The Planetary Society

The Director of The COSETI Observatory has been a member of The Planetary Society since his arrival in the United States in 1981, and since 1990, a volunteer with the Ohio State SETI Group.  It was the frustration of not reading about the optical approach to SETI in The Planetary Report that was partially responsible for the director getting into this field of scientific endeavor.  From this page you will find links to materials connected with Optical SETI that have been published over recent years in The Planetary Report, Bioastronomy News or by people associated with The Planetary Society.  It represents a bit of history and shows how the SETI community very slowly adjusted itself to this revisit of the laser approach to SETI.  See Talks for a partial list of lectures given over the past decade on Optical SETI.

• First Communication with The Planetary Society about Optical SETI - Responses from Tom McDonough, August 23, 1990
  This letter from Dr. Tom McDonough with a list of SETI contact people, was the first response from the SETI community I received after starting my research in the summer of 1990, other than the local contact with Dr. Robert Dixon's "Big Ear" SETI Group at Ohio State University.  I followed this letter up by sending materials to many of the individuals named.
  
• Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 16, Number 1, Fall 1991
  Tom McDonough responds to a letter I sent to the Skeptical Inquirer.
   
• The Planetary Society/Harvard University BETA Appeal, Fall 1991
  Appeal by Louis Friedman and Steven Spielberg. 

• The Planetary Report, Volume X11, Number 1, January/February 1992
  Tom McDonough reports from the 1991 SETI Conference. 

• Bioastronomy News, Volume 5, Number 3, Summer 1993
  The Planetary Society discusses Optical SETI and the then recent SPIE OSETI I conference.   The article is by Tom McDonough.  This issue is not available on the TPS web site.

• Bioastronomy News, Volume 7, Number 2, Second Quarter 1995
  The Planetary Society discusses the then upcoming OSETI II Conference. 

• The Planetary Report,Volume XVI, Number 3, March/April 1996, Questions and Answers
  http://planetary.org/library/gsp-pr-030496-20.html
  Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute responds to a TPS reader's comments regarding Optical SETI. 

• Planetfest '97
  Report by Carl Helmers of SETIQuest on The Planetary Society's Planetfest '97. 

• The Planetary Report, Volume XVIII, Number 3, May/June 1998, Questions and Answers
  Tom McDonough responds to a TPS reader's comments regarding Optical SETI.
  

• The Planetary Society/Harvard Optical SETI Appeal, September 1998
  Appeal by Louis Friedman and Paul Horowitz.
  

• The Planetary Society Optical SETI Press Release, January 1999
  Announcement of three new OSETI activities sponsored by The Planetary Society.
  

• Bioastronomy News, Volume 11, Number 1, First Quarter 1999
  Issue mainly devoted to several Optical SETI programs.
  

• The Planetary Society NASA Budget Cuts Alert, August 1999
  
  
  
• The Planetary Report, Volume XX, Number 2, March/April 2000
  Optical SETI at last!!!

• The Planetary Society All Sky Optical Survey Appeal, November 2000
  
• The Planetary Society Press Conference, January 24, 2001
  
• The Planetary Society's Milestones in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
  
• The Planetary Society's SETI Links and Resources

• Other Optical SETI Observatories and Web Sites

• SETI News, Volume 3, Number 2, 1994
  Announcement of the availability of the OSETI I Proceedings. 

• SETI News, Volume 3, Number 3, 1994
  Report by John Billingham of the Jerusalem SETI meeting (45th International Astronautical Congress). 

• Book Review by Sir Arthur C. Clarke in The Times Higher Educational Supplement, March 17, 1995, p. 24.
  The Planetary Society's Advisory Council Member, Arthur C. Clarke, reviews a book by Paul Davies and refers to Stuart Kingsley as a "maverick English engineer" (now a maverick American engineer). 

• Jeff Hecht's Laser Focus World Article, July 1996, p. 99-104.

• Sky & Telescope article by Andrew LePage - "SETI Searches Today", December 1998, pp. 44-48.

• Media articles about Stuart Kingsley's OSETI activities.

• See Dr. Bernard M. Oliver for further background information on how the SETI community initially responded to my revisit of Optical SETI at the beginning of the '90s.