A Story of the SETI Variety
A quick story from Jill Tarter…
I hope they have iphones on Kappa Ceti, because there’s a message on route to them right now thanks to the combined efforts of Joe Davis and the Arecibo Observatory radar transmitter. See here for the full story or here for part 1 with more pictures.
Who knew? I wasn’t aware that Joe was working on this 35th anniversary transmission; should he have done this? Mike Nolan expresses the tricky spot he finds himself in as the representative of Arecibo Observatory and the quirky, treacherous history of federal funding for SETI, and perhaps, by association, funding for Arecibo. Others might think he shouldn’t have done that because it potentially puts the Earth at risk (see discussion on Active SETI, perceived risk, and David Brin’s article in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI). At the SETI Institute we have long sought a way to have an INCLUSIVE conversation on this topic, one that would represent nationalities, ethnicities, gender, religions, traditions, and cultures. So far our efforts have selected primarily first-world, Anglo-Saxon males. One of the things I’m excited about is that my TED wish may find a way to use new social-networking technologies to actually enable this global dialog.
This story by Joe Davis exposes the silly, the political, the passionate, and the innovative sides of science and scientists of the SETI variety – I think you’ll really like it.
