Scientist Discusses Life Beyond Earth

As the movie “Contact” proved by scoring big at the box office this summer, lots of people are curious about the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Thomas McDonough, a scientist and member of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, will minister to those who believe such life exists--and perhaps a few skeptics--during a lecture Saturday at Cal State Northridge’s planetarium. The program is titled “Searching for E.T.: The Scientific Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.”

McDonough will focus on the progress of scientists’ attempts to detect and evaluate radio signals from outside our solar system.

His appearance is sponsored by CSUN’s department of physics and astronomy and the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement, a branch of the nonprofit National Space Society.

Steve Bartlett, the organization’s vice president and an aerospace engineer, said the event was scheduled around the release of “Contact,” which is based on Carl Sagan’s best-selling astronomy book and stars Jodie Foster.

The recent upsurge in extraterrestrial fascination should produce a diverse crowd, he said.

“You’ve got serious people who wonder, ‘Is anyone else out there?’ and you’ve also got, for want of a better word, the kook factor,” Bartlett said. “The focus of the talk is more on taking the fringier aspects out of it and seeing what is really being done.”

The Redondo Beach-based organization was formed to “bring about a ‘space-faring’ civilization, developing and settling of worlds outside of Earth,” Bartlett said. “We’re trying to create breathing room for the human race because it’s getting kind of crowded here.”