Guys, IMO we won't find ET's in Space using the conventional computerized change in electronic straight line SETI screensaver approach. Since as civilization advances in technology, it focuses increasingly on visual communication, e.g., from radio to TV on Earth. Consequently, consider following up on this optical SETI approach online. Carl:
www.coseti.org/introcoseti.htmIntroduction to the COSETI Web Site
Let There Be Light!
The Optical SETI Resource For Planet Earth
Welcome to this Web site, the first on the World Wide Web dedicated
to promoting the Optical Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
Here you will find a different approach to The Search For
Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The Optical Search For
Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherwise known as Optical SETI
(OSETI), seeks to detect pulsed and continuous wave laser beacons
signals in the visible and infrared spectrums. The optical approach
to SETI using continuous wave laser beacons was first proposed by
Schwartz and Townes in 1961, one year after the laser was invented
and two years after Cocconi and Morrison proposed the microwave
approach to SETI.
The Columbus Optical SETI (COSETI) Observatory is a pioneering
prototype observatory, the first in North America, located in
Bexley, Ohio, USA, just four miles from downtown Columbus and close
to Port Columbus International Airport. Bexley is the place made
famous by syndicated columnist and best selling author Bob Greene.
The aperture size of the telescope employed by the observatory is
10" (25.4 cm) -- somewhat smaller than those huge microwave radio
dishes we are so used to seeing in TV programs and movies about
ETIs! The COSETI Observatory has been designed to detect both
attention-getting continuous wave and pulsed laser beacon signals.
Beginning in the summer of 1990, Optical SETI was promoted via
postings to Internet newsgroups and from October 1991 till December
1997, this was assisted by a Bulletin Board System (BBS). This Web
site was first launched in April 1996 on CompuServe, followed
shortly by two other associated linked sites on Sprynet. These
three Web sites were consolidated and ported over to Netwalk under
the domain name
www.coseti.org in August 1997, from which time it
has grown substantially. The COSETI Observatory Web site contains
an extensive amount of documentation about Optical SETI -- mainly
material that has been produced since the summer of 1990, when
Stuart Kingsley first started his Optical SETI research activities.
The COSETI Web site is also the means by which the observatory will
distribute observational data. It is intended that real-time data
will be put out over the Internet. Later, remote control of the
observatory over the Internet may become possible. In the meantime,
activities here may be monitored, from time to time, via several
WebCams.
If you have been knowledgeable about SETI for some time or have seen
the movie Contact (the reader is highly recommended to see this
wonderful film), you will be aware that until late summer of 1998,
little or nothing had been said by the "official" Microwave SETI
(MSETI) community to indicate that there was indeed a sensible
optical approach to SETI. This Web site has sought to redress this
oversight and show that not only is OSETI a viable scientific
endeavor, but that it is more likely that ETIs would use lasers for
their interstellar SETI-type free-space communications than
radiowaves. These very technically sophisticated civilizations, if
limited to Electromagnetic SETI and the speed of light -- an
assumption that is obviously debatable, would employ narrow targeted
beams rather than a quasi-broadcast approach which is so energy
inefficient. Unfortunately, the optical approach to SETI, for
reasons that are described herein and which are largely due to the
Project Cyclops Report, has suffered over 25 years of neglect,
particularly in the United States. Find out why the pioneering work
on observational Optical SETI was left to the Soviet
astrophysicists, Shvartsman and Beskin.
In 1998, when main-stream opposition to Optical SETI stopped, it was
suggested to the media that the reason there wasn't a major American
Optical SETI program during the past quarter of a century, was that
only recently has the technology matured sufficiently to undertake
this type of SETI research. This is revisionist history and is
simply not true. To see the proof of this statement, click here.
For the past quarter of a century, popular books and articles about
SETI have said little if anything about the benefits of lasers for
free-space interstellar communications during a time when we
terrenes have been developing such technology for more down-to-earth
applications. This period of time coincides almost exactly with the
duration of my career in photonics since starting my post-graduate
studies in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University
College London, England. The COSETI Observatory has consistently
maintained that the strong opposition to Optical SETI was
scientifically illogical, and clearly, this Web site has helped
other SETI scientists to see the light; be it ultraviolet, visible
or infrared! SETI on planet Earth has suffered from the "cult of
personality", and up to 1998, politics have prevented a more open
discussion of its efficacy. Of course, this move to the optical
spectrum was really inevitable if one believed that ETI signals
would not be found in the microwave spectrum. A negative result for
the microwave search was bound to cause a reexamination of the
microwave rationale for SETI.
The question has always been very basic -- "Would ETIs use hot
photons (visible or infrared) or warm, fuzzy ones (microwaves) and
would they have the advanced technical skills available to fully
make use of the very high gain potential of laser transmitters?".
