The Ultimate Fund-Raising Scheme: Transmit Adverts To Aliens
Written by Ian O'Neill
OK, so there have been some strange things going on between us Earthlings and aliens lately. The deep-space Pioneer and Voyager probes carried images and artefacts of our culture into the cosmos decades ago. This plan has now been upstaged by the Deep Space Network transmitting a Beatles tune in the direction of the star Polaris. Both are different methods in an attempt to achieve the same thing – to contact alien civilizations. Extraterrestrials might even be trying to communicate with us by playing around with stars or blasting neutrinos at us…
But, in the next episode of this epic saga, as the human race feels more and more alone in a seemingly lifeless, but expanding universe… [break - this programme will be continued after a message from our sponsors]
Advertising is everywhere. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and in many forms. I just deleted four pieces of spam in my email account (one trying to sell me non-prescription pain killers, one notifying me that I have won the Russian lotto and another two with subjects I'd rather not repeat), I can hear an ad on the radio chatter (something about double-glazed windows), on my desk I can count ten magazine ads, newspaper classified ads, business cards and logos, all set out to do pretty much the same thing: to sell a product and, ultimately, to make money. Advertising is so embedded into our commercial society, it can be difficult to work out what is advertising and what isn't.
Now it seems there is another kind of advertising on the horizon: Space Spam.
As UK physics and astronomy researchers have experienced recently, the problem with scientific research is that it mainly depends on government funding. Government funding comes and goes and can depend on who is in power and who isn't. To avoid this, many researchers leave academia in search of better pay in industry. There is nothing wrong with this choice, but often academic institutions and universities lose their top minds to better financial conditions elsewhere.
In an attempt to save the beleaguered astronomy community in the UK, astronomers have come up with an intriguing idea. To rescue the world famous Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, astronomers intend to transmit adverts into space. This is truly the final frontier for terrestrial advertising, but is it possible that British scientists have finally lost their marbles? How can we expect alien races to pay attention to our attempts at selling them Nacho Cheese Doritos? If they did buy our products, I wouldn't want to be in charge of the shipping department…
But there is a very serious reason for this off-beat plan. The UK is currently undergoing a funding crisis as the main funding body for UK physics and astronomy struggles to fill a £80 million ($160 million) hole in their finances. No help has been offered by the British government. This new fund-raising scheme is already attracting a lot of attention. The snack manufacturer Doritos has stepped in, donating an undisclosed sum in exchange for transmitting their ad. Many more companies are expected to follow suit. The publicity from helping out struggling observatories seems to be enough for big companies wanting to get involved (after all, they won't be expecting extraterrestrial orders for at least 84 years).
The signal will be sent to the Ursa Major constellation some 42 light years away by the European Incoherent Scatter Radar System (EISCAT) in Svalbard, located in the High Arctic. EISCAT is more commonly used to measure emissions from the aurora and ionospheric dynamics. It can also be used in conjunction with other EISCAT installations in Sweden and mainland Norway to track the velocity and composition of the solar wind. Now, it seems, the powerful radar transmitter will be used to shoot commercials into space.
The first transmission will be 30 seconds long and members of the public will be invited to participate. TV advertising will also be aired in support of the project. If anyone thought UK researchers were going to stay quiet and accept the latest round of financial turmoil, they'd be wrong. Scientists and the public, backed up by advertising revenue, are about to make a very big noise.
If the Beatles tune didn't agitate the aliens, an enforced ad break probably will, let's just hope they are sympathetic to the UK funding crisis (and want to make a donation).
Source: Doritos.co.uk, Jodrell Bank Observatory press release
Filed under: Observatories, SETI
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March 7th, 2008 at 12:12 am
[...] the EISCAT system right in the middle… UK scientists want to use the EISCAT radar dish to transmit an ad campaign into space. It's complicated, but it is basically a campaign to raise awareness for the funding crisis [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Would it be possible, say, to beam ads via laser at the full moon? Think how much nicer it would be if the moon reflected McDonalds golden arches or the coke logo….not!
why not beam lights at the underside of clouds? a giant andrex puppy floating over head would brighten up a dull day…
March 7th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Maybe they haven't contacted us because they think we are annoying.
