Stephen Hawking and Billionaire Team Up on $100 Million Quest to Find Alien Life

[left-of-center2012]

Source: ABC NEWS

Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner are teaming up in a $100 million hunt for alien life that will rely on a fleet of postage stamp-sized spacecraft to explore the universe.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will also join Milner and Hawking on the board of Breakthrough Starshot, a philanthropic initiative to focus on space exploration and the search for life in the universe.

Astronomers believe an Earth-like planet could exist within the "habitable zones" of Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, located 25 trillion miles (or 4.37 light-years) away.

Each nanocraft would carry cameras, photon thrusters, power supplies, navigation and communication equipment, and the newly engineered "lightsail," which would propel each probe. If a single nanocraft makes it to Alpha Centauri after a 20-year journey, it would take an additional four years to transmit that information back to Earth.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/stephen-hawking-billionaire-team-100-million-quest-find/story?id=38331436

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A postage stamp-sized spacecraft that will carry cameras, photon thrusters, power supplies, navigation and communication equipment?
Amazing !

[MowCowWhoHow III]

1. Make up your fucking mind Hawking!

Stephen Hawking: alien life is out there, scientist warns

Stephen Hawking has suggested that aliens almost certainly exist but has warned humanity not to try to contact them.

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7631252/Stephen-Hawking-alien-life-is-out-there-scientist-warns.html

[Travis_0004]

4. I like this one

The newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.-Carly Sagan

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. These probes are NOT able to contact any civilization there. He has made up his mind.

He has a lot more in his mind than the "fucking" you mention.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

6. The probes "phone home" Genius

Then the caper's up.

[D Gary Grady]

10. The scariest possibility ...

... is that some of those aliens might have the raged-filled personality of an Internet commenter.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

11. Expect it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Sure if radio is used but the plan is they communicate by light beams to earth.

Light beams are not broadcast radio.

They use light beams because then you can get more of the power to the solar system receivers instead of spreading it with a radio. Tight beams do not spill radio waves outside of the antenna & transmitter unit like radio does unless the radio has heavy shielding.

Genius yourself. Golly.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

14. I know the mode of communication

The probes know how to send info back to Earth, hence they can easily be reverse engineered to reveal the Earth's location. Or are these aliens Earth fuckwit caliber?

How would your neighbor feel if you were perving at them with a mini-drone which happened to ID your home. A visit with a baseball bat would probably be in your future.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Logically not a problem

If there are even advanced aliens (post-Marconi aliens) at Alpha Centauri, ...

We can't detect tiny nano probes zipping through our solar system at 20% c. If the aliens are sufficiently advanced to detect the teeny tiny probes zipping through at 20 % light speed, then they have already detected us more than 100 years ago when we started radio communications here on earth.

If the aliens are capable of capturing 20 % c probes (we are not capable, let alone detecting), then they are super advanced and that is why we can't detect their radio / TV / microwave because they would be so advance they wouldn't be using it. If they are less advanced and use electromagnetic communications other than tight light beams, we would have already detected them.

We have not detected them, so they are not there or they are super advanced.

If they are super-advanced, then they know all about us already and we better know about them like yesterday rather than remain ignorant of them.

Either way, sending a probe does not tip our hand and does not contradict Hawking's previous statements.

Hawking has a "fucking mind", hunh? Look in a mirror, please.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

18. There's a difference between knowing someone is there and someone invading your space

Even with a teeny-weeny Hawking approved nanoprobe.

But it won't affect Hawking either way.

[Orrex]

30. Mmm... Post-Macaroni Aliens.

[Skittles]

34. they likely know we are here and want nothing to do with us

no indeed

[Tab]

2. Cool shit

I won't be here in 25 years, but I'm mighty curious about what we might find.

[forest444]

25. Who's to say?

We might have already.

[Orrex]

31. Good God! They're more horrible than I dared imagine!

[Travis_0004]

3. If my math is right, if this was launched tommorow, it would pass voyager 1 in 10 days.

Pretty damn quick when voyager one got a 38 year head start.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. It would take much longer. Acceleration by photon is very slow.

Light pressure is almost negligible. It will take a long time for photons hitting the sail to accelerate it.

Photons have such little mass that we can't yet measure it.

[Travis_0004]

28. Makes sense

I just took the average speed over the whole trip. I realize acceleration would take a bit of time.

[Gomez163]

7. I think the $100 million should be spent on other things.

Like helping the poor, the needy, the homeless. How about the refugees. We don't need to go looking for little green men. They will find us soon enough.

[D Gary Grady]

24. Enough to give 20 million poor people an extra $1 a year for five years

I strongly support programs that help people in need. But I don't think that means we should never spend any money at all on anything else.

We're talking about a total cost from private sources of $100 million over several years. The U.S. spends almost $500 million in a single year on public broadcasting, and even that is only about one ten-thousandth of the federal budget. (It's also less than private support for PBS and NPR.)

The federal government spends nearly $400 billion a year (billion with a B) on non-healthcare safety net programs for the poor (SSI, SNAP, WIC, TANF, school lunches, housing assistance, unemployment insurance, and so on). I'd be in favor of expanding that, and while we're at it greatly increasing the relative pittance we spend on helping alleviate poverty overseas as well. But again, I don't think that means we can't also spend something on science and the arts.

Four years ago Steve Haroz published a graph comparing U.S. spending on science versus defense. The most striking thing was that even after adjusting for inflation, the grand total of all NASA spending since it was created in 1958 -- sending humans to the Moon and robot probes throughout the solar system while vastly expanded our knowledge of global warming and other things -- added up to less than we spent on defense for one year.

If you're looking to help those in need, I'm with you, but there are a lot better places to find the money than in a relatively microscopic program sponsored by private donations.

[DRoseDARs]

33. ...

[olddad56]

8. have they examined Donald Trump yet? Alien life might be right here on Earth.

[left-of-center2012]

29. Living in Trump's hair? n/t

[Pakhet]

32. No. It IS trumps hair n/t

[whistler162]

9. Yes $100 million all for me!

http://www.ketv.com/politics/trump-touts-wrong-evangelical-leader-as-a-supporter/38992586

[Kingofalldems]

12. Art Bell should be the Project Director.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. No. He is too stupid and unimaginative (fantasy conspiracy theories do not count) . . nt

[Kingofalldems]

20. Pssst, it was a joke.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. I know. He pulled my leg so I handed it to him. . . nt

[tavernier]

15. How many species of living things reside

on our own home planet? And we have not as yet learned to communicate and converse with a single one. Somehow I can't picture running into Spock and friends out there.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. Well yeah, we don't need to run into Spock to make finding alien lifeforms worthwhile

If we had to perfect every small and medium step before we made big steps, we'd still be using solid wood cart wheels.

[tavernier]

27. I take your point

and I considered that as well. The cynic in me simply feels that the world won't be enthusiastic if the alien life form turns out to be a jellyfish, when they are expecting Superman.

[keithbvadu2]

23. saving earth from space aliens

saving earth from space aliens

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientists-offer-plan-to-hide-earth-from-advanced-space-aliens_us_56febba1e4b083f5c607a91b

Scientists Offer Plan To Hide Earth From Advanced Space Aliens


"Some scientists have expressed concerns that if aliens knew we were here, they might want to come to Earth to plunder our planet’s resources — or worse. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, for one, has said that an advanced alien civilization might wipe out the human race the way a person might wipe out a colony of ants."

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calvin aliens cartoon

[rug]

26. He's going to need a bigger budget.

[Pharaoh]

35. Try a higher dimension Steve!

There's no intelligent life in this one!

[ZombieHorde]

36. So cool!

I love it.