Is Anyone Out There?

A pioneer in the study of extraterrestrial intelligence chronicles his thirty-year search for intelligent life in the universe, which culminated in the NASA-backed SETI Microwave Observing Project.

University of California astronomy and astrophysics professor Drake, aided by science journalist Sobel, responds to the title's classic question with an account of his career-long quest to gamer hard scientific data that might point to some answers. One of America's pioneer radio astronomers, Drake provides firsthand descriptions of breakthrough moments in the past 30 years of astrophysics-no encounters of any kind, just straightforward astrophysics with inconclusive experimental results. Drake's medium is science, his theory technical and his slightly anthropocentric conclusions more modest than those of the average UFO abductee. Readers wowed by Communion and Chariots of the Gods will not find a similar level of excitement here, but Drake and Sobel provide a detailed record of a group of scientists' thorough, determined efforts to detect the extraterrestrial transmissions they believe may very well be out there. BOMC and QPB selections.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Drake (astronomy, Cornell Univ.) has spent over half his life looking for scientific evidence to support his hypothesis that alien civilizations exist and are probably trying to say "hello" to their neighbors. Drake began his search in 1959 with Project Ozma, using a radio telescope he set up in the hills of West Virginia. NASA will join the hunt in the fall of 1992 with its SETI Microwave Observing Project, marking the first coordinated effort to search for interstellar signals. Drake's memoirs, written with science journalist Sobel, provide a fascinating account of a scientist not afraid to probe the fringes of "respectable" science or to enlist the support of colleagues like Carl Sagan, Freeman Dyson, and Philip Morrison. While maintaining a skeptical attitude toward UFOs, he uses the "Drake Equation" to speculate that there may be as many as 100 million advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone. David W. Swift's SETI Pioneers and First Contact , edited by Ben Bova and Byron Preiss (both LJ 4/1/90) nicely complement Drake's autobiography. Recommended for most libraries.
- Gary D. Barber, SUNY at Fredonia Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.