Nerds everywhere today are in mourning. Funding for the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., has dried up, meaning the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence lost one of its champions. In an letter dated April 22nd, reports the San Jose Mercury News, SETI Institute’s CEO, Tom Pierson, reported that the array had to be put into “hibernation.” The equipment will be maintained, but won’t be able to operate—the government funding simply isn’t there.
After choking back our tears and shaking our heads in remembrance of Carl Sagan, we began to wonder what the implications were for technology. Would the SETI@home project, which we’ve covered numerous times in the past, be disrupted, and if so, what of the general project of distributed computing?
Continue reading to see why the business community and private donors should pony up to keep the SETI Institute going.
(Picture via Waleska Ruiz)
