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39 Saganism We can’t avoid Carl Sagan when we look at the modern debate. He was the great popularizer of the search, reaching beyond the astronomical community to the interested public. He spread the word through his frequent publications, interviews, and television appearances, often drawing criticism from more conventional scientists. Sagan was an optimist in two senses: about the probability of detect- ing another civilization and about the outcome of that encounter. When he addressed the consequences of contact, he drew on the most positive analogies from our history while often dismissing the most negative. This optimistic model has great power, despite the fact that it remains unproven. Many of Sagan’s specific predictions may be disproved (perhaps inevi- tably, as he spoke on both sides of some issues). Like Lowell, he will be seen as influential even when he got the details wrong. After skeptics questioned the scientific validity of such a search, Sagan put together a pro-SETI petition in 1982, published in the letters column of the journal Science. The petition proposed that, instead of arguing about the issue, we should look: “We are unanimous in our conviction that the only significant test of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence is an experimental one. No a priori arguments on this subject can be compelling or should be used as a substitute for an observational program.” A U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the future of astronomy published a report the same year recommending funding for SETI.” After initial failures to get money from Congress, NASA obtained modest funding to develop instrumentation for a radio search. Much of the effort focused on data processing; the growing power of computers made it possible to survey much larger numbers of stars in an expanded range of wavelengths and to extract more useful data.”” SETI became an approved NASA project in 1990, with total funding estimated at 100 million dollars through 2001. This despite the opposition of Congressman Ronald Machtley, who stated that “we cannot spend money on curiosity today when we have a deficit.”** This government-sponsored effort to detect alien intelligence reached its high point in October 1992, when a two-pronged search effort got under way: an all-sky survey using the Deep Space Network and a targeted search using large radio telescopes to study about 1000 sunlike stars. This High Resolution Microwave Survey was a major advance on earlier searches, as it was optimized for the detection of technological signals. A USS. Senator intervened to cancel the NASA program at the end of its first year. The American Congress was enthusiastic about supporting American Initiatives