98 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
98 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: NASA'S SEARCH FOR E.T. ABOUT TO BEGIN FILE: UFO2767
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MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK
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--------------------------------------------
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ARTICLE / OKLAHOMA MUFON
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--------------------------
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NASA'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE ABOUT TO BEGIN
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---------------------------------------------
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Provided by: Oklahoma Mufonews Newsletter January 1992
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Green Valley, W.VA. - It could be a crucial moment in human history,
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the start of a new age of exploration that leads to discoveries
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eclipsing those of Christopher Columbus. Or it may be an interstellar
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wild goose chase.
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Next Columbus Day, after almost two decades of skepticism and debate,
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the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to launch a
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seven-year, $100 million effort to scan the heavens for the equivalent
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of two little words: "Greetings Earthlings"
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The program, called the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,
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will be humankind's most ambitious effort so far to pick up radio
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signals from beings outside out solar system.
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"It would probably be the biggest advance since the birth of
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language," said astronomer Eric J. Chaisson, senior scientist at
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Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute, who sat on the panel
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that helped plan the search.
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For the first few years, all SETI work will involve borrowing radio
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telescopes normally used for astronomy or satellite tracking.
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But in 1995, when a huge new radio telescope is completed at the
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National Radio Astronomy Observatory here, SETI astronomers will get
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the full-time use of the observatory's current workhouse-a 140-foot
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wide, white steel dish that looms above the farmland in this isolated
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Appalachian valley.
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Observatory Director George Seielstad, who navigates a battleship-
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gray diesel sedan (the spark plugs in gasoline-powered engines cause
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radio noise) around the observatory grounds, is typical of many
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astronomers in that he has come to suspect that life probably has
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developed on planets orbiting other stars.
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And on some of those planets, he thinks, intelligent life probably
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has built technological societies.
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But the odds against finding those civilizations, he figures, are -
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well, astronomical.
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Even if extraterrestrial civilizations pepper the starry night,
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scientists speculate they may not want to advertise themselves. Or they
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might be too advanced, or not advanced enough to use radio signals.
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Or their signals may be drowned out by the rising babble of earthly
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radio transmissions, especially those produced by the world's military
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forces and the growing number of global communications satellites.
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Or those cultures may simply be scattered too thinly in what
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scientists call the "cosmic haystack" - the universe's billions of
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galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars.
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Chaisson, a former member of the panel of astronomers that planned
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the SETI project, compared the task to sifting the sands of the
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Atlantic beaches by hand in search of a single small diamond.
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Still, many scientists support the hunt.
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"The reward is so enormous." Seielstad said, "It's such a significant
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discovery that you have to find out. As humans, our intellectual
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curiosity sort of demands we find out if this is true."
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"At least this set of measurements will let us know something," he
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says. "You're trying. You're not just speculating. It's not just asking
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how many angels can dance on the head of a pin."
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"Anybody who thinks they know the chances of success is a fool," said
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astronomer Frank D. Drake, who has estimated that there may be a few
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thousand extraterrestrial civilizations scattered among the Milky Way's
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400 billion stars. "But my guess is we have a real chance of succeeding
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by the turn of the century."
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Others think it will take much longer. In 1985, one astronomer at a
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SETI conference offered the "fairly optimistic" assessment that a
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successful search might take 5,000 years.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |