Sorry, Ellie
April 27th, 2011
Predictably, public funding for SETI has dried up:
NASA had provided the financial backing for some early SETI projects, but that funding dried up under Congressional scrutiny, with some lawmakers criticizing the “chase” for Martians and flying saucers.
While I support science spending in general, and would greatly support anything which leads us to discovering life elsewhere in the universe, I frankly don’t believe that SETI will get anywhere. I explain that in this blog post from five years ago, but long story short, I think that if aliens are talking, it’s not with any technology we currently possess. I hate to sound like Sagan’s David Drumlin character, but it would be better to invest the science spending somewhere else.