Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI)

Description

In April 2010, fifty years to the month after the first experiment in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), scholars from a range of disciplines—including astronomy, mathematics, anthropology, history, and cognitive science—gathered at NASA's biennial Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) for a series of sessions on the search for intelligent life. This book highlights the most recent developments in SETI discussed at that conference, emphasizing the ways that SETI has grown since its inception. The volume covers three broad themes: First, leading researchers examine the latest developments in observational SETI programs, as well as innovative proposals for new search strategies and novel approaches to signal processing. Second, both proponents and opponents of "Active SETI" debate whether humankind should be transmitting intentional signals to other possible civilizations, rather than only listening. Third, constructive proposals for interstellar messages are juxtaposed with critiques that ask whether any meaningful exchange is possible with an independently evolved civilization, given the constraints of contact at interstellar distances, where a round-trip exchange could take centuries or millennia.

As we reflect on a half-century of SETI research, we are reminded of the expansion of search programs made possible by technological and conceptual advances. In this spirit of ongoing exploration, the contributors to this book advocate a diverse range of approaches to make SETI increasingly more powerful and effective, as we embark on the next half-century of searching for intelligence beyond Earth.
Preface
Foreword
Linda Billings, Pamela Conrad, Janet Siefert

Acknowledgments

PART I. Latest Advances in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

1. Exoplanets, Extremophiles, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Jill C. Tarter

2. Current and Nascent SETI Instruments in the Radio and Optical
Andrew Siemion, Henry Chen, Jeff Cobb, Jim Cordes, Terry Filiba, Adam Fries, Andrew Howard, Josh von Korff, Eric Korpela, Matt Lebofsky, William Mallard, Peter McMahon, Aaron Parsons, Laura Spitler, Mark Wagner, Dan Werthimer

3. Candidate Identification and Interference Removal in SETI@home
Eric J. Korpela, Jeff Cobb, Matt Lebofsky, Andrew Siemion, Joshua Von Korff, Robert C. Bankay, Dan Werthimer, David Anderson

4. A New Class of SETI Beacons That Contain Information
Gerald R. Harp, Robert F. Ackermann, Samantha K. Blair, Jack Arbunich, Peter R. Backus, Jill C. Tarter, and the ATA Team

5. Getting the World Actively Involved in SETI Searches
Jill C. Tarter, Avinash Agrawal, Rob Ackermann, Samantha K. Blair, M. Tucker Bradford, Danese M. Cooper, Gerald Harp, Jane Jordan, Tom Kilsdonk, Kenneth E. Smolek, Karen Randall, Rob Reid, John Ross, G. Seth Shostak, Douglas A. Vakoch

6. The Effects of the Ionized Interstellar Medium on Broadband Signals of Extraterrestrial Origin
Samantha K. Blair, David G. Messerschmitt, Jill C. Tarter, Gerald R. Harp

7. The Next Steps in SETI-ITALIA Science and Technology
Stelio Montebugnoli, Cristiano Cosmovici, Jader Monari, Salvatore Pluchino, Giovanni Naldi, Marco Bartolini, Andrea Orlati, Emma Salerno, Francesco Schillirò, Giuseppe Pupillo, Federico Perini, Germano Bianchi, Mattia Tani, Leonardo Amico

8. Project SAZANKA: Multisite and Multifrequency Simultaneous SETI Observations in Japan
Shin-ya Narusawa, Mitsumi Fujishita, Hiroki Akisawa, Kenta Fujisawa, Yasuhide Fujita, Takahiro Fukuzumi, Hiromi Funakoshi, Hiroyuki Geshiro, Hideo Hara, Kenji Hashimoto, Tsutomu Hayamizu, Ryo Iizuka, Kazumasa Imai, Takeshi Inoue, Masayuki Kagami, Kazuhisa Kageyama, Takeshi Kamitamari, Masahiro Koishikawa, Shouta Maeno, Hidehiko Matsuo, Takashi Miyamoto, Masaki Morimoto, Hiroyuki Naito, Sumio Nakane, Takeshi Nakashima, Masami Okyudo, Takaaki Oribe, Takaaki Ozeki, Makoto Sakamoto, Yasuo Sano, Naoko Sato, Masayuki Tachikawa, Yoshimasa Tai, Setsuro Takahara, Yoshitaka Takahashi, Mikimasa Takeuchi, Naoto Tatsumi, Akihiko Tomita, Shinji Toyomasu, Naoki Toyoshima, Makoto Watanabe, Takeshi Yada, Ryoji Yamada, Michinari Yamamoto, Hideyo Yokotsuka

