SETI history    updated October 3, 2005  D. Carrigan carrigan@fnal.gov (subject line must be sensible)

(My SETI interest is not funded by Fermilab or the U. S. Department of Energy. This portion of the site is needed to illustrate other interconnections related to Fermilab.)
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~1950    Fermi Paradox

1959    Cocconi and Morrison - interstellar radio communication is practical

1959-1961 First radio search - Project Ozma and Frank Drake at NRAO

1960    Cosmic archaeology is born - Dyson sphere

1961    Optical signaling with lasers is practical

1962    Drake equation - a taxonomy for SETI factors

1971-1981 Project Cyclops

1962    SETI Hacker fiction by Hoyle and Elliot and later D. and N. Carrigan (1970). But also through scientific dialog - Martin Ryle - 1976.

1964    Popularization of SETI search by Walter Sullivan

1966    First Dyson sphere search - Sagan and Walker

1967    Discovery of pulsars - Bell and Hewish

1974    Drake SETI transmission

1971    Hydroxyl water hole frequency proposed by Bernard Oliver

1972    Burgess, Hoagland, Sagan Pioneer plaques into space

1973    The possibility of large - scale radio SETI - Project Cyclops

1973    First optical SETI search - Shvartsman, Wischnia

1974    Message sent from Arecibo

1979    SERENDIP started by Berkeley

1984    SETI Institute formed

1985    Large scale cosmic archaeology - Kardashev civilizations

1992    Arecibo search starts

1992-1995 Extrasolar planet searches come of age

1993    NASA cancels SETI work

1995-2004 SETI Institute's Project Phoenix

1995    Harvard's beta all sky survey

1998    SETI@home starts

1999    Annis reports first observational limit on Kardashev Type III civilizations

2001    SETI Institute Allen Telescope project starts

2005    Several dishes in place at Allen Telescope