have to get used to the fact that somebody could be staring back at us. we re going to have an exist centennial shock when the results of the satellite announce they have found earth-like planets in space. larry: seth shostak, you buy it? of course i buy that. but look, i think what stephen hawking is saying we re going to hear from them first. that s exactly what we try and do in the seti business. we have big antennas scanning the skies looking for civilizations that would be quite far away. there is no danger in that. you tune in the radio, you don t have to worry about the dj jumping into your home and giving you a hard time. that s a completely harmless sort of thing and interesting because it would tell you whether earth is really, really special, or whether there is enormous quantities of life out there. larry: but david, one thing it has done with stephen hawking talking about it, it has opened many eyes, hasn t it? oh, yes. the problem is that everybody seems to have t
you tune in the radio, you don t have to worry about the dj jumping into your home and giving you a hard time. that s a completely harmless sort of thing and interesting because it would tell you whether earth is really, really special, or whether there is enormous quantities of life out there. larry: but david, one thing it has done with stephen hawking talking about it, it has opened many eyes, hasn t it? oh, yes. the problem is that everybody seems to have their own idea of of course what aliens ought to be like. we all say of course our broadcasts have already been detected by now. when seth himself has calculated and most of the astronomers have calculated that our tv broadcasts actually dissipate pretty soon after they leave our solar system. it s these narrow beams that are being sent out from taxpayer-paid observatories like aricebo and ukraine that are causing the fuss. without consulting the taxpayers, without consulting