9. Harvard’s Advanced All-sky Optical SETI
Curtis Mead and Paul Horowitz

10. The OZ OSETI Project
Ragbir Bhathal

11. The New Telescope/Photometer Optical SETI Project of SETI Institute and the Lick Observatory
Frank D. Drake, Remington P. S. Stone, Dan Werthimer, Shelley A. Wright

12. Large-Scale Use of Solar Power May Be Visible across Interstellar Distances
Louis K. Scheffer

13. Interstellar Radio Links Enabled by Gravitational Lenses of the Sun and Stars
Claudio Maccone

14. Cost Analysis of Space Exploration for an Extraterrestrial Civilization
Yvan Dutil and Stéphane Dumas

15. Understanding the Search Space for SETI
William Edmondson

PART II. Active SETI: Should We Transmit?

16. Unpacking the Great Transmission Debate
Kathryn Denning

17. Integrating Active and Passive SETI Programs: Prerequisites for Multigenerational Research
Douglas A. Vakoch

18. Building and Searching for Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons
James Benford, Dominic Benford, Gregory Benford

19. Seekin

Sujets

• Astronomie
• Astrophysique
• Astrophysics
• Mathematics
• Astronomy
• Science
• Physique
• Physical attractiveness

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438437958
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Edited by Douglas A. Vakoch

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (ceti) / edited by Douglas A. Vakoch.
       p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3793-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-3794-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Life on other planets. 2. Interstellar communication. I. Vakoch, Douglas A.
QB54.C653 2011
576.8'39—dc22 2010046427
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Frank Drake
Honoring a half century leading the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Preface
Just over fifty years ago, in April 1960, astronomer Frank Drake conducted Project Ozma, the first experiment to search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Although we have not found evidence of intelligence beyond Earth in the intervening decades, our understanding of the cosmos has increased tremendously. As merely two examples, we now know that planets circle other stars in abundance and that life can survive in harsh environments ranging from the cores of nuclear reactors to the vacuum of outer space. It is fitting, then, that as we search for signs of extraterrestrial technologies we should do so in the broader context of astrobiology, the discipline that studies the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.
This book arose from the most recent biennial Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon), organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and held the last week of April 2010. Chapters in this volume cover three broad themes in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). First, leading researchers examine the latest developments in observational SETI programs, as well as innovative proposals for new search strategies and novel approaches to signal processing. Next, both proponents and opponents of “Active SETI” debate whether humankind should be transmitting intentional signals to other possible civilizations, rather than only listening. Finally, constructive proposals for interstellar messages are juxtaposed with critiques that ask whether any meaningful exchange is possible with an independently evolved civilization, given the constraints of contact at interstellar distances, where a round-trip exchange could take centuries or millennia.
Those familiar with the history of interstellar communication will recall an earlier conference when reading the title of this book. The first major international conference on interstellar communication, jointly sponsored by the U.S. National Academy of Science and the USSR Academy of Sciences, was held in Soviet Armenia in 1971. The proceedings of that joint meeting were published as Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI) —the preferred name for interstellar communication in the early 1970s (Sagan 1973). Both of these conferences recognized the importance of including perspectives from multiple fields in the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Participants of the 1971 meeting covered a range of disciplines beyond the usual gathering of astronomers and engineers, and included representatives of fields such as anthropology, history, and linguistics. Similarly, the three “Search for Intelligent Life” sessions at AbSciCon 2010 encouraged cross-disciplinary dialogue by including scholars from all of these disciplines and more, as indicated in the following chapters.
The use of “communication” in the title of this book captures the potentially bidirectional nature of an exchange between civilizations, albeit over intergenerational timescales, as well as the interpretive challenges of designing and decoding the messages that are exchanged. The present volume covers a range of topics too often ignored by recent treatments of SETI, which have emphasized only the science and technology of listening for signals from other civilizations. This book complements the traditional focus on receiving signals by also analyzing how and why humankind might begin transmitting in earnest, as well as grappling with the complexities of making ourselves understood.
As we reflect on a half-century of SETI research, we are reminded of the expansion of search programs made possible by technological and conceptual advances. Project Ozma searched in a single radio channel; thanks to advances in computing, current searches can scan millions of frequencies per second, and with much greater sensitivity. So too have we broadened our search strategies, complementing the long-standing emphasis on detecting radio signals with new searches for brief yet powerful laser pulses. In this spirit of ongoing exploration, the contributors to this book advocate a diverse range of approaches to make SETI increasingly more powerful and effective, as we embark on the next half-century of searching for intelligence beyond Earth.
Douglas A. Vakoch
Mountain View and San Francisco, California

