Contact

The sight of stars always sets medreaming, just as naively as thoseblack dots on a map set me dreamingof towns and villages. Why should these points of light in the firmament, I wonder, be less accessible than the dark ones on the map of France?

--Vincent van Gogh,

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Artwork by: George Reed

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We have all looked up at the starry night and wondered if we are alone or if we share this vast universe with cosmic cousins. The evaluation of the Drake Equation is a sobering experience that may just confirm our inner prejudices. In the decades ahead we will know the results of the experiments that are currently being conducted. Contact attempts that involve sending and receiving are underway… 2

There is no easy way to the stars from the Earth…Seneca

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion

with confidence…Unknown

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Distances to the stars…Making a mental model: how big is the Milky Way?

Imagine that our entire Solar System were the size of a quarter. The Sun is now a microscopic speck of dust, as are its nine planets, whose orbits are represented by the flat disc of the coin. On this scale, the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy will be about the size of the United States! How far away is the nearest star to our sun? In our model, Proxima Centauri (and any planets that might be around it) would be another quarter, two soccer fields away. This is the typical separation of stars in our part of the galaxy.

Making a mental model: how big is the universe that we can see?

Imagine that our entire Milky Way galaxy were the size of a CD. On this scale, the nearest spiral galaxy, Andromeda, would be another CD about eight feet away. The furthest galaxies we have ever seen, pictured in the Hubble Deep Field above, would be CDs about nine miles away. The edge of the observable Universe, the furthest we can possibly see, is only another mile beyond that.

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Speed of light…

Imagine that the length 1 inch = 1,000 mph.

Speed of light = 670,616,629 mph.The model length equivalent would be nearly:

10.5 Miles !5

Of the 1,000 nearest stars within 3 dozen light-years, only one has the precise spectral class of G2V as the sun-Oddly enough, it is the nearest naked-eye star-Alpha Centauri-visible from more southern latitudes.

100,000 Light Years100,000 Light Years

Andromeda Galaxy: Near Twin of our Milky WayAndromeda Galaxy: Near Twin of our Milky Way

Interstellar Travel

Long Travel Times

Speed of Light 300,000 km/sec Light travels a distance of 1 “Light Year” in 1 Year

Speed of Modern Spacecraft : 10 - 4 Speed of Light v = 10 - 4 Light-year/year Nearest Star: Alpha Centauri d = 4 Light years Travel Time to Alpha Centauri = . . . t = d/v = 4 / 10-4

= 40,000 years

Dr. Geoff Marcy- "The Search for Habitable Planets and Life in the Universe

University of Illinois professor Cliff Singer calculated that the cost of an interstellar spacecraft propelled by a stream of very high-velocity pellets at a price of 1 million person centuries (1 million people working for a century), or roughly $10 trillion. Expensive? Not really, when one considers that is about the cost of one decade of the worldwide arms race.

Source: MERCURY Sept./Oct., 2002, p. 16

See Warp Drive, When? At NASA hyperlink::

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/warp.html

philosophy…sociology…

physics… the physics does not stand in the way.

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Slow speed requires space momsicles and popsicles

Suspended Animation

THE VISIONHuman metabolism safely slowed to a crawl, allowing astronauts to hibernate for months

on long space voyages.

THE REALITYThe idea of long-term human hibernation seems to face some biological obstacles, even

as the need for it recedes along with the prospects for long-duration manned missions to the outer planets.

Short-term suspended animation (lowering body temperature to greatly slow metabolic processes) is a reality. Surgeons can cool a patient down to temperatures in the 60s, stopping the heart, brain and major organs for nearly an hour while they repair aneurysms or perform other delicate procedures, and then revive the patient afterward with no lasting ill effects. A new technique that also temporarily replaces a patient's blood with a special solution may soon allow suspended animation for three to six hours at temperatures just above freezing.

But even so, some metabolic activity continues, and a slow but relentless buildup of harmful chemicals in the body limits the length of time the state can be safely sustained. Any colder, and there is no practical way to stop ice crystals from forming in tissue and doing massive, irreparable damage.

