
METI is going to launch Hello messages in space starting with 2018, in an effort to come in contact with aliens.
Even though many prolific scientists strongly oppose the idea of establishing any kind of contact between humans and aliens, a San Francisco-based not for profit organization has announced the launching of a major program of try to speak in 2018.
METI, which stands for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, says it is going to launch Hello messages in space starting with 2018, in hopes to establish a connection and ultimately engage in some kind of information trading.
Among the scientists who expressed their concerns about contacting other deep space civilizations, world-renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking said that there is a great possibility that alien civilizations will see humans no more advanced than mere bacteria populations. Therefore, more advanced civilizations could wipe humans out of existence and take over Earth without much effort.
In spite of the multitude of warnings, Douglas Vakoch, METI president, says that the only way to come in contact with aliens is for humans to reach out first. Moreover, he hopes that once the ETs will respond to our signal, the two civilizations in question will engage in a long-lasting and successful exchange of information.
“If we want to start an exchange over the course of many generations, we want to learn and share information”, says Douglas Vakoch.
As far as legislation is concerned, there are no laws in place at the moment that prohibits METI or any other organizations from sending out their messages into space. In their effort to come in contact with an alien civilization, the team of scientists says that only basic mathematical and scientifically concepts will suffice. However, the team will still need a transmitter powerful enough to send the message flying through space. For that, METI says it is trying to raise approximately $1 million to either borrow the transmitter or have its scientists built it themselves.
Before METI decided to launch its message into space, NASA has also set its own written as well as radio messages adrift in space. However, the scientists are still in doubt whether the messages have been received by aliens or not. So far, any attempt to contact alien civilizations ended in failure.
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