Here’s a quick email I received from the SETI@Home. Makes you think…
In 2012, Americans spent more than $6 billion on political campaigns. (That’s 15,000 times the annual SETI@home budget). And during the presidential campaign, none of the candidates mentioned SETI@home even once.
That’s OK. We understand that SETI isn’t a federal priority, and that no flood of federal dollars will be headed our way. But we hope that we’re still one of your priorities. SETI@home and the rest of the Berkeley SETI projects depend on your donations in order to keep going.
If you’ve already donated this fall, we thank you. If you haven’t, or if you liked the process so much you’d do it again, please consider making a donation by going to this link:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_donate.php
We promise we won’t spend it on commercials.
– Eric Korpela, SETI@home Project Scientist
Sad to think that the US government pulled all financing for SETI several years back and SETI@Home run purely on public donations. But then, so does the SETI Institute. Politicians demonstrate that they’re interested in one thing only – two things actually – power, and their own self interest. How else can you justify the $6 billion spent during the last election?
Looked at another way, NASA’s 2012 budget was about $16 billion. The election cost 37.5% of that value. Think what NASA could have done if those funds had been directed their way. Think what ANY organization, charity, etc. could have done with that amount of money. And valuable, scientific enterprises like SETI@Home have to go about shaking a can under your nose to get funding. Criminal.
Filed under: SETI
