SETI and the IAA SETI Permanent Committee: Past, Present and Possible Future

This chapter is a short history of SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, and the role of the IAA SETI Permanent Committee. The origins and development of SETI are traced from a seminal paper published in 1959 by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison showing mathematically that radio communications between nearby stars were indeed possible. The first radio SETI Search was conducted by Frank D. Drake in 1960 on two nearby stars that are now known to have planets. In the following half century, SETI unrolled through the brief period of formal support by NASA to the current era of privately funded SETI research, and the activities were conducted not only in the USA, but also, independently, in the then Soviet Union, in some European countries, and in Australia and Argentina. In the meantime, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA, based in Paris) had created in 1966 what is now the “IAA SETI Permanent Committee” to promote scholarly studies in the SETI field. For most of its existence, the activities of the Committee have been almost exclusively conducted through the two SETI Sessions (SETI 1, about SETI Science and Technology, and SETI 2, about SETI and Society) during the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC). In recent years the Committee has been reformulated with new leadership, and its activities have expanded as scientific advances, including the discovery of exoplanets (now known to be in the thousands, but estimated to be in the billions all over our galaxy, the Milky Way). These recent developments greatly enhanced the need for SETI to be taken seriously not only by scientists, but also by lay people and politicians. This trend will continue, as in 2015 a new $100 million SETI Program was announced to be sponsored by a private entrepreneur (Yuri Milner), so that the chances of Humanity being capable of discovering the first (nearby) ExtraTerrestrial Civilization are ever and ever increasing.