Mankind is, at least for the moment, listening for its neighbors again. The decades-old search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) was interrupted last year when funding to operate the 42 radio telescopes in the Allen Telescope Array, with which the SETI Institute of Mountain View, Calif., listens to emissions from space. Private funds and a deal with the U.S. Air Force resurrected the program in December, which is news that gladdened the hearts of many of us hopeful of finding intelligent alien life out there somewhere. How long the SETI Institute can keep the lights on is still unclear.
People will no doubt continue to argue about whether SETI is worthwhile or a waste of money. Even its staunchest proponents acknowledge that the chances of imminent success are low — though the impact would be huge on science and humanity’s perception of its place in the cosmos. Meanwhile, its fiercest opponents would have to admit that the money spent on SETI is trivial: the program costs about $2.5 million a year, about 1/30th the cost of a small Learjet or about 1/3,000th of what the world spends on iPads.
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