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SETI Institute
The Allen Telescope Array, a field of radio dishes in northern California looking for E.T. has been put in hibernation mode due to budget woes.
Financial woes have delivered a serious blow to the search for E.T. One of its best tools, the Allen Telescope Array in northern California, has been put on hold until new funding is located.
"It is a huge irony," Jill Tarter, director of SETI research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., told me today. "Now we actually know where to point the telescopes to look at planets, but we don't have the telescopes to point right now, so a very ironic situation."
For decades, astronomers have pointed their telescopes at stars they thought were likely to have planets around them. This February, the first results from the NASA's Kepler Mission revealed 1,235 potential worlds in orbit around distant stars.
ATA financial woes
Since October 2007, the array of 42 radio telescopes located about 300 miles north of San Francisco has been searching for radio signals from stars that could indicate the presence of technologically advanced extraterrestrials.
The array is the instrument most dedicated to the E.T. search. The first phase was built with a $25 million gift from the foundation of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and another $25 million in private donations. Plans call for an eventual build out to 350 antennas, though the recession has slowed progress. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
In a letter to donors, Tom Pierson, the CEO of the SETI Institute, explained that the array was put in "hibernation" due to budget woes and is being maintained in a safe state by a skeleton staff.
The array is a partnership between the SETI Institute and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. The institute is responsible for construction; the university for operations.
Franck Marchis, an astronomer affiliated with both institutions, broke the news about the hibernation in a blog post April 22. The ATA was put to sleep on April 15.
The Hat Creek Observatory, where the array is located, took a financial hit when the Radio Astronomy Laboratory lost funding from the National Science Foundation and the state of California that was used for its operations.
Running the ATA costs about $1.5 million a year and the SETI science campaign at ATA costs an additional $1 million annually, according to Pierson's letter.
New funding opportunities
One hope for new funding of long-term operations at the array is a potential partnership with the United States Air Force Space Command to use the array to help track space debris, a growing threat to satellites and manned spacecraft such as the International Space Station.
"This effort is ongoing and showing much promise, but near term funding has been delayed due to the same, highly publicized large scale federal budget problems we all read about in the news," Pierson writes in his letter.
NASA funding for SETI projects ceased in 1993, though the space agency continues to support tangentially-related research, including the Kepler mission to search for planets orbiting other stars. The SETI Institute hopes to raise $5 million to use the ATA to search the most promising Kepler targets.
"We hope that the public will get inspired to help us explore those Kepler worlds," said Tarter, who added the institute is also relying on citizen scientists to help develop computer code and algorithms for the setiquest and Galaxy Zoo programs.
The is all part of a push, she noted, to get people really thinking about what it means to be on the lookout for extraterrestrial intelligence and "to think about how we are so intimately related to the cosmos, to think about us in a bigger perspective so that perhaps we can do something about minimizing the differences we struggle with and make the point that we really are all Earthlings."
More stories on SETI and the ATA:
- E.T. calling? Here's what to do
- Hey, E.T.! The line is open
- SETI: 50 years of searching for E.T.
- New channels in the search for E.T.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
Luckily we already have a message from ET. Found on the NSA website and obtained through a FOIA request:
Visit: (dot) nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf replace the (dot) with a .
Finally, undebunkable disclosure from the US government that ETs exist! Why is this not being reported?!
It's obviously a conspiracy, this is was ET 5th column shutting down the SETI program to prepare for their invasion.
:) :) :)
Beside that - from a science view it's a loss. So what about Paul Allen telescope ET project?
This sucks, no funding for the real science/search for possible neighbors, but we still love to benefit from any entertainment based on the idea. How about the film/tv/gaming industry having a mandatory percentage of their profits going toward the science if 'aliens' are used? I know this is a pipe dream, but even if it were a 1/2 of a 1/2 percent, it would add up! And in our fantasizing we may get the the truth of the matter...
The Governments already know that ET exists, which is why funding for these types of projects has been drying up for years, sad but true...
If the government 'knows' this, why even start?
And why hide it? (And please come up with a better answer than the tired; 'it'll turn religion upside down, people will panic, etc.' B.S. Humans are more comfortable with the idea than at any time in history, and if a given religion can't adapt...too bad. It's not reality's job to adjust to faith, it's the other way around.)
Conspiracy theorists arise!!! the Big Bad Govt. is out to get you!!! Just because you think we're trying to get you doesn't mean we aren't!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!(SARC) Geez... get a life (brain) already! On raising capital through entertainment, that 's got some possibilities.... All that S.F. stuff out there....
I'm sorry, but a typical inner city high school kid knows more about how to load a Glock and how much 5 grams costs than how to read or write. Fix our internal problems before we start wasting tons of coin on looking for neighbors in space.
"I personally believe that there are two ways to make the world a better place. You can decrease the suck, and you can increase the awesome."
VlogBrothers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihpNNBmJypE&feature=youtu.be
Searching for intelligent life in the Universe is pretty inexpensive, and either result (yes there is / no there isn't) is deeply profound.
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM★Radio / Astronomy.FM)
So who decides when we reach this mythical 'all the world's problems are solved now, so we can go do some space stuff' state?
"Now we actually know where to point the telescopes to look at planets, but we don't have the telescopes to point right now, so a very ironic situation."
Not Ironic. Juxstaposed coincidental events.
Also, don't you think that if ETs were intelligent enough to communicate, they'd be intelligent enough to leave a message?
With their Interstellar Verizon??
From the article, it seems like this will be an unfortunate short term issue. Hopefully, they can work something out with the Air Force in using part of its capabilites to track space debris, allowing them to continue to search, albiet at a slightly reduced capacity.
Being classified as middle age and in the now, makes my say in the look for E.T. almost negligible.
I recall reading Charles Coombs,"GATEWAY TO SPACE", while in 1st grade and dreaming of being there someday. I still have not made it and unfortunately the demise of another program helping us to get there, seems increasingly common.
The dream is still there.
Wyomingsun1.
Yeah, it's sooo much more important to put grant money into the pockets of community college illiterates, and heck, somebody's got to pay for their multiple illegitimate offspring! Thanks, Obamissiah!
this would be the greatest discovery ever made,and yet we can't find funding,the pay off could be huge. we just don't know,when they call,we can't call back in real time so they say,but they just might know a way around it,what if they have survived for thousands of years,they might be able to help us better help ourselves.War ?to survive a long time as a civilization,you learn that war is not the answer,so I wouldn't expect them to arrive with guns blazing. Well hopefully Seti will find new ways to generate funds,let's hope they are able to start doing the science again,to what will be the greatest discovery ever.
What I find funny about all of this, is that it seems that they have allready recieved a signal and don't really want to release that to the public yet. Call me crazy if you want to but if you go to the NSA website and do a search for "Ket to Extraterrestrial messages" you will find what was sent to us almost 30 years ago. Its obviously in a mathmatical equation but in it is the periodic table along with other things, possibly showing what we have in common. It was sent to and recieved from Spudnic and was supposed to be released back in 04 but for whatever reason was released April 21st, 11. This is a msg that was recieved and mostly deciphered. They're here
Please look at the SETI website and especially the lecture tour. 150 employees most of which have nothing to do with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intellegence. i.e. lectures on eclipses in Mongolia (WTF). The search for life is just a hook to garner funding. With 150 employees I would guess their annual budget exceeds $20,000,000 per year. From the schedule of activities I would also guess that only a small percentage goes into the "search".
They deserve to fold.
It's Very Dark In Space .Mabey They Don't Want To Give Away There SECRETS.
Don't Ask Don't Tell Goes A Long Way.