SETI program- A waste of money?

[avidteen13]

The search for extra terrestrial intelligence has turned up blank.  For forty years, we still haven't found anything.  The SETI program is draining much needed tax dollars.  Suppose we did make contact with an alien civilization.  Then what?  Traveling at sub-light speed, it isn't practical to send a probe or a shuttle to their planet.  A radio message alone would take decades to even reach them.

Post your opinion on the SETI program.

[pepokish]

I think it's absolutely insane.  It's not that I don't believe there is life on other planets, it's the fact that we don't have enough money to feed the hungry and pay for the poor's medical bills, yet we're still throwing it away on stuff like SETI.  :|  Seriously?  All of the space programs need to go until the world sees a semi-stable economy. 

[Jangoo]

I suppose the expenses for the SETI-program are some tiny fraction of that "science, energy and environment"-budget ... or maybe "diplomacy and needs abroad"? 

[avidteen13]

An excellent point, Jangoo.  Military funding is quite large, but what do you propose to do about it?  If we pull in the troops, all the blood, sweat and toil would be wasted.

Pepokish, I don't know if we should cut all space programs.  Developing a warp would be very useful (and very Star Trek!  )

[pepokish]

Haha, don't get me started on military spending.

Actually, avidteen, what you're saying is a notable flaw in the human brain.  It's the same thing people think while gambling.  "I've already spent so much money, I can't give up now!"  What they fail to realize is, once they've won anything, they'll have lost double that amount.  Just because a lot of lives have been spent on the war, does not mean we have to keep pouring lives in.  Having more people die isn't going to make the family and friends of dead soldiers feel any better, trust me.

That's not saying I think we should pull out of the war, that's just pointing out the flaw in your logic.  There may very well be other reasons to stay, but that's not the topic of discussion and I'm not commenting on that.  So!  Back to space. 

Just because a mere fraction of our money goes to SETI does not mean that that money could not be spent on better things.  Flushing a five dollar bill down the toilet might not be as bad as flushing a hundred dollar bill -- but in both cases, it's a waste. 

Saying it doesn't matter because the budget is small is like saying voting doesn't matter, because you're just one person and can't possibly make a difference.  Every bit counts.  It's irresponsible to believe that you can let small parts of a budget slip away into things that don't matter.

[Jangoo]

You are right of course Pepokish, money is money.

Still, it seems kind of odd to have to wonder about 5$-bills being flushed while certain people insist that flushing 100$-bills is unavoidable and not even "flushing".
I'd rather see those 100$-bills saved for something useful and contructive. In that case, flushing the occasional 5$ every now and then would not be a problem at all.

(That toilet-analogy is pretty weird here.  )

Military funding is quite large, but what do you propose to do about it?  If we pull in the troops, all the blood, sweat and toil would be wasted.

I sort of agree that the whole Iraq-situation is stuck at a point of no return. Not that I believe it can be "won" or anyting but simply withdrawing isn't a decent choice either.

Still, we are not really talking about a unique situation here where a nation is stuck in this "unavoidable" war and thus has to fight it out by any means possible - that would be the second worldwar -> skyrocketing military expenses due to mobilization (~ten-twenty fold).
While the base-cost of the US-military in the past ten years has increased from ~300 billion $ to ~500 billion $, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars added merely another ~200 billion $/year to actually activate and use that huge army.
While that certainly sounds a lot, just picture that first, the general investment-increase on the military was as high as the cost of the war: Somebody is considering a much larger military a generally needed thing for whichever case there may come besides the current war.
And second, 300 billion $ are already a vast, vaaaast military budget or in other words:

Since the second worldwar US-military expenses have always been way above 30% of the whole worlds investment in warfare.
Also, it has always been around or way over 50% of the whole federal budget ...

So we are talking about a very expensive general gameplan that has been foreseeing a large, standing military for over 60 years now:
A nation at constant war, willing to spend tons of cash on that oversized toilet.

In my opinion, you get what you plan and expect for. If you plan and expect a bunch of wars, you will surely be stuck in a war soon.
Who knows, if all that money had been invested in SETI and other space-related programs we wouldn't have a ton of tanks and bombs but a colony on Mars, the warp-engine and a chatroom with some alien-lifeform.

[Belthus]

From the SETI site's FAQ (http://www.seti.org/Page.aspx?pid=558):

Didn't NASA have a SETI program?

Yes. The NASA effort was called the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS). In 1993, Nevada Senator Richard Bryan successfully introduced an amendment that eliminated all funding for the NASA SETI program. The cost of the program was less than 0.1% of NASA's annual budget, amounting to about a nickel per taxpayer per year. The Senator cited budget pressures as his reason for ending NASA’s involvement with SETI.

So who funds the SETI search now?

Project Phoenix was funded by a few major donors (such as William Hewlett, David Packard, Gordon Moore, Paul Allen, and Barney Oliver), foundations and many individuals.

SETI is a private nonprofit organization, not a government agency.

I don't see any problem with listening for ETs. It's a long shot, but even if we don't see any sign of ET life, maybe SETI telescopes will stumble across something else of interest to the scientific community - a nova or a quasar or some other unusual astronomical phenomenon.

As far as pitting science funding vs. social spending, that's a crock. I say that as someone who feels that the US should spend more on social programs. Picking on science, which gets a tiny slice of the budget, has nothing to do with any realistic effort to find money for worthwhile social programs. It is a knee-jerk reaction, just like opposition to aid to foreign countries (another miniscule budget item).

[falconbane]

Saying SETI as a money is pretty... I don't know the word

The SETI program is like humanity playing a game of lottery, the chance of winning is minuscule or even non-existent (see Drake's formula).  But if we don't play this "lottery", we will never know.  This is true for a lot of the sciences, we don't know the answer, that's why we try to find it.
There were many pioneering doctors that sacrificed themselves in the name of medical science, would their life be wasted as well?  I only see something as a waste if resources were spent trying to suppress/hinder knowledge and advancement.