Why Only Americans Are Interested in the Hunt for Alien Life

I am Swedish and interested.<p>There is 100-200 billion galaxies. The estimated number of stars in the universe is between 10^22 to 10^24. Each star on average has more than planet in orbit. That means its at lest 10^22 planets. 10000000000000000000000. Whats the probability we are the only one with intelligent life on it?<p>Here is a Russian billionare funding interstellar space craft. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencemag.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2016&#x2F;04&#x2F;russian-billionaire-unveils-big-plan-build-tiny-interstellar-spacecraft" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencemag.org&#x2F;news&#x2F;2016&#x2F;04&#x2F;russian-billionaire-u...</a><p>We should work together in peace to discover these new planets.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;Our_Activities&#x2F;Space_Science&#x2F;Herschel&#x2F;How_many_stars_are_there_in_the_Universe" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.esa.int&#x2F;Our_Activities&#x2F;Space_Science&#x2F;Herschel&#x2F;How...</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-univ...</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skyandtelescope.com&#x2F;astronomy-resources&#x2F;how-many-stars-are-there&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.skyandtelescope.com&#x2F;astronomy-resources&#x2F;how-many-...</a>

They don&#x27;t even answer the question. I guess he suggests that Americans are still explorers and other countries aren&#x27;t. That&#x27;s hardly an explanation.

The author is misinformed.<p>Jurij Milner who is Russian, is giving an unprecedented 100 million USD for SETI purposes as part of the Breakthrough Listen project.

I&#x27;m absolutely interested in the hunt for alien life. It&#x27;s just that I don&#x27;t think SETI (looking for technological radio signals) is a good way to find it. No signal we&#x27;ve sent into space can be detected from more than half a lightyear away. Radio broadcasts lose power over distance far to quickly to be detectable over interstellar distances, unless you&#x27;re transmitting with the power of a star.<p>You could send a tight beam of course, but then you need know where to send it. Aliens have to know we&#x27;re here and they need to care enough to spend significant resource to send us a message.<p>So while I&#x27;d love to see a sign of extraterrestrial life, I don&#x27;t think searching for radio transmissions is the way to go.

Age of life on earth: ~3,800,000,000 years<p>Age of earth life knowing about electromagnetic radiation: ~217 years<p>Radio SETI will arguably only help us find a species in our relative window of technology. But I think it&#x27;s worth working on.

This feels like one of those articles where the author justifies the truth of some non-obvious &quot;fact&quot; without first showing that it is true.<p>Like is it really a thing that &quot;only Americans are interested in searching for alien life&quot; -- I am American, and I wasn&#x27;t aware (and many of my friends aren&#x27;t American).

didnt China just build a massive radio station for space?..

Given the U.S. propensity for religiousity, perhaps another effort is searching the universe for God?

Maybe the rest of the world realizes it would go something like this,<p>&quot;OK found them!&quot;<p>&quot;Awesome! Yay! Hurray!&quot;<p><i>celebration for weeks, maybe months, hysterical articles, news headlines, further research initiatives, etc</i><p>Decades later, still have hunger, famine, rising global temperatures, scarce resources, disease, cancer, wars mongering superpowers, and corporate greed, etc