Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

by Sarah Scoles

Overview

For anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered, "Are we alone?"  A brilliant examination of the science behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and its pioneer, Jill Tarter, the inspiration for the main character in Carl Sagan's Contact.

Jill Tarter is a pioneer, an innovator, an adventurer, and a controversial force. At a time when women weren’t encouraged to do much outside the home, Tarter ventured as far out as she could—into the three-Kelvin cold of deep space. And she hasn’t stopped investigating a subject that takes and takes without giving much back.


Today, her computer's screensaver is just the text “SO…ARE WE ALONE?” This question keeps her up at night. In some ways, this is the question that keep us all up at night. We have all spent dark hours wondering about our place in it all, pondering our "aloneness," both terrestrial and cosmic. Tarter’s life and her work are not just a quest to understand life in the universe: they are a quest to understand our lives within the universe. No one has told that story, her story, until now.


It all began with gazing into the night sky. All those stars were just distant suns—were any of them someone else's sun? Diving into the science, philosophy, and politics of SETI—searching for extraterrestrial intelligence—Sarah Scoles reveals the fascinating figure at the center of the final frontier of scientific investigation. This is the perfect book for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered if we are alone in the universe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681774411
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	07/04/2017
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Sarah Scoles is a science writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Popular Science, Discover, New Scientist, Aeon, and Wired. A former editor at Astronomy magazine, Scoles worked at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the location of the first-ever SETI project. She lives in Denver, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Foreword 1

Terms 5

People 13

1 How'd a Nice Girl Like You Get into a Field Like This? 23

2 Babies, Brown Dwarfs, and Big Moves 45

3 Making the Allen Telescope Array 69

4 The Future of the Alien-Hunting Telescope 93

5 A Question for Our Time 105

6 The Politics of Science and New Projects 133

7 The Quest for Contact 161

8 The Last Chapter 183

9 Extremophiles and Exoplanets 207

10 Shouting into the Void 227

A Timeline of Seti 259

Further Reading 263

Acknowledgments 267

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2017
In this biography, science writer Scoles celebrates the life and work of astronomer Jill Cornell Tarter and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the movement whose beating heart she has long been. Tarter has been searching the skies since the late 1960s, when computers ran on information from punch cards. In that time she has battled skeptical donors, derisive politicians, and constant misogyny. She was also the inspiration for the character of Ellie Arroway in the novel Contact. Scoles shares milestones and anecdotes from Tarter’s life while explaining what SETI is and how it has evolved with technological advancements. Scoles also notes the recent events that make it more possible that we may one day find life outside our world: the detection of planets orbiting distant stars and the discovery of extremophiles, which are terrestrial organisms that live in extreme conditions. Over time, Tarter’s team at the Center for SETI Research grew to include chemists, geologists, philosophers, and others. The book’s only drawback is that its narrative skips back and forth, which can make the chronology confusing. That flaw aside, Scoles shares the fantastic story of people willing to pursue a quixotic goal in the face of daunting odds. Agent: Zoe Sandler, ICM. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Scoles’s biography deftly and entertainingly tells the story of groundbreaking scientist Jill Tarter, whose work has been pivotal to SETI. Making Contact astutely highlights the nuances and challenges of being a female scientist at the time, a heroic achievement in itself. Tarter's story reminds us to keep pursuing answers to pivotal scientific questions, regardless of the ideological barriers.

Physics Today

Scoles’s conversational style and cultural references will appeal to the readers of Wired magazine. Tarter emerges as both heroic and all too human. To paraphrase the poet Robert Browning, humanity’s reach must exceed its grasp, or what are the heavens for?

Nature (featured review)

Scoles—who has clear affection for her subject—highlights Tarter’s tenacity. A detailed portrait of how the science sausage gets made.

Science News

07/01/2017
Astronomer, SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute cofounder, and inspiration for the protagonist of the Carl Sagan novel (and later film) Contact, Jill Tarter has devoted more than 40 years to searching for intelligent life in the universe. Throughout, she has battled sexism, opponents of her work (both political and scientific), and reluctant funders. Scholarly existential doubt has posed her greatest challenge: When a lifetime of research yields no positive findings, is it because "nobody's out there," or because the odds of success—while greater than zero—are infinitesimal? According to science writer and former National Radio Astronomy Observatory science educator Scoles, what has sustained Tarter is a strong belief in carpe diem, stemming from her father's death during her childhood, and the hope that earthlings will get along better the more we learn about our place in the cosmos. Although the story line sprawls temporally and geographically and the last chapter includes a few too many details, those are minor flaws in a title pulling double duty as a history of the SETI Institute and the only adult biography of Tarter. VERDICT Readers interested in popular science, parascience, or women's studies will find this book absorbing.—Nancy R. Curtis, Univ. of Maine Lib., Orono

Library Journal

2017-05-09
The inspiring story of an important American astronomer who co-founded the SETI Institute, which was created "to study all aspects of the existence, formation, and evolution of life in the universe.Reputable astronomers and other scientists have searched for extraterrestrial transmissions since the 1960s. Educated readers might name Carl Sagan as the lead figure, but that role belongs to Jill Tarter (b. 1944), an impressive pioneer who receives an admiring, insightful biography by Scoles, a former editor of Astronomy magazine who worked at the observatory where the first SETI project was implemented. "If there's just us, that seems an awful waste of space," is a line from the 1997 film Contact, delivered by Jodie Foster, a character partly based on Tarter, and both the real and fictional astronomer remain an inspiration to women entering science. The sole woman among 300 in her undergraduate class, Tarter did significant work in astronomy before becoming fascinated with stellar radio emissions that might indicate intelligent life. Although not the first, her persistence, imagination, and charisma have made her an iconic figure in the search for extraterrestrial life. Plucking an alien transmission from the avalanche of human and natural radio emissions is technically demanding, requiring sophisticated engineering. NASA provided modest support until Congress killed it. The Air Force pays to use its detectors, but fundraising preoccupies SETI leaders, Tarter included. When she began, scientists knew only one solar system and considered life a delicate phenomenon. Now we know that our galaxy contains 100 billion planets, and plenty of earthly organisms ("extremophiles") live in ice, boiling water, miles under the earth or sea, and amid toxic chemicals and radiation. Astrobiology has become a highly respected profession. Scoles has done her homework, so readers will both understand and sympathize with Tarter, who has become an icon and role model despite pursuing a goal she knows she will never achieve.

Kirkus Reviews