Seti, the past, present and future

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2012

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jason Palmer explores the past, present and future of Seti.

In the second programme he looks at what sort of signal might ET send us, and how might we respond?

Jason talks to Seti's co-founder Frank Drake as well as its current active researchers, including Seth Shostak, Jill Tartar and Doug Vakoch.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
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0:45.7	slash podcasts.
0:48.0	You're with Discovery on the BBC, I'm Jason Palmer.
0:52.0	It's been almost a half century that we've been
0:54.3	listening to the universe in the hunt for evidence of intelligent alien life
0:57.4	so far without success. The hunt is called the search for extraterrestrial
1:01.8	intelligence or SETI.
1:04.2	Leading that hunt is the SETI Institute based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
1:08.4	About 400 kilometers north lies the vast Allen Array, a collection of 42 linked telescopes which said he uses to listen
1:14.9	out for alien communications.
1:17.3	But this flagship facility was forced to shut down last April for lack of funds. Donations from members of the public, former astronauts, and even
1:24.7	Hollywood actress Jody Foster scraped together enough money to keep going for a few more
1:28.7	months. But then what? Can SETI survive without sustainable funding? What keeps the researchers themselves from losing hope and just how has the
1:36.7	hunt for alien signals changed in these 50 years. This is Jason Palmer, Dr. Frank Jray.
1:45.0	My journey took me first to the SETI Institute in Mountain View, south of San Francisco,
	...

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