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There is no doubt that the Australian campaign of Project Phoenix is a success. In terms of stars, frequencies, and signal types examined, it is the largest, most sensitive search ever conducted, covering 200 nearby Sun-like stars in the southern sky. Unlike previous searches, it followed candidates from two sites simultaneously until they could be proven to be from beyond the solar system or confirmed as human-generated interference. Extraterrestrial intelligence was not found in the Australian sky, but this largest of searches set the pattern for future, vastly more ambitious, automated surveys.
Much of Project Phoenix's equipment was originally developed by NASA. During this time, I lead the team that produced the signal detection technology. This technology might have been permanently lost when the NASA SETI program was canceled by Congress. Instead, the capability was transferred to the SETI Institute under a program designed to guarantee that government technology is useful to the public. As a NASA engineer, I participated in that transfer.
The digital receivers were in pieces, spread over dozens of workbenches. Their usefulness was more theoretical than I was literally overwhelmed by the brilliant success I saw around me in the control room in Parkes, Australia. What follows, written at the time, captures my feelings as I watched the equipment in full operation.
Impressions at Parkes
"My hat is off to the amazing success of Project Phoenix in Australia. I know that, in spirit at least, I am part of that team. But at the moment, I am speaking as a scientist and engineer seeing things for the first time. The progress, occurring from the time much of this equipment was part of NASA is remarkable, not to say stunning.
"Reading Barney Oliver's Cyclops Report permanently changed my concept of the possible. That amazing document proved, incontrovertibly, that civilizations like ours can easily signal between the stars. Knowing interstellar communication was possible changed the direction of my life.
"At this moment, I have the same heady, optimistic feeling I did when first reading Cyclops. Today, I am surrounded by the physical proof that we can complete this search, too large for any human, using machines. Occasionally bells ring, screens fill with data. Another possible candidate is sifted. Without assistance, our computers tell us of signals beyond the Earth. The control operators talk about the weather and dinner. Keeping an eye on the machines scarcely causes a pause in the flow of conversation. Yet the machines search.
"Compare this with the High Resolution Microwave Survey observations in Arecibo where a room full of people was required to keep a small fraction of the current equipment operating. Logging and data analysis functions, now automated, were carried out by hand. Most of the time observations were invalid, even with all the human assistance. Yet now, hour after hour, we observe. There are screens full of interesting data, instantly intelligible to even an untrained observer like me.
"We have, at last, imbued our computers with enough intelligence to give substance to our future vision. All that is needed is the determination to carry on to a successful conclusion. Every time I hear the signal for a new candidate, it gives me chills. It is the signal that success is within our grasp."
Cullers is Signal Detection Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center.
Who would have thought that after all those long hours on the telescope at Parkes, we'd miss the observing æ but we do! We're eager to get on with our next deployment. It was a long struggle to bring up something as complex as the Phoenix system on two antennas 8000 miles from home, but by the time we left Australia we'd learned an enormous number of lessons and the system was performing brilliantly! As I write this, all our equipment is still at sea, but we are busy codifying the lessons learned and making plans to turn over the baby-sitting tasks that we performed perched in front of our five display terminals. Now that we know what the rules are, and how we "experts" responded to the demands of a continuous observing program, we can teach our machines to do these same jobs, only better. Thus, in the future, we can stay home and observe from the control console we'll be setting up in our offices here in Mountain View!
When our ship comes in, we'll shoehorn the MRF (Mobile Research Facility) into the parking lot and the equipment into our labs and offices. We'll spend the time until next spring making improvements to the hardware and software that will (we hope) enable this remote observing capability.
Although our original plans had been to ship directly from Australia to Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the major upgrade there seems to be running on island time, and they won't be ready for us for another year. The same thing is true at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia. The construction of the Green Bank Telescope is behind schedule and so, consequently, is the decommissioning of the 140 ft antenna and its recommissioning as a dedicated antenna for Phoenix observations (both as a main site and as a follow-up site for Arecibo). Nançay Observatory, in France, is the other large northern hemisphere telescope we want to use in our target star observations. Guess what? They've also just begun a major upgrade. So we'll take advantage of this lull in the observing schedule to implement remote observing. In the spring we'll send off the MRF and begin testing out our remote controls at various sites, in preparation for returning to full time observing later in the year.
As Phoenix Project Manager, I had lots of unexpected tasks like shopping for diet coke, chocolate cookies and lolli-pops (that's chockie bickies and lollies in Australian) to keep the troops happy and well-fueled; also assigning bathrooms so we didn't overwhelm the ecologically-friendly septic system at the telescope, and scheduling the rental cars! Remote observing will mean an end to the worst part of my job æ keeping the team away from friends and family for too long. The MRF can connect up to the 140 ft or Arecibo or Nançay and we can observe from home as long as the lollie supply holds out!
