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Shakespeare said that "What's past is prologue..." so I will start by telling you what has happened to NASA's High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) before discussing Project Phoenix.
On September 22, 1993, Richard Bryan, a Democratic senator from Nevada, introduced an amendment to the NASA appropriations bill that terminated all support for the HRMS. Since this SETI project had been fully funded in the House version of the bill, reconciliation was sought in discussion at the joint House/Senate Conference Committee where the vote went against HRMS. On October 1st, nearly a year to the day after the start of observations at Arecibo and Goldstone, the Conference Committee effectively put NASA out of the SETI business.
In the nine years since the incorporation of the SETI Institute, its scientists and engineers have been cooperating with NASA's Ames Research Center to build the supercomputers and devise the observing strategies needed to conduct the Targeted Search portion of the HRMS. At the same time, our colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) were responsible for implementing the Sky Survey [see article by Mike Klein in this issue]. The fact that the critical technical talent for the Targeted Search was housed within the SETI Institute, a non-profit California corporation, allowed us to consider the possibility of continuing the Targeted Search with private money. Thus was born Project Phoenix. In the course of these efforts, Barney Oliver, who was formerly Deputy Chief of HRMS at NASA's Ames Research Center, and whose distinguished role in SETI is well known, joined the Institute as the Senior Technical Advisor for Phoenix.
Unfortunately, the Sky Survey hardware and observations were too intimately connected to NASA's Deep Space Network to permit a similar privatization of that effort.
Early October was spent by many of us learning to be fund raisers. Books were read, budgets were developed, a prospectus was written and lists were compiled of people we knew and those we wanted to get to know. Next came the telephone calls. We must have done something right, because we have already obtained commitments for $4.4 million of the $7.3 million required to meet our near-term need.
What is that need, and what about the long-term?
The near-term is defined as December 1, 1993 through June 30, 1995, and includes first doubling the size of the existing HRMS Targeted Search digital signal processors (furnished by NASA on long-term loan) and then an extensive observing campaign in Australia. At the moment, there is a scarcity of large, northern hemisphere telescopes available for SETI. The Arecibo Observatory is undergoing an extensive modification, the Nançay Observatory in France is preparing for its own upgrade, and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is not yet completed. The situation in the southern hemisphere is more favorable, which is why the HRMS Targeted Search had planned to simultaneously conduct observations with the Parkes Observatory and the ATNF antenna at Mopra during 1994-95. Project Phoenix will do the same, delaying the start of observations until January of 1995 because of time lost due to the funding situation.
The search will concentrate on some 200 stars visible only from the southern hemisphere, covering frequencies from 1.2 to 3 GHz. Candidate detections will be verified with the help of a pseudo-interferometer between Parkes and Mopra. For sixteen weeks these two sites will be dedicated to SETI observations, probably the last time this spectral band can be studied without substantial interference from commercial satellites, soon to be launched. At the close of this campaign, the instrumentation will be shipped to Arecibo Observatory and installed by June 30.
Taking the longer view, we will use Arecibo and other large northern telescopes to complete the observations of the 1,000-star target list developed for the HRMS. We will need about $3 million dollars per year to complete Project Phoenix, and raising the necessary annual funding will become our next challenge at the SETI Institute, once we have met the near-term goal.
Tarter is Chief Scientist for Project Phoenix.
As many of our readers are aware, Congress has told NASA to shut down its major SETI experiment, the High Resolution Microwave Survey. Despite this unexpected blow, the work done by NASA will not be in vain. In an accompanying article, Jill Tarter describes how the SETI Institute intends to continue the Targeted Search component of the NASA experiment with private money. Although fund raising efforts are scarcely a few months old, there is already reason to be sanguine that Project Phoenix, as the reconnaissance of nearby, solar-type stars is now called, will be collecting data at Australia's Parkes Telescope within a year.
We are determined that SETI News will continue as well. Recent issues have reached nearly 2,000 readers, and from the steady stream of correspondence received, it is clear that this newsletter serves an important function in bringing information on SETI to an interested community. While we have resisted the idea of a subscription fee for the newsletter, the growing number of recipients requires that we take a careful look at costs. To aid in our deliberations, we are interested to hear how you, the readers of SETI News, would regard the imposition of such a fee.
