Science and Technology Working Group

science and technology working group Where next, SETI? Today's searches, and in particular the Institute's Project Phoenix, are based on approaches developed during the period of NASA participation in SETI. These approaches are sound, and largely valid today, but the blisteringly fast advance of digital electronics and opto-electronics suggests that it's time to review the techniques we use to search for cosmic neighbors.

More than two dozen years ago, a comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of SETI was made and published as "Project Cyclops." This review involved a series of meetings from which the distilled wisdom of scientists and engineers was poured into a landmark book by editors Barney Oliver and John Billingham. In 1997, the SETI Institute decided that - a quarter century after Cyclops - it was time to once again engage in such an exercise.

Consequently, between 1997 and 1999, the so-called SETI Science and Technology Working Group (STWG) met in a series of workshops held in San Jose to consider the best ways to do SETI between now and the year 2020. What new radio telescopes should be built? What about target strategies? How should the burgeoning optical SETI enterprise be best encouraged?

Hayes Convention Center, San Jose All these subjects and more were deliberated by the STWG, and all were considered in light of the thundering advance in technology that promises to double computational capability every 18 months.

The STWG was Chaired by Ron Ekers, Director of the Australian Telescope National Facility, with Kent Cullers, of the SETI Institute, serving as Deputy Chair. Participants included a top-notch, international group of scientists, engineers, information specialists, and technologists from the hi-tech industry.

Tangible results already spawned by the STWG include development of the One Hectare Telescope by the SETI Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, as well as new optical SETI experiments being run at both Berkeley and Harvard.

The STWG's final report is now being prepared, and will appear as a SETI Press publication in the Fall. It's one book that true SETI enthusiasts will want to have gracing their shelves.

(last updated - May 19, 2000)

SETI Institute Science and Technology Working Group Membership


EKERS, Ron -- CHAIR	Australia Telescope National Facility
CULLERS, Kent -- DEPUTY CHAIR	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
BACKUS, Peter	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
BECKLIN, Eric	UCLA/SOFIA Scientist
BREGMAN, Jaap	Leiden Observatory
BUTCHER, Harvey	Leiden Observatory
CARLSTROM, John	University of Chicago
CUTLER, Len	Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
DAVIS, Mike	Arecibo Observatory
DRAKE, Frank	SETI Institute
DREHER, John	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
FISHER, Rick	NRAO, Green Bank,WV
HILLIS, Danny	Walt Disney Imagineering
HOROWITZ, Paul	Harvard University
KELLERMANN, Ken	NRAO - Charlottesville
LIDDLE, David	Interval Research Corporation
MYHRVOLD, Nathan	Microsoft Corporation
PAPADOPOULOS, Greg	Sun Microsystems
POPOVIC, Zoya	University of Colorado
ROY, Alan	NRAO - Socorro, NM
SCHEFFER, Lou	Cadence Design Systems
SHOSTAK, Seth	SETI Institute
SMEGAL, Richard	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
STARK, Tony	Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory
STAUDUHAR, Rick	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
TARTER, Jill	Project Phoenix, SETI Institute
TOWNES, Charles	Univ. of California at Berkeley
WEINREB, Sander	Five College Radio Observatory, University of Massachusetts
WELCH, Jack	Univ. of California at Berkeley
WERTHIMER, Dan	Univ. of California at Berkeley
WIRT, Richard	Intel Corporation
BILLINGHAM, John	Workshop Executive Secretary
PIERSON, Tom	Chief Executive Officer, SETI Institute