Save Arecibo: because aliens don't do voicemail
By Paul Miller 
posted Jul 7th 2008 11:25AM
posted Jul 7th 2008 11:25AM
[Thanks, Brian]
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But then what will Jodie Foster and Matthew Mcconaughey use to listen to their washing machines?
Never mind them - just think how many fledgling Bond villains will never get the opportunity to construct an underground lair beneath a giant telescope...
It brings a tear to the eye :(
haha, i was just thinking that the pic was from the set of goldeneye
What about Agent Mulder and his adventures there? This will totally ruin any chance of an x-files 2
@nabil
Correction, x-files 2 is scheduled for release this summer :)
and Mathew Broderick vs. Jim Carrey in Cable Guy, right?
@Josh:
Hold on to that thought. Those Goldeneye scenes were filmed at the Arecibo Observatory.
yeah a scene in goldeneye was shot there...
ohh and PUERTO RICO FTW!!!1
that sucks.
Tell me about it. They need to get a few thousand gallons of 409 and clean that shit.
Perhaps our Alien looks so angry because he was trying to call customer support and has just been informed he'll be on hold until 2020.
Looks to me like the dish found an Alien! Mission accomplished. No more funding needed.
How about some foreign support?
It's not like they're asteroid-proof either.
Because we fund our own science projects :)
Foreign support would be appreciated. Turn it into an international site.
Why would we fund Arecibo? The shelters are located in the US and the only ones allowed to those shelters are nobelprize winners and some americans. Our money is better spent in research how to destroy these shelters after a deep impact.
Foreign support? Yeah, that makes sense...the other countries can just take a chunk of the billions in aid we send them and send it back to us.
@ johnzilla
There are many countries that don't recieve aid from the U.S.
Now why did you have to go and make this discussion all lame and ugly-like?
Maybe the money would be better spent on OUR planet?
You seriously think that detecting a giant asteroid isn't money spent on our planet? Genius. If an asteroid the size of Alaska hits anywhere there won't be any need to feed the homeless. Baby steps, though. We'll get to the homeless.
We are spending money on our planet. Especially in the Middle East
True, but unfortunately the money is being funneled into our Iraq debacle and bailing out airlines, Bear Stearns, et al.
@Ryan
If we detect said asteroid -- do you want to fly up there and detonate a nuclear bomb inside it or something?
@EricR
That's what Bruce Willis is for.
@EricR
That's what Bruce Willis is for.
@Ryan
The homeless? That's an easy problem to solve. Just feed the homeless to the hungry!! Soylent Green, anyone?
Grew up in PR, went there 2-3 times while in school. That place is fricking awesome
Don't shut it down, please? Think of my memories of childhood :)
Agree with PR being awesome. Absolutely beautiful countryside, babes, shores, babes, wildlife. A zillion types of bananas! Beautiful babes, there, too.
We really need to help these people, I mean, I have been there and there are more than a hundred people working there. I dont think any of them have preparations to work on another thing or place, if they cut the budget people will lose their jobs and there will be more unemployment here in Puerto Rico.
In my mind SETI@home is useless. I can understand how some SciFi fans would be interested though.
Talking of SciFi fans, how about the scientology people fund it?
I grew up in Puerto Rico too! never went to Arecibo tho..
But I wanna goooo, so don't shut it down!
You'd think it was a protected thing on the world heritage list, perhaps someone should email unesco.
I hated that level on N64.
For England, James?
I am _SO_ glad I'm not the only person who noticed that it looks a hell of a lot like that Goldeneye scene.
no for me...
Um, it looks like that Goldeneye scene because they filmed it here.
Goldeneye?
i dont think we need to worry about asteroids or anything like that considering the secrets about space and the military =p
i dont think we need to worry about asteroids right now considering all the secret stuff about space and the military =p
say it just once more and I think it will finally make sense
Where will Alec Trevelyan's hencement live now? I mean after he died they pretty much lost a father :(
On another note, they can't rip this down, its a hollywood landmark and a dedicated data source! If only pierce brosman were still bond...
Oh and Engadget? While I do LOVE the Aliens series, overusing it on anything that has to do with space or a satellite is wearin a bit thin, but still rocks :D
Why spend millions in SETI when you can spend billions in wars
Arecibo is also the name of the car service I would often use when stranded in Brooklyn. Them and Eastern.
But I would be hard pressed to write anything positive about them, let alone aid in their salvation.
You people do realize I was referring to the lackluster car services, not the observatory, right?
I've already written my letter!
And if you wanted to do something about this see the following link:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/arecibo_letter.php
SETI using radio signals is a waste of time. The loss of signal strength at the distances we're talking about make any information that might be present indistinguishable from background radiation. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply lying.
(SETI.org is a ridiculous fantasy. Take Drake's equation--how can you create an equation with dozens of unknowns? Truth is, he just made stuff up and suckers believed him.)
You know radio waves are simply low-energy electromagnetic radiation, right? Do you have any idea how far those things are capable of traveling? (hint: research Quasars)
For that matter, do you have any idea what information send? We aren't pumping out "The Adam Corolla Show" into space, we're simply sending repeating distinct, powerful patterns that wouldn't exist anywhere else, so that if anyone stumbled upon them, they'd pay attention to it.
And concerning the Drake Equation comment of yours: Those unknowns you're talking about that he just made up are called "variables". If you paid attention in 7th grade math class and beyond, you might have learned that we use them quite frequently in calculations every day in labs.
Do you even know what the variables in Drake's Equation actually stand for? Because they're pretty straightforward, it's not like he just pulled actual numbers out of his ass, he made a framework so that others scientists wouldn't have to "make stuff up" when estimating how much life is in the universe.
tl;dr - lrn2science. And while you're at it, lrn2math too.
"SETI.org is a ridiculous fantasy"
True, but not because of Drake. The problem is that we don't know what the signal (if any) is like, and the power will be too low to detect. The reason we could receive Pioneer 10's signals is that we know how it was coded, and we knew were Pioneer was. Under those circumstances it's possible to read a signal at a low -180dBm. (I still find it amazing, though! )
Expect signals from E.T. to be much lower. You can't read a signal at -300dBm.
the observatory at arecibo is great the size of this thing is breathtaking and inside they have made a wonderful experience for kids and adults alike they have many science projects that you can interact with i spent all day there with my wife and we had a great time i have visited it about 15 times an never get tired of going there the trip to it alone is great you get to see a good deal of Puerto Rico's country side. whenever i have friends meet over there its on my top 10 things to do alongside with the florecent bay @ la parguera the camuy caverns the beach,el morro (spanish fort),ponce's fire house,Gosalandia (watterfall and river you have to hike about an hour to get to) then thenight life 18 or older to drink in PR and you can buy boose at the gastation!!!, Serrallés Castle and others
la Parguera has really gone to shit thanks to the people who do the little boat trips out to see the microbes. They didn't take care of it. Tell them to take you to Fajardo's bioluminescent bay or Mosquito bay in Vieques. Now those are really impressive. And it is prohibited to take a gas-powered boats to the area. You have to kayak/canoe out there.
You can't blame them for pulling the plug on a project listening in on radio waves from deep space.
Any aliens worth watching out for would be using DAB by now anyway.
Guess Tina Turner was right.
GoldenEye, I found your weakness......
Exactly how much funding do they need? It's not like they still have to build and pay for the thing: It's already there! Aren't we essentially just talking about the salaries of some evil minio- er - scientists, and the electric bill?
If we need to cut corners, just cancel their HD cable bill and the porn channels. Well - maybe not the porn channels... it's hard enough being a socially inept scientist in the city, much less isolated in the frelling jungle.
It's a big satellite dish...I doubt they need cable... :-)
The real problem for Arecibo isn't that budget cuts will scrap seti@home... the problem is that once folks dig enough to discover that it isn't being 100% shut down, they'll just assume only "less than necessary" projects like seti are all that's affected. When I first got a "Save Arecibo" (kind of disingenuous) e-mail I tried to dig up the actual information. The only thing I could find that seemed noteworthy was that the entire radar program would be shutdown for lack of funds, and it actually is successful at tracking and identifying NEOs. I think the radar program is definitely something that should have remained in the budget plan, but have no real problem with the idea that non-priority projects would need to find outside funding sources.
The contribution of Arecibo aside, SETI is primarily funded by outside (private) sources. Most funding is on a per project basis and Congress has provided very minimal funding for SETI in recent years.
but do they text?
Well, let's hope that earth-threatening astroid doesn't enter by way of the poles then.
i've been there too, it's very cool.. but it should be able to generate enough funds privately to support itself. It shouldn't be attached to the government anymore.
I wish they would save it.
You know what you doing.
Move 'ZIG'.
For great justice.
Humans are dumb.
You won't find anything like that.
This is bad news. However it makes sense considering the current situation of the country and our interests. I doubt the mass public cares about NEO's or ET's when gas is $4.00 a gallon and the other expenses there are today. Hey but at any rate, if this is shutdown the least they could do is siphon a couple million away and finally do a sequel/remake/whatever to Goldeneye and no not a shitty EA version either. But thats just me thinking the way our politicians do.
Instead of writing a letter to Congress to make ME and other Americans pony up, why not write a CHECK to SETI instead. Yes I know it's billions of dollars to maintain, but it has not (to my knowledge at least) uncovered anything useful. As for it being our best chances at discovering a NEA, that's a matter of opinion, there are plenty of programs in place to detect them now. Plus, by the way, shutting down the SETI project would clear up quite a bit of time to make it search for NEAs instead!
The Arecibo Observatory, as a USA national facility, cannot receive private funding, I'm afraid. (But can indirectly, through Cornwell University).
And it has done much more than SETI and meteorite look-outs. Otherwise, there wouldn't be people asking for time to use it.
i think that pic is a photoshop.
No, It's a real alien. Photoshop is conspiracy and does not exist.
I did my PhD thesis with Arecibo, and it wasn't looking for the aliens.
Arecibo does a lot of things (atmospheric research, radio astronomy, planetary radar mapping) besides SETI. The SETI stuff is fairly passive. They don't use the dish to point and listen to specific places in the sky. What they actually do is use the data the telescope takes for the scheduled astronomical observations and search for embedded signals. There's loads of that to go through and that's how the money is spent at for SETI.
dunno, Would make an a sweet skate park!
I think Elijah Wood should pay for the upkeep of that site just for his years of torturing us with his horrid acting and the last 30 minutes of gayness in the return of the king.