From: Dr. H. Paul Shuch (n6tx@setileague.org)
Date: Fri Nov 01 2002 - 08:12:16 PST
At 10:41 AM 11/1/02 -0500, Larry Klaes forwarded:
>November 2002 issue of Scientific American
>AN EAR TO THE STARS By Naomi Lubick Despite long odds, astronomer
>Jill C. Tarter forges ahead to improve the chances of picking up signs of
>extraterrestrial intelligence
A good article, with one interesting discrepancy:
"each dish of the Very Large Array in Socorro, N.M., cost $1 million,
whereas the SETI Institute paid only $32,000 per dish for the Allen array. "
But that's comparing apples to oranges. Of course, 26-meter dishes are
going to cost considerably more than six-meter ones! What's important is
the cost per capture area (which I am assuming is roughly equal between the
ATA and the VLA). So 27 big dishes at $1M apiece cost -- er, let's see --
$27 M. And 350 small dishes at $32k apiece comes to just over $11 M.
Which makes the ATA a good bargain, but not quite to the extent the article
implies.
--------------------------------
H. Paul Shuch, Ph.D., CFII, FBIS, FRCA
Executive Director, The SETI League, Inc.
433 Liberty Street, PO Box 555
Little Ferry NJ 07643 USA
voice (201) 641-1770; fax (201) 641-1771
n6tx@setileague.org www.setileague.org
Project Argus station FN11LH
"We Know We're Not Alone!"
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