Rare Earth Issues

A study has estimated that as many as 40 million unused gadgets are languishing in UK homes ...

We All Have E-Clutter ......

.... Guilty as charged

WOW

In the seemingly futile hunt for alien intelligences somewhere in our vicinity (aka the SETI programme), perhaps the most famous moment was the brief burst of radio signal activity received on the 15th of August 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States.

WOW Indeed .... If You Know What Your Looking At!

The astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the signal anomaly when he was reviewing the data a few days later, and was so surprised when he saw the computer print outs, that he circled the reading on the paper and then scribbled the comment 'Wow!' next to it. This then became the short hand name for the event.

ET Don't Come

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence better known as 'Seti' for short, has always been on the outer edges of scientific endeavour, with many scientists considering it a waste of money. As a result, the Seti project has always been struggling for funds and computer time to analyse its results. It offset the computer time by harnessing the power of people home computers by asking supporters to download the Seti Screen Saver which used spare time on their PC's to download, process and upload small sections of their signals.  The prize to participants is that their name is attached to that data, so if they're the lucky one that finds ET, they get the Nobel prize!
  
Sadly, this lack of funds has reached crisis point, and last April, there wasn't even enough money in the Seti coffers to pay the staff, and the facility shut down. There was an emergency fund raising drive and it re-opened again, but despite support from such luminaries as former astronaut Bill Anders, sci-fi author Larry Niven, and even Hollywood actress Jodie Foster, these funds were only enough for a few months of operations.

Aliens like these from Petrozavodsk Siberia and Irkutsk Russia wont be asked back.

Its not clear if the program will be able to keep going long-term, it needs about $2m (£1.3m) or so a year to keep going, and it would be rather sad if in an age when we are discovering planets around every star, and have better technology than ever before, funding couldn't be found to secure the projects long-term future.

Space Projects you can help with are:

The Seti Org.
The Milky Way Project.
The Galaxy Zoo Project.