Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury Scholars seti aff

Inherency

(The Associated Press News Organization: Shrinking funds pull plug on alien search devices ; Instead of searching for life, astronomers are searching for funding” 5-1-11 Lexis MLF 6-21-11)

In the mountains of Northern California, a field of radio dishes that look like giant dinner plates waited for years for the first call from intelligent life among the stars. But they're not listening anymore. Cash-strapped governments, it seems, can no longer pay the interstellar phone bill. Astronomers at the SETI Institute said a steep drop in state and federal funds has forced the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, a powerful tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, an effort scientists refer to as SETI. "There's plenty of cosmic real estate that looks promising," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the institute, said Tuesday. "We've lost the instrument that's best for zeroing in on these better targets." The shutdown came just as researchers were preparing to point the radio dishes at a batch of new planets. About 50 or 60 of those planets appear to be about the right distance from stars to have temperatures that could make them habitable, Shostak said. The 42 radio dishes had scanned deep space since 2007 for signals from alien civilizations while also conducting research into the structure and origin of the universe. SETI Institute chief executive Tom Pierson said in an email to donors recently that the University of California, Berkeley, has run out of money for day-to-day operation of the dishes. "Unfortunately, today's government budgetary environment is very difficult, and new solutions must be found," Pierson wrote. The $50 million array was built by SETI and UC Berkeley with the help of a $30 million donation from Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen. Operating the dishes cost about $1.5 million a year, mostly to pay for the staff of eight to 10 researchers and technicians to operate the facility. An additional $1 million a year was needed to collect and sift the data from the dishes. The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the billionaire's philanthropic venture, had no immediate plans to provide more funding to the facility, said David Postman, a foundation spokesman. The institute, however, was hopeful the U.S. Air Force might find the dishes useful as part of its mission to track space debris and provide funding to keep the equipment operating. The SETI Institute was founded in 1984 and has received funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and several other federal programs and private foundations. Other projects that will continue include the development of software and tools to be used in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Contact – Now Key Time

(Rebecca, April 3, The Daily Galaxy, SETI Chief Astronomer: "Humans Predicted to Make Contact with an Extraterrestrial Civilization Within Two Decades"--A Galaxy Classic, http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/humans-predicte.html) PG

This will allow SETI to home in on where the odds of life are possibly greatest. Currently, SETI’s mission to find life on other planets is like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. But now, whenever Kepler identifies planets most likely to sustain life, the team at SETI will be able to focus in on those solar systems using deep-space listening equipment. This will be a huge upgrade from their present work of randomly scanning the outer reaches of space for some kind of sign or signal. Also, upping the ante, is the recent discovery of Earth-like planets outside our solar system, which has led astrophysicists to conclude that Earth-like planets are likely relatively common in our galaxy. "Everything has caused us to become more optimistic," said American astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake in a recent BBC documentary. "We really believe that in the next 20 years or so, we are going to learn a great deal more about life beyond Earth and very likely we will have detected that life and perhaps even intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy."
Allen telescope array means contact likely before 2025

McKie, Science Editor, 10

(Robin, February 7, p6, The Guardian, “First contact: will we ever hear from aliens?”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/07/extraterrestrial-life-robin-mckie)

However, Seti scientists are now building their own telescopes, a classic example being the Allen Array, funded through a $11.5m donation from Paul Allen, co-founder - with Bill Gates - of Microsoft. To date, 42 radio telescopes, each with a six-metre diameter, have been erected at a site north-east of San Francisco. When the project is complete, a total of 350 dishes will transform earthlings' hunt for aliens. "When we do get a signal - and I am betting it will happen before 2025 - we will follow its source very carefully across the sky, as the Earth rotates," says Shostak. "Then we will ask other observatories to check it out, and if they back us we will simply announce the existence of a message from ET. There will be no message to the president and no interference from Men in Black.
We will make contact within the century – must begin to prepare now

Surette, staff writer Ottawa Citizen, 99

(Louise, The Ottawa Citizen, August 12, Lexis, “Professor predicts first contact with aliens some time next century: It's time to prepare for impact on society, Toronto academic warns”) PG

TORONTO -- Making contact with intelligent life in outer space will likely occur sometime during the next century, says a Toronto-based scholar in an article featured in a recently published American book of essays surrounding the next millennium. Few events in the sweep of human history will be as significant and as far-reaching as contact with intelligent life in outer space, and now is the time for us to begin to prepare for the social and physiological impact, says Allen Tough, a retired education professor from the University of Toronto and an expert in future studies.