FOIA: (USSR) Soviet Effort to Contact Extraterrestrial Life

USSR_Search_For_ET.pdf
(USSR) Soviet Effort to Contact Extraterrestrial Life
Report and review of the Soviet effort to Contact Extraterrestrial Life, Byurakan Conference
Document date: 1967-02-03
Department: USAF - Foreign Technology Division
Author: Unknown
Document type: Report, Booklet
pages: 71


Archivist's Notes: Good quality scans of Report on the Soviet Effort to Contact Extraterrestial Life, topics includes General Attitude and Attitude towards Science Fiction, What Kind of Life, Search for Life on Mars, Byurakan Conference, Contact Using Radio Telescopes, Image of Pulkovo Radio Telescope and RT-22 antennaes.

The purpose of this document was to review Soviet scientific efforts relating to the problem of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

1. There is a comparatively high level of theoretical discussion in the USSR concerning the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the problem involved in detecting these civilizations.

2. Participation of many influential astronomers, radio experts, physicists, etc., in these discussions indicates a considerable importance attached to these problems in the USSR.
There is no evidence that practical steps on any large scale are being taken in the USSR to contact or to decipher messages from other civilizations, although there exist small projects, of the size of Ozma in some institutions, notably the Shternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow.

4. The Soviets have available a number of radio telescopes suitable for an integrated search program if they choose to begin such a program.

5. Considerable emphasis was made at the Byurakan Conference (1964) on the necessity of a systematic survey of the whole sky in order to locate artificial cosmic radio sources.

6. Such plans, if consistently carried out, would involve the southern hemisphere, possibly Chile, where the Soviet astronomers already have a foothold.

7. International cooperation in such a large undertaking seems unavoidable. Accordingly, Soviet steps to establish such cooperation may be anticipated at the next meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, in August 1967.

8. As in most Soviet scientific activities, there is noticeable emphasis on the practical benefits to be obtained from a systematic effort to contact other civilizations.


The following part is philosophical in nature and very well written and gives a HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM –

The idea that intelligent beings might exist outside of the earth was debated in antiquity (Anaxagoras, Plutarch, Lucian, etc.).

This speculation was frowned upon by the Catholic Church as contradictory to the Christian dogma of the uniqueness of man and his relation to the universe.
During the Renaissance the idea of habitable worlds was again revived (Nicolaus Cusanus , Giordano Bruno, Kepler, etc.).
The telescope showed many details on the surface of the planets which generally favored the idea of habitability.
It was assumed that man was the goal to which all creation moves and consequently, the celestial bodies did not have any reason to exist unless they served as homes for intelligent beings.

In the 18th Century, such scientists as Huygens, Fontenelle, Swedenborg, and others wrote elaborate treatises on the supposed inhabitants of other planets, and even the great philosopher Kant thought that at least some of the planets besides the earth might be inhabited.

Further development of this idea occurred in the early 19th Century.
Sir William Hershel, perhaps the greatest observational astronomer of all times, deduced from his own observations that the sun was really a dark body which very well might be inhabited. He theorized that the brilliant surface of the sun was actually its atmosphere and the so-called sunspots were simply the solid dark surface showing through the rifts of the atmosphere.
The very influential French astronomer Arago, as late as 1850, could not find anything wrong with this theory.

In 1832, Von Littrow accepted the idea of J. Lambert (1750) that comets were undoubtedly inhabited and their extensive atmospheres had the purpose of mitigating and preserving the heat of the sun which must vary greatly along the eccentric orbits of those bodies. Both men were leaders in the mathematical theory of comets.
On the moon the German astronomer Gruithuisen could see cities
and railroads, and other astronomers speculated what function the
rings of Saturn might have to make conditions there more comfortable for the intelligent beings which were undoubtedly there.

In the second half of the 19th Century the science of astrophysics was born and quickly showed that the conditions on the sun moon, comets, and the majority of the planets were such as to preclude the existence of any life there. The only possibly habitable planets were Venus and Mars, and life on these was highly problematical.
It became unfashionable to talk about inhabitants of other planets, and Lowell's ideas about the artificial origins of the canals on Mars was generally ridiculed.

A few hardy souls here and there continued to maintain that
Mars must be habitable regardless of what scientists observations
Indicated.
In the U.S. such were E.C. Slipher and W.H. Pickering,
in the USSR, G.A. Tikhov and especially K.E. Tsiolkovskiy.
Tikhov remained essentially a scientist and only tried to prove that terrestrial plants can adapt themselves to the conditions on Mars.
Tsiolkovskiy was a dreamer who threw caution to the winds. One of his books, constantly quoted by Soviet astronomers, has the revealing title "Dreams about the Earth and the Heavens."

With the development of rocket technology Tsiolkovskiy became in the USSR almost
infallible authority to be quoted along side Lenin and Marx.

The novelists, as usual, were years behind the scientists.
H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," appeared in 1905.
It was and still is extremely popular throughout the world, and many remember the panic in 1938 when this story was dramatized on the radio. Millions of people believed the Martians were landing in New Jersey and marching on New York City.

However, the scientists were rather cool toward the possibility
of life on Mars or elsewhere outside the earth.

Perhaps the lowest point in the belief of extraterrestrial life was reached in the 1920's when Sir James Jeans showed that the collision of two stars, according to him the only possible mode of the formation of a planetary system, is an extremely improbable event, and it may well be that the Earth is a cosmic freak with some kind of mold on it called life.

Doubts were soon thrown on Jeans theory of the origin of the solar system, and quiet investigations on the origin of life on the earth and other celestial bodies continued.


[edit on 19-2-2008 by frozen_snowman]

In this respect, A. I. Oparin's work deserves to be mentioned.
He is still Director of the Institute of Biochemistry Academy of Sciences, USSR, and is the author of many articles and several books on this problem.

The situation changed radically with the postwar development of radio astronomy when it became possible to think of a direct contact with extraterrestrial civilizations by means of radio.

The beginning of the new approach was sharply marked by the appearance in the British periodical "Nature," of a letter by two U.S. scientists G. Cocconi and P. Morrison "Searching for Interstellar Communications" (1959). This letter fired the imagination of many people including one of the remarkable Soviet scientists,
I. S. Shklovskiy, the author of numerous articles and several books on the subject.
Shklovskiy's first book, “The Universe, Life and Intelligence” appeared in 1962, its second edition in 1965. The first edition was revised by the author, translated by Paula Fern, annotated by the U.S. astronomer C. Sagan, and published in the U.S. in , 1966 as Inttelligent Life in the Universe by I. S. Shklovskiy and C. Sagan.

With the First Conference on “Extraterrestrial Civilizations" (Byurakan Observatory, May 20-23, 1964) which included all the leaders in radio astronomy and some optical astronomers, the problem can be said to have obtained the official recognition of the Soviet Union.
Before proceeding to the details of Soviet schemes for the establishment of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations it is important to realize that the whole problem hinges on the answers to three general questions:
(1) What is the origin of the solar system?
Without knowing this answer it is not possible to decide whether planets
are rare or common around the stars.
(2) What is the nature of life?
(3) What is the origin of life on the surface of the earth!
In spite of a very large amount of work, both East and West, no definite answers to these questions are available. We have to fall back on vague arguments such as "with so many stars some of them at least must have planets," etc. It is impossible at the present time to prove or disprove the existence of planets of the size of the earth even around the nearest stars let alone life on these planets.
Therefore, the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is at the present time an article of faith rather than a scientific fact.
In this respect, scientists are in exactly the same position as their predecessors were in the 18th Century, or even the ancient Greeks 2,000 years ago. The only difference considered extremely significant by the proponents of life in the universe is modern man's possession of
radio communication techniques capable of reaching out to 1,000 light years and more.
How to utilize this capability is the subject of animated discussion among the radio astronomers in the West and the USSR.

To be continued….

For most of the part, the research in this document is based on references to Russian literature.
We find on PDF page 42 and 43 the attendances of the Byurakan Conference (1964) who either delivered papers themselves or participated in the ensuing discussion.