Sooner or later, they are going to get pissed at our interstellar junk mail.
Then they will aim their scalar dark-energy weapons at us…
March 7th, 2008 at 8:59 am
You are the lucky 999,999 star to be beamed to! Send your latest technology to us and receive your prize!
March 7th, 2008 at 9:55 am
This does make one wonder – if we are already beaming messages into space and now plant to spread our adverts into the Cosmos, has anyone else done this and where is their interstellar junk mail?
March 7th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
All your transmission are belong to us.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Again and again I see that it is a good US, UK and others Western
traditions to conceal Russian's important contribution to METI:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/e...
>The transmission will be invisible to earthlings and is being directed
>at a solar system 42 light years away from Earth with planets that
>orbit its star '47 Ursae Majoris' (UMa). 47 UMa is located in the
>'Ursa Major' Constellation, also known as the Great Bear or Plough.
In 2001 and 2003 we already used 47 UMa as a target star:
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/I/IRM.html
March 8th, 2008 at 9:16 am
do what ever makes u feal good by the time they receive the mesage we will long gone. so do your thing.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Is this what UK Science has been reduced to? Its pathetic. There was a stupid proposel to 'project adverts' on to the moons surface years ago and like all crack pot scheme's ended up in the bin. I have just looked at ESA's press kit for the ATV that is to be launched this weekend. there's a map of Europe showing who spend's what, the UK is missing… I guess this sums up the stupidity of our governments when it comes to science…
March 8th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Hey Bobart – You better hope our descendants don't invent time travel, because if our actions create problems for their era, guess who they are going to come back to and "fix"?
March 8th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
There are very serious reasons not to do this foolish thing. In fact, many of us are trying to organize an international conference to discuss the issue.
Distinction has long been made between SETI – passive listening with radio telescopes – and METI or actively transmitting “Messages to ETI.†Lately, groups around the world have laid plans to transmit powerful, persistent signals, with a goal of dramatically altering the Earth’s radio brightness, hoping to draw notice from civilizations beyond the Solar System. These groups plan to alter our planet’s visibility, suddenly and unilaterally, by orders of magnitude, without prior discussion in open scientific fora.
Unexamined assumptions underly these endeavors, e.g. that altruism must be a universal emergent property of high intelligence. Eminent critics of this postulate include Jared Diamond, George Wald, and Freeman Dyson. Even SETI pioneer Carl Sagan came to generally oppose transmitting messages from Earth into space.
Despite vast distances and relativistic travel limits, plausible bad outcome scenarios merit open discussion. Lessons from both human and biological history, here on Earth, suggest caution toward “first contact.â€
As newcomers in a strangely quite cosmos, shall we shout for attention? Or is it wiser to continue quiet listening? This uniquely interdisciplinary symposium will be the most eclectic and inclusive forum, by far, to deliberate the METI issue.
For detailed discussions, see:
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2702529.ece
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/902/1
and a more vivid take on it:
http://lifeboat.com/ex/shouting.at.the.cosmos.small
With cordial regards,
David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com
March 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Transmit (42) light years via EISCAT! Are these quys nuts? Who ever dreamed up this fantasy should stop smoking their funny little cigarettes. If they're joking, then OK, it's a good scam.. If they're serious, shame on them. Radio frequency anything regardless of the highest level of power they can manage, directed or undirected, modulated or unmodulated piss' out to virtually nothing after a couple light years of travel. Do the math.
March 9th, 2008 at 4:13 am
I think if this idea catches on, then adverts are gonna need to be bigger! How about a guy tapdancing on the Sombrero Galaxy to advertise a hip hop album.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Great. I wonder if SETI have to wade through infomercials to find transmissions of intelligence?
Find out after this break when we learn which star is the first t obe elimated from 'SETI Idol!!'
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
[...] NASA is going to burn tattoos of corporate sponsors into the surface of Mars. This came from the recent story about the UK's STFC funding problems and the closure of the Jodrell Bank Telescope. The [...]