Microsoft co-founder and multi-billionaire Paul Allen comes off like some sort of playboy jock, what with his ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers as well as 3 monster yachts that are often mistaken for cruise ships. But with his funding of a pioneering telescope array designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, obviously he’s a truly a geek at heart.
The Allen Telescope Array was unveiled today, with 42 of the planned 350 radio dishes already collecting data from the nether regions of the universe. The 20-foot diameter pivotable antennas will scope out astononomical objects and phenomona such as supernovas, black holes, and little green men.
Anyone who commits their life to finding aliens is naturally optimistic about the existence of ETs. A SETI astronomer involved in the project predicts “I think we will find (signals from intelligent civilizations) by 2025.” Says a professor of astronomy “I expect the telescope to be fully online when we find that first Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star, so we can point the ATA at it and listen.”
This $50 million project hinges on several gigantic assumptions, one being: that this Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star is either directly aiming a beacon at us, or outputing radio signals as haphazardly as Earth’s traditional television broadcasts that allowed aliens to watch “I Love Lucy.” (Our modern methods such as cable television and direct-broadcast satellites emit few signals into space, which is a relief to humans cringing with embarrassment over the last decade of TV programming).
Still, at the very least, the ATA will stock the public’s interest in and their listless imagination in regards to astronomy, so the endeavor is not a complete waste of Paul Allen’s money… not like the Portland Trailblazers or something…
