Despite support and US$100M, US alien hunters still 'haven't found ET'
Chief scientist for alien search predicts it will be 'a generation or two' before the discovery is made
What would Enrico Fermi do?
For those unfamiliar with the name, Fermi was a famous scientist who postulated that if intelligent life on other planets actually existed, we would have found them by now — or they certainly would have found us. It's an idea that resonates, especially with the public and private money being thrown at space travel, along with rapid advances in technology.
Approximately a year ago, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner gave a US$100 million gift to over a ten year span to the University of California to aid in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Since then, the SETI Institute has been occupied with its prime directive—understanding the universe and trying to contact aliens.
Milner, a venture capitalist who was among the early investors in tech giants like Twitter and Facebook, is convinced that — given the billions of Earth-like planets and even more galaxies that exist — it's all but inconceivable that the human race is alone.
SETI is flush with new riches and interest in outer space at a crescendo. So it rightfully begs the question: Exactly why does discovering intelligent life outside of Earth remain so elusive, and why can't they be coaxed out of hiding?
"We haven't found ET," Dan Werthimer, SETI's chief scientist and an astronomer at University of California at Berkeley, joked to a panel discussion at "Star Trek: Mission New York" on Saturday.