Here are the Highlights of this document:

Section 2:

The Soviets are emphatic that their materialistic philosophy is in complete agreement with the idea of extraterrestrial civilizations. According to this philosophy, life is a normal and inevitable consequence of the development of matter, and intelligence is a normal consequence of the existence of life.

• The Soviets seem to be committed to life based on the hydrocarbon compounds, that is essentially the same kind of life that exists on the earth, from bacteria to man.

• As conditions on the Moon, Venus, and Mars are known to be severe in terrestrial terms, the problem arises whether even the simplest terrestrial organisms like bacteria can exist there.

• Mars is the only planet where conditions remotely approach those on the earth. It was therefore natural that Mars became the focus of attention of astronomers and biologists looking for evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system.

• Few astronomers believe that there can be any life on Venus or the moon. An exception is N. A. Kozyrev, a Soviet astronomer famous for his observations of the moon, who thinks that the high temperature of Venus refers to its ionosphere, and the surface-may be in a condition to allow the development of life.



Section 3:

In view of the complete absence of concrete data or extraterrestrial civilizations the only possible formulation of the problem is this: Assuming that there are extraterrestrial civilizations, what would be the best way of getting in touch with them?
This problem is twofold: How can understandable signals be transmitted and how can signals from outer space be detected and interpreted?

PDF page 31 Means of Communication
Assuming that there are extraterrestrial civilizations willing to communicate, consideration must be given to how this may be accomplished.
(Archivist note: I don’t know – but the chapter dealing with ‘communication possibilities’ sounds like YESTERYEAR)
This part would could have been from the Dummies Series: “Communication with ET’s for DUMMIES” . Ok, yes the document is from the 1960’s and to be fair on PDF page 36 and 37 it leaves the possibility to a more broad minded approach towards ‘nowadays’ ideas)

Appendix I
CALCULATIONS BY GINDILIS

• The possibilities of communication with other civilizations depend upon the distances between them. This distance in turn is a function of the size of the universe and the number of civilizations in it.

APPENDIX II

PLANETARY REQUIREMENTS

If one assumes that' the process of the beginning and evolution of life on other planets must be similar to the Earth's (as maintained by Soviet astrophysicist I. S. Shklovskiy). The following series of planetary requirements must be met :

• Planets on which life may begin and develop may not evolve too close or too far away from their star, and their surface temperatures must be favorable to the development of life

• The mass of an inhabitable planet must be neither too large nor too small. If the gravitational field of a planet is too strong, the original hydrogen-rich atmosphere will not be able to evolve (by a process involving the escape of hydrogen into space) into the oxygen-containing air on which the advanced terrestrial type of life depends; if the gravitational field is too weak, the atmosphere will escape into space early in the planet's history (Mercury is such an example)

• A highly organized life may be found only on planets circling sufficiently old stars whose ages may be estimated at several billion years, since enormous intervals of time are necessary for the appearance of any intelligent species on a suitable planet

• The star must not vary significantly in its brightness for several billion years. During this time it must reliably and continuously pour forth a steady stream of light and energy, never pulsating or altering its output to any significant degree

• The star must not be of multiple type, otherwise the orbital motion of its planets would be substantially different from the circular, and the resulting sharp, if not catastrophic.

Not all Soviet scientists completely agree with the listed requirements. F. A. Tsilsin (of the State Astronomical Institute), for example, does not agree that only single stars are capable of having planets which fulfill the other outlined requirements.

Although it’s not agreed that each factor listed must be met for intelligent life to develop, as evidenced by the preceding discussion.

The list does serve to indicate some of the considerations necessary in trying to accurately determine the probability that intelligent life exists elsewhere.

In Appendix III deals with the power requirements and
Appendix IV has a list of papers (books) read at the Byurakan Conference.

Appendix V
Resolutions of the Byurakan conference May 20-23, 1964

• Although materialistic philosophy favors the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, at the present time there is no valid proof of such life.
However, there are strong indications that such life might exist and might develop civilizations....