Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? 647
Ponca City, We Love You writes "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action."
Most notably? (Score:3, Informative)
In one acronym: EIRP (Score:4, Informative)
Radio and TV signals will not be propagated very far into space because they aren't directed there. Sending signals to other stars, OTOH, would direct the transmitted power to outer space, not to the earth surface.
Think Before You Post. (Score:2, Informative)
The amount spent is in the millions and nowhere near the billion level. One billion man hours equals about 114 years of work by 1,000 researchers. How many scientists are working on SETI? A thousand? Probably far fewer.
You are very wrong in your estimate of the financial and manhour investment in SETI. I'm not an advocate of SETI research (it seems like a waste to me, as the chance of success is pitifully low), but let's not exaggerate out of ignorance or malice.
Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Highly Unlikely (Score:3, Informative)
The Worst Guy In History invaded Poland. We went to war to stop him. We won. HURRAH! Then we went home and left Poland to the tender mercies of The Second Worst Guy In History. I'm not sure they'll forgive us all that much...
Radio and TV power problems (Score:3, Informative)