Tarter is Project Scientist for Phoenix.
This Spring, Project Phoenix scrutinized 200 Sun-like star systems from Parkes, in Australia. It failed to find any extraterrestrial signals. In June, outside researchers were given access to the Phoenix equipment to pursue their own SETI strategies. These included examining nearby galaxies, especially the Magellanic Clouds, old stellar clusters, and even some Dyson sphere candidates. They, too, failed to snare any alien signals.
Is anyone discouraged?
No. To begin with, there is satisfaction in having honed the tools of the trade. The digital signal processing equipment, a frequent subject in these pages, was brought to a state in which it worked both effectively and semi-autonomously. Unlike many other SETI experiments, Phoenix observers were able to follow up all the interesting candidate signals. All of them.
That every signal was terrestrial merely bespeaks a familiar fact: uncovering cosmic companions is not trivial. Like those working on nuclear fusion, we should be prepared for the long haul. But unlike fusion research, there are no clear signposts of progress. The press asks "are you getting close?" For SETI, the question is meaningless. The media might just as well have asked Columbus a week out of port whether he had seen anything interesting. His answer would have been "No. Just more water." That would have been his answer every day until success.
The lack of interesting signals doesn't mean that ET's don't exist or we won't hear them. The search is on, and so far, so good.
Elsewhere in this newsletter you'll learn of the fantastic work performed by the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix team. In addition to Phoenix, our many Principal Investigators and staff continue their work on over two dozen individual research grants pursuing topics related to exobiology and a better understanding of the physical universe. I continue to be amazed at my own good fortune to be affiliated with such dedicated, bright, and wonderful people. I think Seth and the various authors in each issue of SETI News do a good job in communicating the excitement of this work to you, our readers.
As you know, Project Phoenix is funded entirely by philanthropic gifts. The last issue of SETI News noted that a major infusion of new funds was required by this summer if observations were to continue. I am happy to report that a substantial portion of the next year is fully funded. In recognition of our supporters, the SETI Institute has established an Honor Roll of contributors to Project Phoenix. The names that appear below are the financial contributors to Project Phoenix through June 30, 1995. These are the people whose generosity made the deployment to the Parkes Observatory a reality. These names will be engraved on a small plaque that will be attached to the Mobile Research Facility, forever commemorating their role in enabling the first deployment of Project Phoenix. Everyone at the SETI Institute (and every SETI enthusiast) owes these people a tremendous THANK YOU!
Allen (Paul) Charitable Foundation
Backus, Peter
Billingham, John
Ciccone, Tim
Egloff, Bruce
Every, John
Factor, Richard
Friend, Chris
Gardner, Calvin L.
Greenberg, Jonathan B.
Hangartner, Christopher, Jr.
Hewlett, William R.
Howe, Richard R. Jr.
Intenzo, Michael V.
Jacobsen, Kay
Jennings, Mary
Johns, David
Jugaku, Kazuko
Kinmonth, Robin McDonald
Lesyna, Larry
McKinney, Walter H.
Moore, Gordon (Moore Family Foundtion; Gordon and Betty Moore)
Norkus, John
O'Hara, Patrick J.
Oliver, Bernard M.
Packard (David and Lucile) Foundation
Pepper, Doc M. and Ryan C.
Pierson, Thomas and Elyse
Riggs, Kevin C.
Rogers, Bill
Shostak, Arnold
Stone, Thom
Tarter, Donald E.
Tarter, Jill C.
Taylor, Richard & Sally
Telford, Garry W.
Van Rensselaer, Cort
Wabbel, Tobias D.
Wallace, Janice L.
Watson, Michael R.
Yergin, Mark J.
Ahern, William
Anonymous (3)
Armstrong, Ralph
Arnold, H. J. P.
Bartholomew, Page
Berggren, Dolores
Blittman, Florence
Burlingame, Mark V.
Calvin, Melvin
Carraci, Vincent
Clarke, Arthur C.
Cook, Mary Cahill
Coulter, Gary
Cowen, Robert C.
Cuevas, John C.
Daum, Conrad H.
Davis, Dorothy J.
De Biase, Robert L.
Dervy, A. J. Santa
DiMarzio, Don
Dosek, Terry L.
Dovydaitis, Vincent
Eiland, Robert A.
Ellwood, Don C.
Estruth, Jerry T.
Field, Stephen M.
Flora, Michael
George, Virginia G.
Gertz, John
Goddard, Art
Goldberg, Jay
Gottesman, Stephen
Graboske, Harold C. Jr.
GTE Far East Services Ltd.
Guttman (Charles and Stella) Foundation
Hall, Robert N.
Hammond, Donald L.
Harper, David and Lynn
Hartzog, Henry
Heate, James
Helou, George
Highfill, R. Dewayne
Hoogstra, A. Julian
Humphrey, Frank
Hybart, Fred S., Jr.
