Science and Society

what a colossssssal waste of time...good job, NASA.

I think the celebration is very appropriate and well-deserved, but I do have some misgivings about NASA's plans. I don't mean to nitpick here, but what happens if the alien civilizations receiving the broadcast use iPods instead of the mp3 players? Depending on the level of their technology, they'll have a music file they might--or might not--be able to convert so they can listen to it. Is this the first impression we really want to make?

We are assuming that life on other planets is a form of human life and can understand language. Well, on another planet, the rules can be different and there could be life as we DON'T know it.

On Mars, for example, how would we know that the red dust in the air is not living? It could be a form of life and we wouldn't know it.

Considering we are still looking for HUMAN life and spending taxpayer money to send a Beatles song to greet the aliens, how open-minded are we really to even explore space?

Excuse me, chuck, but iPods CAN play mp3's. (Yes, I'm another Apple afficianado more than a little tired of the FUD circulating to trash their products). But your point isn't lost on me. MP3 has at its base a non-trivial codec; an imprecise (or non-) implementation of it will make an MP3 file unplayable on a machine. And it's not even the only possible codec. I also doubt that a non-Terran technology would know what to do with it.

Can I have my taxpayer money back? After all, I put in the hard work you government leeches. NASA is a colossal waste of money.

One of the biggest assumptions we make when attempting to "communicate" with other worlds is that the binary data format we use is somewhat "universal" (no pun intended, but it would have been a good one!). What if beings on some other world have devised a quaternary (4 state) data format without ever even considering using a binary format? Our binary data would be jibberish to them. Even if a binary format does turn out to be fairly universal, who's to say that our system of 8 bits being equal to one byte would also be. Other civilizations might have decided that it makes more sense for 10, or even 100, bits to equal a byte. Other civilizations may be so advanced in comparison to us that they long ago left binary data types behind, and have forgotten all about them. Perhaps they have developed something akin to Asimov's positronic brain. Devices utilizing one could have "logic" states of true, false, maybe, "it doesn't matter", and "I don't care".

Just a little food for thought.

mneedes, NASA is not a "colossal waste of money". They're a big part of the reason you now have the ability to type your last post.

Thousands of items we use on a daily basis have come either fully, or in part, from the space program. Good for them if they want to celebrate a little.

jim,

People like mneeded don't get it, and never will. Probably from a different generation or something.

Waste o' money. If NASA didn't exist I'll still be typing at a keyboard because of the nuke program. Give back the tax money you stole from me without my permission. If you dorks like NASA so much, go and fund it yourself. 1337.

They say that music calms the savage beast. But what is music to one, is noise to another. What if their hearing is bothered by what we call the musical scale? What if one note would blow them up while another note would shrink them? What if these alien life forms can not hear at all? Just wondering.

The right song! Love it!

They're just trying to get people to pay attention so maybe they'll get more funding. A short transmission isn't that big a deal.
Also, the format of the file prior to transmission has no relevance. It does matter if it's in analog or digital. All the aliens might be using HDradio and not using analog signals anymore. Anyway, a music recording is totally non-relevant. What would we think if received our first signal from space and it was just mix of basically nonsense... At least in movies like "Contact", the aliens take the time to design a proper recording include instructions on what it is for and basic mathematical concepts for use in buiding a method of communicating the instructions.

Nuke program?

Yeah, I guess you would be typing at a keyboard, attached to a typewriter. Then you'd need to take the piece of paper
out of it, fold it up and mail it to someone who would then pin it to a bulletin board so anyone who walked by could read it, laugh and keep walking.

You really should take a moment to look up some of the things NASA has contributed to your life. You might be a bit surprised, it's not all spaceships and aliens or over your head math.

Right on, Bob. Our race has long been a slave to its own egotism. We pretend that we're the Chosen Ones in this Universe. Well, that's whistling in the dark. We're a scared little people, only just now coming to grips with the fact that we're capable of much more than we've contributed, but our knees knock with fear that we might actually not be alone in this cold, dark place.
Who's to say what the universal code is, that indefinable combination of electromagnetic pulses that will serve to define us as a member of the Galactic, or Universal Brotherhood? What we lack is humility and we'd better gain it before it's too late.

Whether or not the signal ever reaches a civilization with the right tools to decode it is something we'll never live to know. But the whole point was probably just to get people to start talking about NASA and space again. And looking at these posts, well, didn't they succeed?

"Can I have my taxpayer money back? After all, I put in the hard work you government leeches. NASA is a colossal waste of money."

Compared to military budget it are a few drops on a hot plate

mneedes,

I guess you don't really follow the ways of government that much. NASA spends less than one half of one percent of the money spent by Uncle Sam. Compared with the big agencies and departments this is really a small drop in a very large bucket. In terms of Return on Investment it's a really good investment.

Hey folks -- doesn't hurt to try !!

mneedes,

No, you can't have your money back. NASA is going to use it for research into why there are so many morons who think the government has to ask their permission for every little program to which they want to devote funds.

It's called REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. If you don't like it, you are welcome to move to Saudi Arabia, where they don't a democracy. Of course, over there if you bitch about how they spend what you think is your money, they just throw you in jail.

My problem is that that particular song isn't very on key. John was sort of going for a certain feel, and was perhaps under the influence of various substances. I just don't want the aliens to hear it and say, "Well, that kind of sucked." Ya know?