Senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak‘s prediction that ET intelligences will be discovered within “two dozen years” seems to have the proviso “if we get the funding:”
The prediction is based on a few qualifiers. The first is the assumption made by researchers within SITI that the power, range and speed of the Allen Telescope Array [ATA] with 42 radio camera dishes currently on line and a projected total of 350 dishes will evolve into new technologies capable of distances and speed unfathomable presently. Secondly, an obvious component is necessary funding for evolving technologies.
Hopefully the necessary improvements will be made:
ATA´s current capability is about 1,000 stars that can be viewed simultaneously. The next decade will allow researchers to view up to a million stars at once.
well, we know by now that actually seeing signs of aliens within (a mere) thousands of light years away would be very very bad. It would mean there would be contact within the plausible horizon of human existence. That would mean at some point – asymetrical contact, very very very bad.
And the LiftPort Group aims to have the space elevator ready by October 27, 2031 (see the “Countdown to Lift”, on top of their site).
Just in time to meet the aliens?…;-)
Visualize the following:
A PC program that simulates a galaxy, roughly, emergence patterns of intelligence, plausible travel speeds, millions of years. Assume there is no such thing as hyperspace travel. Then you can adjust slider bars according to your expectations and beliefs.
You’d see that as soon as a tool using intelligence with strong motives attains independent space colonies, even the most shy, xenophobic, unambitious species explodes across the galaxy. Even without assuming that interstellar travel is done after some kind of singularity occurs.
Maybe a “civilization” will not exist indefinitely. I wouldn’t be so sure. Likewise I am not so sure that once it establishes interstellar capability it will stop or start navelstaring. In space there is so much possibility space, so manu resources, it’s hard to see a meme evolution and the dynamic expanders coming out on top time after time.