Johnson, Vernon A.
Kapor, Mitchell
Karpen, Edward W.
Kelly, Kevin & Paula
Kerr, Ross C.
Kilsdonk, Thomas N.
King, William C.
Kinney, Morgan and 6th Grade Class, Sea Road School
Klausen, Jens
Klein, Laurence
Krauss, Leonard
Krupiarz, Christopher J.
Lamprey, Charles W. Jr.
Lane, L. W. Jr.
Lauritsen, Troy and Dana
Leigh, M. A.
Lowenstein, James A.
Maccone, Claudio
Magowan, Kimberley
Malmed, Andrew L.
March, David L.
Marlow, Andrew and Bennis, John
McKusick, Blaine C.
Myrick, Edward Lake
Naeye, Robert P.
North, Karen
O'Brien, Thomas R.
O'Reilly, Edward J.
Ortiz, Tony W.
Peltz, Ronald B.
Philpott, Edward
Posselt, Ann P.
Preto, Paul W.
Richards, John E.
Richter, Charles J.
Rinehart, John S.
Rummel, John D.
Sandstrom, Joan E.
Schmieder, Robert W.
Schraut, Regina F.
Schumacher, Ethan
Sepkoski, J. John Jr.
Shaw, Melvin R.
Shertz, Robert D.
Shultz, George
Simmons, Walter A.
Skinner, Michael J.
Sommer, Horst D.
Spalding, F. M.
Sparks, Tim L.
Stebbing, David
Stone, David
Sutherland, Donald
Tough, Allen
Tweten, David E.
Ueno, Hiro
Valdez, Jose J.
Venkatesh, E. T.
Wallace, Steven R.
Weinreb, Sander
Wells, Robert E.
Whipple, Jay N. Jr.
Wilhite, Ed
Williams, Roger A. C.
Wilson, Donald G.
Wilson, Steven B.
Winter, James
Woessner, Matthew
Wolbach, Murray III
Wolfarth, Richard
Yokogawa Hewlett Packard Ltd.
Zembrzuski, Daniel
Zirkle, Robert G.
Zuckerman, Ben
The Ohio State University's 110 x 21 m radio telescope (see SETI News, Vol. 3, No. 2) is under threat. Ohio State has the right to renew the Observatory land lease for another 10 years, so long as the lease conditions are met. One of the conditions is that the telescope be repainted green.
Because a small portion of the old paint contains a tiny quantity of lead, EPA regulations apply, and make repainting very expensive ($285,000). These EPA regulations are intended to prevent children from eating lead paint in their houses, but get misapplied to other things. Ohio State is reluctant to spend any of the $450,000 the Observatory has earned in grant overhead over the first 10 years of the lease on the Observatory itself, preferring to spend it on other things. In addition, there is radar research that uses the telescope, and the landlord claims that that is not allowed by the lease. The landlord does not wish to renew the lease, as they are selling the property to a developer who wants to build houses and enlarge the adjoining golf course. So they are using the painting and radar issues as sticking points. Ohio State is reluctant to get involved in a court fight over the Observatory.
A compromise is being negotiated that could perhaps turn out well in the long run. In exchange for shortening the lease renewal to some other period (3 years?) the landlord might remove the painting and radar restrictions, and perhaps pay a substantial cash buyout that would enable the Observatory to move to a new site where a large Argus telescope could be built. The buyout could provide for new land elsewhere, and infrastructure such as a road, laboratory building, utilities, etc. The existing Big Ear telescope would be abandoned and torn down by the landlord under such an agreement. Grant funds would still have to be obtained to actually build the Argus telescope, however. This could be a great leap forward for the Argus concept, and ultimately provide us with a new, state-of-the art telescope. It may be the best compromise we can salvage.
Of course none of this is guaranteed as yet, and there is the real possibility that Ohio State will take any buyout funds and spend them for things having nothing to do with the Observatory, as was done with the grant overhead funds. We are hopeful that written agreements can be obtained soon that will nail all this down.
The Ohio State administration is letting us know that they will not be sympathetic to the construction of the Argus telescope if any of its primary uses is SETI. Of course there are many other things for which Argus is suited, and we are pursuing them aggressively, but this attitude from people who have never visited the Observatory, never discussed SETI with anyone in the field, or read a single paper in the field is frustrating.
Dixon is with the Ohio State Radio Observatory.
The Planetary Society, which is running a simultaneous SETI search from both Massachusetts and Argentina, has just secured both corporate and private support for a massive receiver upgrade. Paul Horowitz, the Harvard University professor who has built the META (Million channel ExtraTerrestrial Assay) receivers being used now, suggested to the Micron Technology corporation, in Boise, Idaho, that they contribute 3,400 Megabytes' worth of digital memory for use in a new receiver sporting nearly a quarter-billion channels. This BETA receiver (Billion channel ExtraTerrestrial Assay) is scheduled to go on the telescopes October 9, and will be, according to Society Executive Director Lou Friedman, "one of the largest — if not THE largest — radio receiver on Earth."
