ernie  03-11-2003
05:25 PM ET (US)
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I, for one, welcome 100 - 200 of our new A-Team watching ET overlords.
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Gary O'Brien 03-11-2003
04:30 PM ET (US)
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What if they already did and the secret message is encoded into "Too Shy"?
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TimmyT 03-11-2003
04:24 PM ET (US)
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Starring Kajagoogoo!
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JNelsonW 03-11-2003
04:01 PM ET (US)
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What if we decipher one of these messages from SETI, and it turns out to be the script of an A TEAM-esque show, only a thousand times more awesome.
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gilbert 03-11-2003
03:52 PM ET (US)
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Hey, any species ever formed ever (that includes the dinosaurs and that fungus I just pulled from my toes) would be honored to follow the weekly exploits of 4 men, fugitives from justice, guilty of a crime they never committed, helping the poor and defenseless against corporate, government and crime hoods.
I think that as soon as our ET friends show up, they'll request a couch, some popcorn, a 52-inch TV and entire library of the A-Team. And the last two seasons of Benson.
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Stefan Jones 03-11-2003
03:33 PM ET (US)
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Drake's equation is supposed to find the number of civilization likely to communicate with us.
The problem with creatures from really weird habitats, such as gas clouds, is that they probably wouldn't be building radio telescopes.
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Gary O'Brien 03-11-2003
03:16 PM ET (US)
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Let's face it, Drake probably would have inhaled the sentient cloud and called it a day.
Still, we need somewhere to start, as imperfect as it is. Sadly, anyone who even considers sentient life in the galaxy is considered a crackpot who lives in his parent's basement watching Star Trek. The whole SETI search is based on a form of communication that we understand. Who's to say that broadcasts by an alien intellegence is in a form we can even understand or recognize. As stated, we're in our technological adolescence.
For that matter, who's to say we're even an intellegent species? We sure think so. But we're also the beings that gave rise to Kajagoogoo and The A-Team.
Of course, to get a lunar telescope, we actually have to get humans back out of orbit and travelling somewhere. I think I'll just wait for the Chronosynclastic Infindibulum to take me away.
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JNelsonW 03-11-2003
03:04 PM ET (US)
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My problem with Drake's equation, and with my memory of high school science I'm more than qualified to comment on this, is with the variables R, ne, and fi. Don't these assume that the same conditions necessary for human life are the same for any intelligent life? Pure Hubris, I say!
In fact, Why do you even need a planet or a star for intelligent life? What if there was some kind of like, intelligent cloud floating around space? I guess your "Drake" hadn't counted on that, had he?
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Dan Z. 03-11-2003
02:57 PM ET (US)
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Carl Sagan used to say that the biggest threat to humanity's future was surviving our technological adolescence. It makes me wonder whether L in Drake's equation should be replaced with something like:
f(e) = fraction of intelligent civilizations with colonizable celestial bodies in their solar system
... since, without anywhere to go, it seems kinda obvious that any technologically advanced civilization is going to self-destruct in a cosmically insignificant length of time, and with somewhere to go, or several somewheres, L approaches infinity.
Perhaps a lack of easily colonizable celestial bodies in other solar systems might explain the Fermi Paradox, but we probably won't know until we build a lunar radiotelescope ourselves.
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Craniac 03-11-2003
02:37 PM ET (US)
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Haven't these fools seen "Jimmy Neutron" ? We're doomed.
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Gary O'Brien 03-11-2003
01:59 PM ET (US)
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It's all Drake's Equation. N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L Where, N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable. R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life. fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems. ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life. fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears. fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges. fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space. L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space. After coming up with all your assumptions and crunching numbers you're usually left with a very, very small nubmer. Still, the video display of SETI@Home makes pretty colors. Edited 03-11-2003 02:00 PM
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chico haas 03-11-2003
01:58 PM ET (US)
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With Pluto downgraded, improves to 12.5%.
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JNelsonW 03-11-2003
01:41 PM ET (US)
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But is it really a needle in haystack? We've really only been able to examine about 9 different planets, one of those has life on it. Therefore, by my calculations, approximately 11% of planets have intelligent life on them.
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Alex Steffen 03-11-2003
01:19 PM ET (US)
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I wonder if, given the needle in the haystack nature of the SETI project, finding alien transmissions can really be any sort of a fair judgement as to whether SETI@Home is/was a successful model?
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JNelsonW 03-11-2003
12:20 PM ET (US)
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What a brave new world! I remember a time when there was only 150 known alien species.
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