Shostak is Public Programs Scientist for the SETI Institute.
On October 12, 1992 more than 500 people gathered at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex (DSN) to inaugurate the Sky Survey Element of NASA's SETI Project, the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS). The SETI team from JPL worked with pride that day as the entire system — antenna, RF system, downconverter, spectrometer, signal processor and all the software — performed in concert and on cue to bring the gleaming white dish antenna to life. It was the beginning of a bold new chapter in the quest to search for evidence of other life in the universe.
One year later, Congress deleted all funding, and the project was to be terminated. After two decades of programmatic leadership and innovative technological development, NASA would no longer participate in SETI.
The news was devastating. The Sky Survey Team at JPL had just completed a special assignment to use the HRMS system at Goldstone to look for the Mars Observer after radio contact was lost with that spacecraft at the end of August. The team had made outstanding progress toward the completion of the hardware and computer software that were to become the operational system for the Sky Survey (the system at Goldstone was a prototype that covered only one-sixteenth of the frequency bandwidth of the final system). Several square degrees of sky had been surveyed in one narrow frequency band near 8.5 GHz.
Much had been learned about doing the survey with greater efficiency. The team was performing in the grand old NASA style — the "can do" spirit was very much alive as everyone pulled together to do whatever it took to get the job done.
Now, as 1994 begins, the HRMS Sky Survey is being terminated with no plans to continue. Some of the JPL team have been assigned to other projects, others are looking for work, and a few are finishing up the task of readying the equipment for use by the DSN and for radio astronomy research. Unlike the HRMS Targeted Search, the Sky Survey is not a likely candidate for funding from the private sector because the survey was designed to be carried out with NASA antennas and part of the equipment was developed in collaboration with DSN engineering.
The premature demise of the NASA HRMS project is a severe blow to SETI, but it should not be a fatal blow. The quest for knowledge about the role of life in the universe will continue, one way or another.
Klein was Sky Survey Manager for the HRMS Project.
Project Phoenix is rising. It will soon be making an unprecedented, systematic search for radio signals from the neighborhoods of approximately 1,000 nearby, Sun-like stars. Because Phoenix will use the largest antennas in the world, and because the receivers will be unequaled in terms of frequency coverage and signal-analyzing ability, this search will be far and away the most comprehensive undertaken. The decade long engineering effort by NASA that resulted in the digital receivers used by the now-defunct HRMS Targeted Search will become Project Phoenix's inheritance. The Targeted Search, begun in October 1992, was still in its ramp-up phase when Congress decided to pull the plug. Consequently, although three months' worth of data were collected at the Arecibo Telescope, this was still less than 0.1% of the intended search. It was as if the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria had been called back and mothballed within moments of pulling away from the docks. But NASA has agreed to make the Targeted Search instrumentation available to Project Phoenix. By building on this existing equipment as well as the core technical staff at the SETI Institute, Phoenix will be able to hit the ground running.
The immediate tasks for Project Phoenix are already underway: (1) to prepare the instrumentation for use (including doubling the number of frequency channels), and (2) to spend 5 months conducting observations of the southern sky using the Parkes 210 foot diameter radio telescope in Australia. To do so costs money. In the last three months, major contributions by far-sighted industrialists have raised $4.4 million. The donors include Mssrs. William Hewlett and David Packard, Intel Corporation's Gordon Moore, and Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft. Arthur C. Clarke has also made a contribution, and urged participation by European SETI supporters.
As good as this start is, another $3 million is needed to get Project Phoenix through its first observations in Australia. You can help, and I urge you to read the column by Tom Pierson elsewhere in SETI News. No SETI experiment can guarantee success. But only those with the vision to do the experiment will be rewarded by the discovery.