Micron's gift was dependent upon a matching contribution from the Planetary Society. Since the memory chips have a value of $100,000, that amount was solicited from the nearly 100,000 members of the Society world-wide. Gratifyingly, they have contributed the desired amount so that the organization's SETI work can continue. According to Horowitz, "the Planetary Society's faithful support has enabled us to stay in the forefront of the most exciting exploration on Earth."
In the old days, folks calling the NASA SETI program would usually end up talking to Bob Arnold. Bob was the fellow who handled inquiries from the public and the media, and who helped in a myriad of ways to nurture the world-wide interest in SETI. When Congress cancelled the NASA program in 1993, Bob moved his office from Ames Research Center to the SETI Institute where he took up the gauntlet for Project Phoenix. His knowledge of SETI was extensive, and his speaking manner (honed by years of work in radio) was pleasingly professional.
Family concerns have caused Bob to move to Los Angeles, at great loss to the Institute. At present, his educational and informational duties are being carried out by Karenlee Deans, whose varied background includes adult education and computer software support. She is truly trying to pick up where the big one left off.
Imagine that you are vacationing on some exotic island. Being jet-lagged you wake up and, unable to sleep, you turn on your radio. You don't know the frequency on which the local FM station broadcasts, so being a systematic sort, you start at the low end at 88 MHz and slowly tune through the entire frequency range to 108 Mhz. If you spend one second per Hertz, it will take you nearly eight months working around the clock to complete the task. So much for your vacation!
Now imagine how long it would take to detect a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization when the frequency range is one thousand times greater. This is the case for the most favorable part of the radio spectrum for interstellar communications (1 - 20 GHz). Where to tune is just one of the many problems facing scientists who search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Is there a faster way to find the frequencies on which 'they' may choose to communicate?
Maybe! If they wish to communicate with us, they may try to simplify our search by choosing frequencies which we should be able to deduce. Using our knowledge of the universe and certain mathematically and physically significant scaling factors, a number of possibilities arise. First, we, and they, know that over 90% of matter consists of the simplest element — hydrogen — which emits a radio signal at a frequency of 1420.405751 MHz. Second, civilizations on Earth have discovered that certain numbers are extraordinarily important in nature. Examples of these are 'pi', 'e' (Euler's number), the square root of two, the Golden Mean = (((square root of 5)+1)/2), etc. Other physically significant numbers include the ratios of the masses of the proton to the neutron, and carbon to hydrogen. Combinations of important frequencies and constants are called 'magic' frequencies.
Together with people from the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix and the 64 m Parkes radio telescope in Australia, we are carrying out a search of 36 solar-type stars within 35 light-years for extraterrestrial intelligence at five magic frequencies. This distance was chosen because it has been over 70 years since the Earth began leaking radio waves, and hence sufficient time has elapsed for the detection of our signals and for the return of their replies. Perhaps you will hear about the results of our search on your radio when you are next on vacation!
Zadnik and Blair are at the Departments of Physics, Curtin University of Technology and the University of Western Australia, respectively.
You state that Parkes can [detect] a beam with one megawatt at a distance of 150 light-years. What is your projection for sensitivity increase? If the sensitivity increases with the square of the diameter of the... antenna, then would an increase of the diameter of Parkes [by a] factor twenty enable us to listen to their handy talkies?
Robert Siemerling, Arsta, Sweden
Increasing telescope size would, indeed, improve sensitivity, but is very expensive. To enlarge the Parkes dish by a factor of twenty would make it 1.5 km in size, and an impractical construction. Such a gargantuan instrument would be able to detect a transmitter of about 2,500 watts at 150 light-years (rather more power than a handy talky, and remember that this calculation assumes the extraterrestrials are using a transmitting antenna the size of the present Parkes.) — Ed.
In his response to a letter from Allister Lehan, the Editor devotes four lines to comments on the UFO problem. He (a) asserts that "the UFO phenomenon... postulates extraterrestrial presence on Earth;" (b) asserts that "the phenomenon... fails to engage many scientists;" (c) asserts that there is a "lack of physical evidence;" and finally (d) attributes (b) to (c).
Of these statements, I can agree only with (b). Statement (a) is meaningless: any person may advance any postulate concerning a phenomenon, but the phenomenon cannot return the favor. Statement (c) is contradicted by Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Condon Report. If (c) is in error, (d) also must be in error.
Peter A. Sturrock, Stanford, California
Edward Condon's Report on a University of Colorado UFO investigation, issued in 1969, concluded that it had failed to find evidence of extraterrestrial phenomena. — Ed.
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