Post by uforn on Jun 22, 2011 12:21:06 GMT 1
Q and A with ‘alien hunter’ Seth Shostak
Self-proclaimed “alien hunter” Seth Shostak, 67, is a senior astronomer at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and the host of its weekly radio show, “Are We Alone?” The nonprofit institute was founded in 1984, and Shostak has worked there since 1991. By scanning the skies for radio communications, Shostak expects that SETI will find intelligent life on another planet by 2025. He’s sticking to his prediction even though SETI’s major search tool, the Allen Telescope Array, was put “in hibernation” in mid-April due to a lack of funding. The array is named after Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated $25 million to SETI in 2001 to develop it and $5 million to the University of California at Berkeley to get it running at the school’s Hat Creek Radio Observatory. The Allen donation has been spent, and the state of California doesn’t have the money to keep the array in operation. We spoke to Shostak about SETI’s financial crisis and the hunt for ET.
— Rachel Saslow
How did you get interested in aliens?
I got interested in astronomy at the age of 8 because I was looking at an atlas of the planets in my parents’ apartment in Arlington, where I grew up. I got a telescope at age 10, which is pretty normal, and by the time I was in eighth grade, I had already seen a lot of cheesy sci-fi films.
You just never grew out of it.
I think a lot of kids are interested in two science subjects: dinosaurs and aliens. The reason is almost genetic; we’re hard-wired to be interested in things that might be a little dangerous. It’s why when you watch Animal Planet, the shows are always about snakes and alligators and not so many about gerbils.
So what, exactly, is your job?
The idea is to make a scientific search for intelligent life in space. The total number of people that do a job that has the same description as mine in the entire world is fewer than 10. There’s a lot of effort looking for life in space — that’s a lot of what NASA does, but they’re not necessarily looking for the kind of life that can hold up its side of a conversation.
Have you ever gotten a signal?
We get signals all the time. This is something the public doesn’t realize. They think you never get a signal or if you do, you jump out of your chair and yell, ‘Eureka!’ but that’s not the way it is. The signals are caused by telecommunication satellites or radar from the local airport. The computers sort that out; it’s all automatic.
How are we going to respond if we do get a signal?
There are some protocols. You would verify the signal, make sure it’s extraterrestrial and not some prank. Then you would tell everyone, but the protocol says you won’t respond without international consultation.
I don’t think the aliens would care what our response would be. To begin with, if you pick up the signal, it’s coming from hundreds of light years away and it would take that long for the response to reach them. So there’s no hurry to grab the microphone.
Who pulled the plug on SETI in April?
It only came to crisis situation in April. This has been a slow-moving collision. The observatory [in Northern California] is owned by [UC] Berkeley, and the state of California is in dire financial straits. Berkeley could no longer afford to keep the observatory open, so beginning April 15, we’re in hibernation.
What were you working on at the time?
The experiment that we were doing, and we hope to continue to do, is to point antennas at new planets discovered by NASA’s Kepler telescope.
What happens now?
If the Allen Telescope Array can’t be brought back, and I think it can, then we go to Plan B, which is unclear but likely is to use other people’s equipment.
Do you still feel confident that you’ll have success by 2025?
The prediction is based on the fact that SETI keeps getting faster because the equipment gets better. If this experiment is going to succeed, then it’s going to succeed during a generation, not hundreds of years. It’s either going to work rather quickly or there’s something wrong with the idea.
Source:
www.washingtonpost.com/national/science/q-and-a-with-alien-hunter-seth-shostak/2011/05/31/AGfsGOdH_story.html