Project Phoenix is off to a good start. It has garnered support from a few of the country's most prominent high tech entrepreneurs/philanthropists. It has also received important support from people in all walks of life. Individual donations have ranged from $10 to $1,000,000. Each and every one of these gifts, no matter the size, is key to the future of SETI. All donors to Project Phoenix will receive, in addition to the regular SETI News newsletter, a periodic Donor Update package with special information and memorabilia related to the project. As a reader of SETI News, you have distinguished yourself as a person cognizant of the importance of SETI research. You represent the "grass roots" support that will be essential to successfully meeting our initial and long term funding goals.
How can you help? You can make a gift to Project Phoenix. Of possibly greater importance, you can help introduce us to potential major donors. We can provide you with detailed information about Project Phoenix, its goals, and its funding needs. We invite your participation!
I WOULD LIKE TO HELP PROJECT PHOENIX:
| _____ |
Enclosed is my tax deductible contribution. Please add my name to the Donor Update mailing list. |
| _____ |
I would like to receive more information about Project Phoenix and the fund raising effort. |
| _____ |
I believe I have information about potential major donor(s) that I would like to discuss with someone at the SETI Institute. You can reach me at: ___________________ |
| My name is: | _____________________________ |
| Address: | _____________________________ |
| |
_____________________________ |
Mail to: Project Phoenix, SETI Institute, 2035 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043
You can also contact the SETI Institute directly:
by telephone: (415) 961-6633
by internet: phoenix_info@seti-inst.edu
Take-off at 2306 hours. Remember, pick up your oxygen mask, hook it up and test it on the KAO. Teachers, be in the cockpit at 2240. Let's go get the data!"
"We are 40 minutes out of Moffett Field at 39,000 feet and ATC has given permission to climb to 41,000." "Right. Opening the dome. Checking pointing... Tracker, take over." "The acquisition camera has the guide star. Setting left beam.... switching.... right beam set. We are locked on." "Good. Data file 1.01. Start now." "What's that peak on the Mac screen?" "It's in the right place for doubly ionized oxygen, one of the lines we're measuring in this nebula." "I see." "Can someone reach the chocolate chip cookies? They're in my backpack under the seat."
The headphone chatter of graduate students, mission directors, principal investigators, computer operators, telescope operators, trackers and teachers continues for the next seven hours on board NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO), a converted C-141 aircraft which carries science teams to the stratosphere to observe the infrared universe.
Twenty-three pre-college teachers have flown on the KAO as a part of Flight Opportunities for Science Teacher EnRichment (FOSTER), a project at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center funded by the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.
To prepare for flights, teachers participate in an intensive summer workshop with lectures, lessons, tours, activities and internet training which provides tools to bring FOSTER to their students and colleagues. NASA Education Specialists visit FOSTER schools for teacher workshops, assemblies, and classroom presentations. NASA scientists and engineers are also available to share their work with students. Local FOSTER schools visit NASA Ames for specialized field trips which focus on airborne astronomy.
FOSTER brings science to students by bringing their teachers to science. For information and applications, contact me or Wendy Horton at the SETI Institute, (415) 961-6633. For those with e-mail, the address is edna_devore@seti-inst.edu.
DeVore is Principal Investigator for the FOSTER project.
Stuart Kingsley writes that he is busy remodeling his Columbus, Ohio home for an expanded optical SETI experiment. He anticipates a formal opening of the Columbus Optical SETI Observatory on July 20 of this year. Kingsley also remarks that the next optical SETI conference (OSETI II) is now scheduled for January, 1996.
We hear that publisher Carl Helmers is beginning a new magazine called SETIQuest. Those interested can contact Helmers Publications, Inc., 174 Concord Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.
Jean Heidmann, of the Paris Observatory, brings to our attention recent technical papers by his hand, including: "A Reply from Earth: Just Send Them the Encyclopaedia," in Acta Astronautica, Vol. 29, p. 233 (1993).
Dr. Heidmann has also submitted two additional SETI papers to Acta Astronautica: "Crater Saha: A Candidate for a SETI Lunar Base" and "Astrosail and SETIsail: Two Extrasolar System Missions to the Sun's Gravitational Focuses."
The International Conference on SETI and Society originally scheduled for June, 1994 in Chamonix, France, has been rescheduled for June 11-17, 1995. This is for already-invited participants only.
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