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seti_shutdown.txt
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1996-05-05
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From: dreher@bkyast.berkeley.edu
Subject: SETI Shutdown
Summary: Sky Survey dead, Targeted Search seeks funding
Keywords: SETI HRMS NASA
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 17:45:05 PDT
Last week, the Project Manager of the High Resolution Microwave
Survey, NASA's SETI project, received formal notification from the
NASA Administrator to shut down the HRMS project over 60 days,
pursuant to the action by the US Congress earlier this month.
Informed opinion is that there is almost no chance of reviving the
NASA project for the foreseeable future.
Background: The HRMS was the most ambitious SETI project to date.
The Sky Survey segment of the Project was based at JPL and had the
goal of searching the entire sky at all frequencies between 1 and 10 GHz
using DSN antennas, an enormous task. For comparison, the Harvard
META project searched the whole sky over about 2 MHz, and the
Berkeley SERENDIP project, currently running at Arecibo, surveys ~10
MHz over a substantial part of the northern sky. All these surveys
suffer from relatively poor sensitivities; they fail by many orders of
magnitude to be able to detect the emissions of planets with
technologies similar to ours. The META project, for example, requires
a transmitter with EIRP of 7,000,000 GW at 1000 light years (a typical
stellar distance in an all-sky survey) to produce a candidate signal. The
HRMS Targeted Search, run out of Ames Research Center, had a
different strategy: with long integrations on individual stars using the
largest antennas in the world, it would have achieved a sensitivity (at
Arecibo) sufficient to detect an EIRP of 0.4 GW at 10 ly (a typical
distance to a nearby star). The frequency range from 1 to 3 GHz was to
be searched for about 1000 of the nearest selected solar-type stars.
Current Status: 1) The Sky Survey has built and is using a prototype
system at L and X band. Observations will cease. The equipment will
be stored, probably at a DSN telescope. 2) The Targeted Search was
deployed at Arecibo last year with a 10 MHz pre-production system.
This system is now back at Ames, being upgraded into a 20 MHz
production system, in preparation for deployment to the 64 meter
Parkes antenna in Australia next year.. Unfortunately, this upgrade
means that everything has been taken apart. We hope to be able to
reassemble the 10 MHz system and get it into some kind of working
condition before the shutdown completes. 3) JPL was nearing
completion of an innovative feed/cryogenic amplifier system that
spanned 1 to 3 GHz in just two packages. We hope to salvage some of
this gear. 4) The HRMS was partially supporting SETI efforts at Harvard,
Berkeley, and Ohio State; much, possibly all, of
this funding will be lost. 5) A number of university scientists were
being funded as part of the Investigators' Working Group; these too
will get the ax. 6) The joint NSF/HRMS curriculum development
project at the SETI Institute can, we hope, be saved by reprogramming
at NASA.
Future Prospects: Since the Sky Survey depends largely on NASA
antennas and JPL personnel, prospects for the SS seem bleak. The
Targeted Search, on the other hand, was run primarily through the
non-profit SETI Institute (under a NASA Cooperative Agreement) and
planned to use non-NASA telescopes, so there is still a _chance_ to do
something. The SETI Institute has begun an emergency appeal to
foundations and wealthy individuals to fund deployment of the
Targeted Search. In the longer term, the Institute is seeking stable
private funding to allow continued development and sustained use of
SETI instrumentation, both internally and by support of external
groups. We hope to be able to improve the sensitivity by a factor of 5-
10 and the search speed by a factor of 10-30 within a decade.
John Dreher
Targeted Search System Scientist
dreher@bkyast.berkeley.edu
--
Rod Beckwith |$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$| The
Datacom I/S |"The great obstacle of progress is not ignorance,| Nite
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