SETI gets back to work

It seems that you can’t keep a good man down – or in this case, an interesting program dead. Private donations have managed to revive the SETI Institute’s effort to scan our skies worldwide while harnessing the power of idle computers to help them in their quest to look for any other kinds of intelligent lifeforms apart from those of us here on earth. The SETI Institute expresses their gratitude over at the website, saying “We are absolutely thrilled that thousands of people from all over the world stepped forward to declare their support for SETI science just when help was needed the most.”

The search for extra-terrestrial lifeforms will resume next month, having received $222,595 from more than 2,000 donors, where among the list include luminaries such as science-fiction author Larry Niven of Ringworld fame, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, and actress Jodie Foster – after all, she did play the role of an alien-discovering scientist in the movie Contact back in 1997.

The $200k plus amount will not go very far though, and more funding is required a short while after that. Do you feel like advancing their cause? Just keep your fingers crossed that the aliens whom we could come across would be nothing like the evil ones that we see conjured up by Hollywood, hell bent on destroying our earth for no good reason.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers