From Alan Penny, UK SETI Research Network
Your report on the UK SETI Research Network was a bit overenthusiastic (13 July, p 6). This informal network was formed to promote UK academic activity in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence through meetings and possible collaborations. Our discussions have not yet produced an actual proposal for a search.
Any such proposal will probably be modest. Our members are open to all sources of funding, private and public, and indeed three of us have previously made (unsuccessful) applications for funding to private foundations.
The figure of £1 million a year that you mention was merely my personal estimate of what would, in the long term, be a justifiable total level of UK SETI activity – some 0.5 per cent of the UK astronomy budget.
St Andrews, Fife, UK