Within these pages I have aimed to prove that "hot photons" are far
superior for wideband interstellar communications. By this means, I
hoped to encourage other professional and amateur scientists to
conduct their own OSETI research. In 1999, the COSETI Observatory
launched an associated E-Commerce site to assist others in
constructing their own Optical SETI observatories. In 2000, two
other associated new Web sites were started, The Optical SETI
Network and The Fourth Planet, the latter to promote the Manned
Exploration of Mars. I also have a personal Web site at
www.stuartkingsley.com, which provides access to all sites for which
I have some association.
Please drop me a line if you have or are about to start your own
OSETI research. Contributions of OSETI articles and data to this
web site from scientists, engineers and enthusiasts are requested.
Because Optical SETI is beginning to become very fashionable,
members of the print and electronic media are now giving greater
exposure to this endeavor. If you are from the media and
undertaking background research on this topic, you can reach me via
my CONTACT INFORMATION page. Please take your time in reviewing
this site for both information about the COSETI Observatory and for
links to other Optical SETI Web sites.
As mentioned above, during the summer of 1998, a major change took
place within the SETI establishment. This came after a period in
which opposition to Optical SETI appeared to be softening. The SETI
Institute and The Planetary Society now consider Optical SETI to be
a viable approach, with the major activity being directed at
detecting pulsed laser beacons. Even before the American SETI
community came around to support OSETI, various groups in Australia
had commenced their own research activities. The pulsed beacon
approach is based mainly on the ideas of photonics pioneer Monte
Ross, who at this time has still not been properly recognized for
his contributions to this field.
The Director of the COSETI Observatory has arranged and chaired for
SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering), two
international conferences on Optical SETI. A third conference, the
largest so far, is scheduled for January 2001, with two preview
lectures in the United Kingdom on November 6 and November 7. This
OSETI III conference will mark the 40th anniversary of Optical SETI,
and the new Millennium we see the start of a new Optical SETI age.
It is confidently expected that by the year 2005, most SETI
activities (by shear numbers and level of funding) on this planet
will be of the optical kind! Documentation relating to the
proceedings of the OSETI I and OSETI II conferences and a "call for
papers" for the OSETI III conference, may be found on this site.
RealAudio files from the first and second conferences are also
available for review on this site. Stuart Kingsley is also the
chairman of The SETI League's new Optical SETI Committee and a board
member of The Laser Museum & Space Signal Observatory (LSSO).
The year 2005 is also about the time that NASA was originally
scheduled to launch the Next Generation of Space Telescope (NGST).
Mankind should be planning now for space telescopes to be equipped
with instrumentation to undertake OSETI observations in the infrared
and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum, for which the earth's
atmosphere is not transparent. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
could also be retrofitted for Optical SETI. Look out for a link
here to be posted in 2001, concerning a petition to the NASA
Administrator, for serious consideration to be given to
instrumenting the HST and NGST for both monochromatic and pulsed
beacon OSETI. Ground-based Optical SETI observatories may not
discover a laser signal for the simple reason that the atmosphere is
opaque to the interstellar laser wavelengths employed by ETIs. If
ETIs are benign and do not wish to destabilize the targeted
civilization, they may use the target's atmosphere as a "safety
blanket". This would ensure that the discovery of the fact by the
receiving civilization that it is "not alone" is delayed until that
society is more mature and has space-based observatories. Of
course, high altitude balloon-based telescopes could also extend our
window through the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Please note that this Web site and the activities of the COSETI
Observatory are funded by the income from my professional photonics
day job and that I have no official (translation -- paid) position
with the SETI community. For the moment I am just a SETI
enthusiast! I say this as a way of encouragement to young people
who often email me to inquire as to "How they can get into SETI". A
new idea or an old idea (as in this case) that has languished around
for some time often needs a champion -- a person that will provide a
little nurturing before the idea gains acceptance in the wider
community. This has been one such occasion. Perhaps now we will
have success in mankind's search for the answer to that ultimate
question "Are we alone?". I have little doubt that in time it will
be discovered that we are just one of many intelligent species
within our own galaxy. Whether any of these species uses a
technology as crude and slow as "free-space interstellar laser
communications" is quite another question and one that will be hotly
debated for years to come.
For the latest popular media publications about Optical SETI, see
the November 2000 issue of Astronomy Now, the December 1998 and
June 1999 issues of Sky & Telescope, the August 30, 1999 issue of
Time Magazine and the September 1999 issue of the Smithsonian Air &
Space Magazine. A briefer version of the June 1999 Sky and
Telescope article may be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Also
see recent issues of The Planetary Society's Bioastronomy News and
the SETI Institute's SETI News. Click here for a more extensive
list of media publications about Optical SETI and The COSETI
Observatory.
Dr. Stuart A. Kingsley