82
C. Maccone
Fig. 8.6 COSMOLOGY: the Netherlands-China Low-frequency Explorer (NCLE) instrument
with three 5-m antennas for Queqiao, now (December 2020) in place in a halo orbit around the
Lagrangian point L2 about 65,000 km right above the Farside. This NCLE is essentially made by
three 5-m-long ribs (very low frequency antennas) here shown under construction in the Netherlands
before they were sent to China for the Queqiao launch, in the spring of 2018. Principal Investigator of
NCLE is renowned astronomer Heino Falcke, sponsored by ESA to build NCLE in the Netherlands
300,000 years after the Big Bang, and cosmologists hope to detect it at L2 by virtue
of NCLE (Fig. 8.6).
8.6 SETI (Or “Technosignatures”, According to NASA’s
2018 “New Jargon”)
SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, was this author’s #1 reason for his
interest in the Moon Farside Protection. It all started in the 1990s, when the French
radio astronomer Jean Heidmann (1923–2000) first raised the question of the Moon
Farside protection within the activities of the International Academy of Astronautics.
In 1999 Heidmann had appointed Maccone his deputy to conduct the IAA “Cosmic
Study 1.6” about the relevant both scientific and legal problems. But Heidmann had
untimely passed away on July 2nd, 2000, and so Maccone has been in charge of
facing all these problems on behalf of the IAA ever since.
NASA did about a year of SETI searches in between October 12, 1992 and
October 3, 1993, but was forbidden by Congress to do any SETI activity in the
next 25 years (though Astrobiology was supported by NASA in the meantime).
Surprisingly, NASA started again to take an interest in SETI in 2018. On September
26–28, 2018, the first NASA Technosignatures Workshop was held in Houston at
the Lunar and Planetary Science (LPI) Institute, website https://www.hou.usra.edu/
C. Maccone
Fig. 8.6 COSMOLOGY: the Netherlands-China Low-frequency Explorer (NCLE) instrument
with three 5-m antennas for Queqiao, now (December 2020) in place in a halo orbit around the
Lagrangian point L2 about 65,000 km right above the Farside. This NCLE is essentially made by
three 5-m-long ribs (very low frequency antennas) here shown under construction in the Netherlands
before they were sent to China for the Queqiao launch, in the spring of 2018. Principal Investigator of
NCLE is renowned astronomer Heino Falcke, sponsored by ESA to build NCLE in the Netherlands
300,000 years after the Big Bang, and cosmologists hope to detect it at L2 by virtue
of NCLE (Fig. 8.6).
8.6 SETI (Or “Technosignatures”, According to NASA’s
2018 “New Jargon”)
SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, was this author’s #1 reason for his
interest in the Moon Farside Protection. It all started in the 1990s, when the French
radio astronomer Jean Heidmann (1923–2000) first raised the question of the Moon
Farside protection within the activities of the International Academy of Astronautics.
In 1999 Heidmann had appointed Maccone his deputy to conduct the IAA “Cosmic
Study 1.6” about the relevant both scientific and legal problems. But Heidmann had
untimely passed away on July 2nd, 2000, and so Maccone has been in charge of
facing all these problems on behalf of the IAA ever since.
NASA did about a year of SETI searches in between October 12, 1992 and
October 3, 1993, but was forbidden by Congress to do any SETI activity in the
next 25 years (though Astrobiology was supported by NASA in the meantime).
Surprisingly, NASA started again to take an interest in SETI in 2018. On September
26–28, 2018, the first NASA Technosignatures Workshop was held in Houston at
the Lunar and Planetary Science (LPI) Institute, website https://www.hou.usra.edu/