The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 8, 2011

Official News page 4


REAL LIFE NEWS: SEARCH FOR ALIENS HALTED

by Hazed

We are no longer searching for extra-terrestrial beings - at least, not using the SETI Institute's telescopes. It has put their Allen Telescope Array into hibernation because it has run out of money. The radio dishes that have been searching the skies, looking for signs of aliens, have now ceased their work.

Scientists from SETI announced a few weeks ago that the project could not find the cash it would need to keep going for the next two years. Staff have now been laid off.

Money for science generally has dried up because of the financial crisis, and dollars for SETI is particularly hard to come by because it doesn't offer the immediate returns that other, more practical, projects do. Previously it was funded by NASA but then had to rely on funds from wealthy donors. Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, was a big donor - the Allen Telescope Array was named after him because he stumped up half of the money used to build it.

There is a small hope that the ATA could keep running if the US military can be persuaded to use it to track space debris that poses a threat to satellites. Otherwise, it will have to remain mothballed until the financial climate improves.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/26/seti_ata_suspended/

Meanwhile, if you want a graphic representation of just how little it would cost to keep the ATA going, relatively speaking, check out this infographic: http://www.microcosmologist.com/blog/?p=769.


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