The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

About this book

There are few questions that more excite the curiosity, the imagination and the exploratory bent of modern man than the one posed in this Are we humans alone in this vast universe? The question is usually expressed in terms of other possible intelligent beings, or other planets. We should not be predisposed to accept the proposition that we indeed are alone and unique as creatures possessing intelligence and freedom in this whole vast Universe.This book, first published by NASA in 1977 is the findings of a series of Science Workshops. The Workshop activities were part of a feasibility study on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center.The objectives of the Science Workshops to examine systematically the validity of the fundamental criteria and axioms associated with a program to detect extraterrestrial intelligent life; to identify areas of research in the astronomical sciences, and in other fields, that would improve the confidence levels of current probability estimates relevant to SETI; to enumerate the reasons for undertaking a search, the values and risks of success, and the consequences of failure; to explore alternative methods of conducting a search; to select, in a systematic way, preferred approaches; to indicate the conceptual design of a minimum useful system as required to implement the preferred approaches; to delineate the new opportunities for astronomical research provided by the system and their implications for system design; to outline the scale and timing of the search and the resources required to carry it out; to examine the impact of conducting a search, and the impact of success or failure in terms of national, international, social and environmental considerations; and to recommend a course of action, including specific near-term activities.This report presents the findings of the series of Workshops. The major conclusions of their deliberations are presented in Section I. First, an Introduction lays out the background and rationale for a SETI program, and then in The Impact of SETI, they examine the implications of the program. In particular, the Impact section examines the significance of the detection of signals and of information that may be contained in signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.