From: Zardoz ® 04/11/2001 19:37:15 Subject: re: COSMOLOGY FAQ post id: 484072 What is SETI? SETI: The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence Since the beginning of civilization, people have wondered if we are alone in the universe or whether there is intelligent life somewhere else. In the late twentieth century, scientists converged upon the basic idea of scanning the sky and "listening" for non-random patterns of electromagnetic emissions such as radio or television waves in order to detect another possible civilization somewhere else in the universe. In late 1959 and early 1960, the modern SETI era began when Frank Drake conducted the first such SETI search at approximately the same time that Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published a key journal article suggesting this approach. NASA joined in SETI efforts at a low-level in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some of these SETI-related efforts included Project Orion, the Microwave Observing Project, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and Toward Other Planetary Systems. On Columbus Day in 1992, NASA initiated a formal, more intensive, SETI program. Less than a year later, however, Congress canceled the program. http://history.nasa.gov/seti.html The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence