SETI League considers faster-than-light travel
From: Ed Komarek <ekomarek@mail.CairoNet.com>
Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 17:38:07 -0800
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----- Forwarded Message Follows -----
Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 10:31:08 +0200
To: cydonia@majordomo.pobox.com
From: JJ Mercieca <mufor@maltanet.net>
Subject: [M-TRAC - MSAA] SETI league considers interstellar visitation
(forwarded with permission from CNI News)
SETI LEAGUE CONSIDERS INTERSTELLAR VISITATION
A Radical Departure From Previous SETI Position
In an editorial posted to the website of the SETI League, (see
http://www.setileague.org/editor/travel.htm) Dr. Peter Schenkel
proposes that SETI, the scientific search for extraterrestrial
intelligence, should pay heed to changing views among physicists
and space propulsion experts and consider the possibility that
some advanced ET races might achieve faster-than-light travel,
thus enabling them to visit the earth.
This represents a dramatic contrast to official SETI orthodoxy,
which holds that interstellar travel is by definition impossible,
as is ET visitation. It should be noted that Dr. Schenkel is
offering only his own opinion, not rewriting SETI dogma. Still,
inasmuch as the SETI League, a respected international
association of professional and amateur astronomers, is featuring
Dr. Schenkel's views in their guest editorial of the month, it
does seem that a shift is in the wind.
The SETI League maintains close ties with the better known SETI
Institute, but is a separate organization. CNI News is not aware
that the SETI Institute has responded to the SETI League's
posting.
Excerpts from Dr. Schenkel's editorial follow:
Should SETI Protocols Consider Interstellar Travel?
by Dr. Peter Schenkel (schenkel@ecnet.ec)
The question is far less academic than it may appear. It has been
argued that because of energy requirements, interstellar travel
is "Impossible." Also for other intelligences. But most space
propulsion specialists disagree. According to a preliminary
CIESPAL survey, 80 percent of those interviewed feel confident
that we will reach low c velocities in less than two centuries.
NASA director Dan Goldin spoke of plans to send a craft to Alpha
Centauri in 20 to 25 years.
Therefore, to think that civilizations thousands or millions of
years more advanced technologically and scientifically than we
would not have a spacefaring capability seems extremely
farfetched, to put it mildly. Both Carl Sagan and Arthur C.
Clarke have emphatically advocated a much more optimistic view.
If we have reason to believe that much older intelligences abound
in the universe, then we must admit that the probability that
such aliens might send spaceships or automatic probes to explore
the Galaxy and stray upon our expanding electromagnetic wavefront
is neither greater nor smaller than the chance to find "the
needle in the haystack" via radioastronomy. Contact could occur
either way. [T]he possibility should not be ruled out that an
alien craft or probe may enter our solar system and attempt an
encounter with us.
Since the impact and consequences of this contact scenario would
be incomparably greater than [radio contact], ...mankind should
be prepared politically, legally, communicationally and
psychologically for all contact scenarios, not just for one.
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RELEVANCE OF THIS MESSAGE: SETI
Index: SETI (#24)
Created: May 19, 1998