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He who never goes visiting thinks his mother is the only cook…Bantu proverb

Visiting appears to be expensive and challenging. High speed travel requires the production and control of high energy propulsion systems. The disposal of waste heat from such systems, defense against interstellar collision hazards and navigating at hyper velocities all pose problems that need solution. Low speed requires reliable repairable systems that would host a multigenerational crew that would require insurances of a healthy gene pool.

Artwork by: George Reed

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Rather than build this….

Build this!

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Fuel Economy of a Starship• At 0.1 c, energy is 0.7% greater than

Newtonian formula• At 0.5 c, 24% greater• At 0.9 c, 3 x greater• At 0.99 c, 12 x greater• At 0.999 c, 43 x greater• Each extra 9 more than triples the energy• Getting our 1000 ton ship to 0.9 c takes 1.1 x

1023 joules = U.S. energy use for 1100 years

Why send a spacecraft when you are interested in sending information? Look for their photons not

their spacecraft. Donald Goldsmith

3 E’S Of SETI*

Economic: Electromagnetic radiation signals are cheap to make

Efficient: They move through space at the speed of light

Effective: The signal moves out in all directions not just from point A to B as a spaceship would.

*Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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Non-Detections ofIntelligent Life in the Galaxy:

• Moon: No Alien Spacecraft, Crash Debris, Obelisk

• Mars: No sign of past visitors or colonies

• Earth: Lovely Planet for 4 Billion Years . . .

Yet, no Alien Settlement.

• 100’s of Telescopes: No Alien spacecraft spotted

• Night Sky: No Exotic Rocket Exhaust-gamma rays

• No Robotic Probes orbiting Solar System

• SETI: No Radio Signals in 40 SETI: No Radio Signals in 40 years.years.

Dr. Geoff Marcy- "The Search for Habitable Planets and Life in the Universe

To date, searches around this frequency appear to rule out the existence of a civilization within 50 light-years (LY) deliberately transmitting at or above a power level that could be transmitted from our own Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (used as a narrowly beamed radar system.) Furthermore, 10% of the star systems out to 4,000 LY have been searched for transmissions at this power level. Assuming a somewhat higher transmission power level, but still a very plausible power for a civilization even slightly more advanced than ours, searches to date have covered all stars out to 500 LY and 10% of the stars out to 40,000 LY—about 40% of the distance across our galaxy. If there are such technological civilizations, they are either not transmitting, or they are transmitting at a different frequency or mode (such as gravitational waves), or they are not very common. Although this is a rather weak conclusion, it is not trivial.

Source: The Physics TeacherOctober 2001

To keep current of searches visit the SETI Institute at:

www.seti.org 15

A separate question concerns the mode of communications as we are currently moving towards quieter radio and TV technologies. Old-fashion TV transmitters broadcasted at a million watts and most of that went straight into space. Satellite dish network systems transmit at just 20 watts and only about 2 watts go into space. If this continues we might actually become invisible…Dr. Frank Drake

In the words of First Officer Spock, “There are two possibilities, they are unable to respond, or they are unwilling to respond.”

Although supercomputers and robotic equipment are available for the search, and supposing we successfully guess the best broad range of waves to use for communication, we would still need to know:

•Which channel in that broad range another civilization has selected for their message (it would be far too expensive to broadcast over every one of the number of possible narrow channels)

•How powerful their message is, since signals “fade” with distance

•In what form might their messages arrive?

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“…I think the SETI enterprise can best beunderstood as an exercise in the archaeology of the future.

We are well aware of the archeology of the past: we find a site, a tumulus, or a ruin, and we take a spade and we dig into the ground, and if we are lucky, we discover Ur of the Chaldees or something marvelous! We never thought that we could examine the same thing in reverse time. But in fact, in a way, we can. [By detecting another civilization] it is of course their past we’re investigating…but our future. Maybe the spade will turn up a good site one day. We hope it will. It’s just a question of being patient.

