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40 the search for extraterrestrial life (SETL), but found the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) too speculative—or potentially unsettling. The search did not die with the end of the official program. By then, it was bolstered by a small social movement inspired by genuine idealism— and by the euphoric hopes some of its leaders had raised in their efforts to gain support. The Politics of SETI NASA historian Stephen Garber, after studying the program’s history, concluded that the major factors leading to its cancellation were fervor over cutting the federal budget deficit, lack of support from other sci- entists, a history of unfounded associations with nonscientific elements (presumably meaning UFOs), and bad timing. The small size of the program ($12.5 million for its last year) actually was a disadvantage, as the program had few contractors and was easy to attack. Although SETI involved truly fundamental science, it did not fit neatly into any existing scientific discipline.” Yet some other interdis- ciplinary programs—notably environmental research—are funded much more generously than SETI ever was. The nonprofit SETI Institute, which had been founded in 1984, successfully sought private funding for a revived targeted search. Among the contribu- tors were prominent entrepreneurs of the information revolution, including David Packard and William Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard, Paul Allen of Microsoft, Gordon Moore of Intel, and Mitchell Kapor of Lotus.” Acquiring much of NASA’s SETI equipment, the Institute launched Project Phoenix in 1995, focusing on sunlike stars within 200 light-years of our solar system. Phoenix depended on part-time access to radio tele- scopes used for more conventional astronomical research, including instru- ments at Arecibo and Green Bank, and in Australia. Funded at about $4 million a year, the program ended early in 2004 after examining 710 nearby stars; no credible evidence of extraterrestrial technology was found.* Although Phoenix was the most sensitive SETI experiment ever, it could not pick up the kind of ordinary leakage that the Earth releases into space such as TV carrier waves, even at the distance of the closest star beyond our Sun. Military radars would have been detectable dozens of light-years away if they were aimed in the right direction at the right time. Searching for Intelligence Privatizing SETI