Reference
Sagan, Carl, ed. 1973. Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CETI) . Cambridge: MIT Press.
Foreword
AbSciCon—the Astrobiology Science Conference ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2010/ )—is like Woodstock for astrobiologists. Every two years, the rock stars of this field gather together to report on progress in their studies of the origin and evolution of life on Earth, planetary habitability, and the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.
More than seven hundred astrobiologists came to AbSciCon 2010, traveling from every continent—including Africa and Antarctica, where astrobiology field research is ongoing—for this science “jam” in League City, Texas.
Recent research findings relevant to astrobiology and on the AbSciCon agenda include evidence of past and perhaps present liquid water on Mars as well as an ice-covered liquid water ocean on Europa, the discovery of hundreds of extrasolar planets, observations of plumes of water-ice particles erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, the possibility of prebiotic chemistry on and liquid water beneath the surface of titan, and identification of new forms of microbial life in an ever-widening range of extreme Earth environments.
Enduring and widespread interest in the origin and evolution of life and the possibility of extraterrestrial life is—to resort to cliché—both a blessing and a curse. This broad, deep, cross-cultural engagement with the subject adds strength to the scientific rationale for astrobiology research and provides a great opportunity to foster science education with people of all ages.
That's the blessing part. Here's the curse part: the scientific definition of astrobiology is not necessarily the same as the public conception of astrobiology.
One aspect of the study of the origin and evolution of life in the universe that scientists have not yet found a way to adequately explain to nonexpert audiences is the vast chasm that stretches between our understanding of the emergence of life and the emergence of intelligence in life. Nonexperts have far less trouble than scientists do in condensing and simplifying the immense “spaces” of time and complexity that lead to prebiotic chemistry and then to life, to molecules and then to cells, and to microbial life and then to intelligent life. And it's not because they're ignorant. It's because they're not scientists. They're not trained to think like scientists. And they don't need to be.
The terms astrobiology and SETI —the search for extraterrestrial intelligence—are widely recognized inside and outside the scientific community. What these terms mean to people outside the community is something that we inside the scientific community might do well to understand, and explain, better than we do.
In the 1980s, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began a SETI research program culminating in the initiation of a search project in 1992, listening for radio signals originating from extraterrestrial technology. In 1993, Congress terminated the program, and NASA bowed out of the SETI enterprise. In the United States, since then, SETI work is privately funded. NASA's astrobiology program now funds research on the evolution of complex life, but not the evolution of intelligence.
In popular culture, nonetheless, boundaries between the scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial life and SETI—and, for many out there on the fringes of credibility, even “UFOlogy”—are blurred or even erased altogether. Continuing interest in the subjects contributes to demand for popular depictions of them that are highly speculative and, sometimes, even a bit scary.
Adding to the complexity of the educational challenge facing astrobiologists is that, for experts and nonexperts as well, a wide range of opinions exists on exactly what “life” is, and what “intelligence” is.
Many pop culture takes on extraterrestrial life—or, more colloquially, aliens—appear to rest on the assumptions that life