough to be detected. There may not be intelligent civilizations that close to us. Maybe they exist on the other side of the galaxy where we can't detect them.

If we look, we might find something, but if we don't look, then we can't find anything.

All the ideas people have that aliens are already here are entertaining, but completely lacking in any scientific proof.

maybe SETI hasn't detected intelligent radio signals because more advanced civs don't use radio. communication via quantum entanglement of some means would be far more efficient and fast. maybe radio communication is like smoke signals to them

originally posted by: MantheDevilsApe
maybe SETI hasn't detected intelligent radio signals because more advanced civs don't use radio.

Or like us maybe their television broadcasts transitioned to cable which can't be picked up like the broadcasts. There could be many reasons.

communication via quantum entanglement of some means would be far more efficient and fast. maybe radio communication is like smoke signals to them

Communication via quantum entanglement of photons happens at exactly the same speed as radio and television, the speed of light. I know there are research papers saying the entanglement is correlated at least 10,000 times faster than the speed of light, but you need a classical light speed channel to interpret the communication, so it's really no faster.

The applications we have for it are even a little less efficient because they are more complicated, but they do have useful applications like private, secure communications which can't be intercepted by a third party without the other two parties finding out about it.

Q: What is quantum teleportation? Why can’t we use it to communicate faster than light?

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: shawmanfromny

This is pure idiocy.

I've said this before-the universe is full of natural phenomena that emits low frequency radio waves and searching via low frequency radio waves is like trying to single out one person cheering at the superbowl while being blindfolded.

While we are at it let's throw ten million dollars into EVP research so we can hear the dead talk!

Got only one thing for your post

Or what if there has already been covert mission to star systems beyond ours and the best thing found so far is an animal level intelligence ground hog, puppy, slug thing sucking algae off rocks? I think I`d want my money back.

Millions searching for E.T. or a way for money to change ledgers for whatever BS they want?

Noooooo it doesn't

A company wants to acquire funds and they will donate to their campaigns if hey secure them

originally posted by: ZombieZygote

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: ZombieZygote
Meanwhile there are millions of REAL lives currently living in poverty in this country. 😡

That's not going to change by throwing a few million bucks at it. However, if we find aliens and are able to figure out their technology, that could be "so long, poverty!"

Perhaps, but the $50 million per day that NASA gets of taxpayer money certainly could end it.

What if I told you that $50m a day NASA gets is only 0.5% of our budget. However, our military spending is around 54% of our budget.

Do you still think NASA is the right place to look for cuts?

You do have a point that those at the very top of the government probably already are in contact with ETs. What is probably going on, is the top brass want disclosure without admitting they know anything. To have this appearance, it only makes sense to publicly budget expenses towards this goal.

Any expenses that are "black ops" expenses wouldn't ever result in public disclosure. So they are really two different money pools. The more money we spend on the public search for ETs, and the more government groups we have publicly searching for ETs (they probably won't have access to any of the top intel), the more likely we are to have disclosure.

The bottom line is, the more money spent on this, the better. Especially if there is money spent on publicly investigating the current visitors we have, who are in flying saucers and the like. I'm positive there are black ops projects that have been working on this for years, but as I said, they aren't meant for the public.

Spending money on gaining knowledge is never a waste. As a gamer who has managed many empires, investing in tech results in a net gain in the long run. What IS a waste is war. I've played plenty of Civilization games before where a war will send countries into poverty and delay tech for centuries at times.

originally posted by: Kharron

originally posted by: ZombieZygote

originally posted by: Blue Shift

originally posted by: ZombieZygote
Meanwhile there are millions of REAL lives currently living in poverty in this country. 😡

That's not going to change by throwing a few million bucks at it. However, if we find aliens and are able to figure out their technology, that could be "so long, poverty!"

Perhaps, but the $50 million per day that NASA gets of taxpayer money certainly could end it.

What if I told you that $50m a day NASA gets is only 0.5% of our budget. However, our military spending is around 54% of our budget.

Do you still think NASA is the right place to look for cuts?

I'm aware, and yes, it is. As is the rest of our defense ( read: offense/genocide) budget.

They could end poverty in five years with a concerted effort. But nah, black budget warfare on humanity is the way to go.

You are aware but you still think NASA budget should be cut? Am I getting that right?

And even after referring to our defense (military) as offense/genocide, you still think NASA's 0.5% should be cut first?

Who could end poverty in five years?

originally posted by: StratosFear
Or what if there has already been covert mission to star systems beyond ours and the best thing found so far is an animal level intelligence ground hog, puppy, slug thing sucking algae off rocks? I think I`d want my money back.

Millions searching for E.T. or a way for money to change ledgers for whatever BS they want?

Space puppies sound delightful.

Even if we did receive a signal from 50 light years away.

It took 50 years to reach us. 50 years for our reply to reach them. And, 50 years to receive their reply.

All at the speed of light.

As said by others. We. Or they, could become extinct within the tx/rx time.

Even just communication would be a very long, boring venture. At light speed.

We most probably would never get to meet with any ET.

It would take too long to travel to and from planet to planet. Even for ET. They are still bound by the same laws of physics.

Even at light speed. It wouldn't be certain that the target is still where you thought. Or, even exist's at all still.

But. It is worth looking. And, all available bands should be studied. Analogue or digital.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

in order to meet the NASA objective to search for life's origin

Interesting...

So they are agreed on life as we know it did not originate on Earth?

A total waste of money that should be spent on our grid system
and borders.