Is SETI Worth It? 806
njdube sent in this Space.com story about the money behind SETI that opens, "It's a risky long shot that burns up money and might never, ever pay off. So is searching for intelligent creatures on unseen worlds worth the candle? After all, aren't there better ways to use our monies and technical talents than trying to find something that's only posited to exist: sentient beings in the dark depths of space?"
WTF? srsly (Score:0, Informative)
It's like those oil-funded economists who kvetch (pun intended!) about whether it's "economically worth it" to stop humanity's extinction from global warming.
Can I get a job asking dumb ass questions for $$$?
SETI is cheap (Score:4, Informative)
Just because something involves "space" doesn't mean that it has a NASA-like budget.
The first trolls failed to RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Compare the costs. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Meta to discussion: who is this "we" you speak (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly accurate... (Score:5, Informative)
On a practical level, that's the best they can do. Using the best receivers that we currently have, it'd just barely be possible to detect a megawatt-level signal from a few light years away, if it was aimed right at us. Detecting the equivalent of leakage from a TV transmission is a complete fantasy. Unless there's someone out there that's really desperate to be heard, we'll never find them.
And of course, we're not about to start a program of sending similar signals to all the nearest stars - that'd take real money. If we detect a signal, then we might respond back.
Unfortunately, the same argument holds in the other direction, too. Any alien civilizations out there would be foolish to waste the resources to send a signal we could detect, before they were sure we were there to hear it. When I think about SETI, I sometimes imagine thousands of intelligent species out there, all monitoring their antenna arrays, waiting for a signal that none of them have the funding to send...
Re:Compare the costs (and formatting!) (Score:2, Informative)
One percent equals one hundredth, so the real answer is closer to one tenth of one percent: 0.0985% (hate to correct you, since your overall point I very much agree with)
Re:S.E.T.I (Score:3, Informative)
We don't know if workable fusion reactors can exist, either. Nor cures for cancer. Nor AI's. That was the point. Maybe you need another cup of coffee.
Yes, so? What's your problem? SETI is funded by donations. Just don't donate to them, donate to someone else, and you can see your money go anywhere you like. In the meantime, what business is it of yours where I put my money? I don't recall delegating any authority to you.
Re:S.E.T.I (Score:3, Informative)
I wish I could mod you up.
This seems to be the most important aspect of this discussion. The total of SETI's 'wasteful' expenses is like 14 million a year. 3/4 of that is privately donated, with 1/4 coming from competitively-awarded NASA Astrobiology research grants.
What are these supoosed "better ways" to look for alien life?
Re:S.E.T.I (Score:4, Informative)
$14 million dollars would fund the Iraq war for 88 minutes (based on the official Pentagon 'burn rate' estimate of $6.8 billion a month [zfacts.com]).