Astronomers Want Public Funds for Intelligent Life Search
February 15th, 2020Via: BBC:
The head of one of the US’s national observatories says the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe needs to be taken more seriously.
Dr Anthony Beasley told the BBC that there should be greater government support for a field that has been shunned by government research funders for decades.
His backing for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (Seti) marks a sea change in attitudes to a field regarded until recently as fringe science.
Dr Beasley made his comments at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle.
The director of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville in Virginia said that it was now “time for Seti to come in from the cold and be properly integrated to all other areas of astronomy”.
Related: Astronomers to Sweep Entire Sky for Signs of Extraterrestrial Life
