Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: SETI Past, Present, and Future

✍ Scribed by H. Paul Shuch (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 561
• Series: The Frontiers Collection
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book is a collection of essays written by the very scientists and engineers who have led, and continue to lead, the scientific quest known as SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Divided into three parts, the first section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Past’, written by the surviving pioneers of this then emerging discipline, reviews the major projects undertaken during the first 50 years of SETI science and the results of that research.

In the second section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Present’, the present-day science and technology is discussed in detail, providing the technical background to contemporary SETI instruments, experiments, and analytical techniques, including the processing of the received signals to extract potential alien communications.

In the third and final section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Future’, the book looks ahead to the possible directions that SETI will take in the next 50 years, addressing such important topics as interstellar message construction, the risks and assumptions of interstellar communications, when we might make contact, what aliens might look like and what is likely to happen in the aftermath of such a contact.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xxi
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
A Half-century of SETI Science....Pages 3-11
Project Ozma: The Birth of Observational SETI....Pages 13-18
Project Cyclops: The Greatest Radio Telescope Never Built....Pages 19-45
“Wow!” - A Tantalizing Candidate....Pages 47-63
SETI: The NASA Years....Pages 65-85
From HRMS to Phoenix : Up from the Ashes....Pages 87-98
SERENDIP: The Berkeley SETI Program....Pages 99-105
Millions and Billions of Channels....Pages 107-127
Front Matter....Pages 129-129
ATA: A Cyclops for the 21st Century....Pages 131-145
Optical SETI: Moving Toward the Light....Pages 147-182
Distributed Processing of SETI Data....Pages 183-199
Project Argus: Pursuing Amateur All-Sky SETI....Pages 201-225
Gravitational Lensing Extends SETI Range....Pages 227-237
Detection Algorithms: FFT vs. KLT....Pages 239-273
Implementing the KLT....Pages 275-284
A Sentry on the Universe....Pages 285-304
Pondering the Fermi Paradox....Pages 305-321
Front Matter....Pages 323-323
Focusing the Galactic Internet....Pages 325-349
SETI in Science Fiction....Pages 351-371
What’s Past is Prologue: Future Messages of Cosmic Evolution....Pages 373-398
Front Matter....Pages 323-323
METI: Messaging to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence....Pages 399-428
A Contrarian Perspective on Altruism: The Dangers of First Contact....Pages 429-449
L : How Long Do They Last?....Pages 451-466
What Will They Look Like?....Pages 467-475
Being Technological....Pages 477-496
After Contact – Then What?....Pages 497-514
Back Matter....Pages 515-538

✦ Subjects

Astronomy, Observations and Techniques; Astrobiology; Signal, Image and Speech Processing