How Paul Allen saved the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

How Paul Allen saved the search for extraterrestrial intelligence https://i2.wp.com/www.eresviral.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Cómo-Paul-Allen-salvó-la-búsqueda-de-inteligencia-extraterrestre.jpg?fit=211%2C146&ssl=1

How Paul Allen saved the search for extraterrestrial intelligence







                            
by Daniel Oberhaus October 16, 2018 (motherboard.vice.com)

• On October 15, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen (pictured above) died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 65. In addition to owning the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers, Allen founded a brain science institute, AI Institute, and Stratolaunch Systems, which was exploring private space flight. In addition, Allen almost single-handedly rescued the US SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) by donating more than $ 30 million to scientists who explore the cosmos in search of intelligent radio signals.

• During the 1980s, SETI was generally funded through programs and donations from participating universities. In the 1990s, as university funding decreased, NASA began to help fund SETI. But that only lasted a year before some in Congress complained that we were wasting money on a "great Martian chase." SETI realized that the only hope for the future was private financing.

• Barney Oliver, the founder of Hewlett Packard labs and SETI supporter, contacted billionaire friends Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Intel founder Gordon Moore and Paul Allen to successfully raise $ 20 million for SETI research Advance.

• SETI was leasing global telescopes for its projects. But, ultimately, SETI wanted its own dedicated range of radio telescopes to target hundreds of stars at once. SETI founder Jill Tarter put together a series of 350 20-foot radio telescopes, but she needed $ 25 million to buy them. Paul Allen stepped forward and paid the bill to create the first US SETI telescope array located in northern California. "There is no doubt that Paul saved the American SETI," said Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute.

• For 2007, the SETI set consisted of 42 telescopes. At the dedication ceremony, Paul Allen pressed the button to turn on the system. Over the last ten years, the SETI matrix has analyzed 200 million signals from thousands of stars, studied unusual high-energy radio emissions and even scanned the Oumuamua asteroid "in the shape of a skull" in search of signs of intelligent life. Paul Allen had focused his attention on other projects, and the matrix was closed for a year in 2011 due to lack of ongoing funding, however. But Allen remained a public supporter. Allen said: "I think everyone would admit it. [the prospect of communicating with extraterrestrials] It's a long shot, but if that long shot comes in ... "



On Monday night, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 65. At the time of his death, Allen was the 47th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $ 26 billion. During the last decades of his life, Allen used his wealth for an amazing variety of commercial and philanthropic interests. In addition to owning the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers, Allen founded a brain science institute, an AI institute and Stratolaunch Systems, which was exploring private space flight.

However, one of the areas of research where Allen made the greatest impact was also the one that spoke least: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). In fact, Allen almost single-handedly rescued the US SETI by donating more than $ 30 million to scientists who explore the cosmos in search of intelligent radio signals.

The first years of SETI in the United States were mainly defined through intermittent publicly funded searches, such as the program funded by the National Science Foundation at Ohio State University, which discovered the Wow! sign, or endowments of the university, such as the Harvard Sentinel Project. In the early 1990s, however, many of the first SETI programs were over. The best hope for detecting extraterrestrial intelligence seemed to be NASA's first foray into SETI, the Microwave Observation Program, which began its observations in 1992.

                          The founder of SETI, Jill Tarter.
Less than a year after the start of NASA's SETI program, he was killed by members of Congress who did not want to spend money on the "great persecution of Mars." He was not going to let SETI die at the hands of a few cynical congressmen, but he also realized that the only hope for the future was searches financed with private funds.

Fortunately, one of the first supporters of the SETI Institute was Barney Oliver, who founded and directed the Hewlett Packard laboratories. Then, in 1993, Oliver called Bill Hewlett and David Packard of Hewlett Packard, Intel founder Gordon Moore and Paul Allen to ask for their support.

"It probably only took Barney a few hours on the phone for each of them to commit $ 1 million each year for the next five years," said Seth Shostak, the principal astronomer at the SETI Institute, by telephone. "I'm not sure any of them were particularly interested in SETI, but I was interested in what Barney thought was a good idea."

This commitment of $ 20 million was financed by the Phoenix Project, a SETI program that was developed between 1995 and 1998. Over the course of three years, the Phoenix Project rented time at the Parkes radio telescope in Australia and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. to look for signs of the 800 Stars 200 light years from Earth.

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