When you’ve got the spade and you know the future is there, it seems very wrong not to dig…”

Philip Morrison, Institute Professor of Physics Emeritus,Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Sending spacecraft may not be the most efficient or effective way to make contact. Sending or listening to electromagnetic radiation seems to be a cheaper, faster and more effective way. This technique is not without its challenges either.

Astronomer Allen Hynek reminds us, “We don’t have UFOs only UFO reports. The patterns and contents of these reports constitute the UFO phenomenon. Thephenomenon says nothing about little green beings. Belief or disbelief in UFOsis irrelevant.” Carl Sagan adds, “The remarkable thing about UFO stories is that there are many interesting reports which are unreliable, there are many reliablereports which are not very interesting; but I don’t know of any that are both interesting and reliable.”

It must also be remembered that Earth is a highly surveillance planet. Weather and military satellites monitor the world constantly. Humans are equipped with cell phone cameras and the like.

Thoughts about U.F.O.’s…

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Human brains are sensors that can be easily fooled. A good magician knows the MAINSTAYS OF MAGIC: People don’t observe wellPeople don’t remember wellPeople’s viewpoints are different

In the following notice how remarkable the brain is in filling in the details…

Can you read this?

Olny cretian poelpe can.

cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! 20

They…Aren’t who you think…

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The timescale to go from being technological to having an artificial-based intelligence is very short. We keep looking for critters like us. The majority of intelligence out there is not biological but artificial. Seth Shostak-SETI Institute

We are not accustomed to thinking in cosmic time scales… Steven J. Dick

“TODAY’S COMPUTERS, INTELLIGENT MACHINES,AND OUR FUTURES”By Hans Moravec1979

The final section of this essay Dr. Moravec “considers the implications of the emergence of intelligent machines, and concludes that they are the final step in a revolution in the nature of life. Classical evolution based on DNA, random mutations and natural selection may be completely replaced by the much faster process of intelligence mediated cultural and technological evolution.” Considering the future of computer-human coevolution, Moravec concludes we are rapidly headed for a “post-biological form” for all local, living intelligence: “In the long run the sheer physical inability of humans to keep up with these rapidly evolving progeny of our minds will ensure that the ratio of people to machines approaches zero, and that a direct descendent of our culture, but not our genes, inherits the universe.”

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Past…we leveraged muscle with machine.Future…we leverage mind with machine.

For we shall all be cyborgs not in the superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in a more profound sense of being human/technology symbionts-thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry. Cognitive technologies are best understood

as deep and integral parts of the problem-solving systems that constitute human intelligence.

Andy Clark

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Years long ago people would gaze up at the stars. They would imagine mythical creatures, heroes and monsters. The stars were the home of the gods…they were magic. As human knowledge of the stars increased they became distant objects to be measured, calculated and classified. The fables and myths disappeared…gone was the magic…but is it really gone? Our need for fables is as strong today as it was then…today we seek aliens from other worlds…aliens from these same stars, strange and wonderful creatures, heroes, and monsters. They are the new fables, the new mythology.

Phil Groce

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Many of us hope that the Aliens will help us solve our earthly problems…but

NON-INTERFERENCE IS THE PRIME DIRECTIVE

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Where Where IsIs Everybody?Everybody?• Hypothesis: - Thousands of Advanced Civilizations in Galaxy• Migration Throughout Galaxy: Easy with robotic spacecraft=================================================

• Observation: No Aliens Detected, and no Traces. • Conclusion: Hypothesis possibly flawed.

( Ants eventually find your Kitchen)

Did we Overestimate the Probability of Intelligent Life in the Galaxy?

Dr. Geoff Marcy- "The Search for Habitable Planets and Life in the Universe

ContactCredit: Larry Mascotti

What kind of universe is it that so runs riot?

What kind of universe will make room for a single white plant when a hundred thousand pink ones are more than

enough?Chet Raymo

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