Project Cyclops

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Project Cyclops is a 1971 NASA project that investigated how the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) should be conducted. As a NASA product the report is in the public domain. The project team created a design for coordinating large numbers of radio telescopes to search for Earth-like radio signals at a distance of up to 1,000 light-years to find intelligent life. The proposed design involving between 1,000 and 2,500 steerable dishes of 100m diameter each was shelved due to costs. However, the report became the basis for much of the SETI work to follow.

The approach NASA devised for SETI was to develop a framework with the present understanding of the universe, and then use that as the basis for increasing the probability of discovering extraterrestrials. Making no assumptions, apart from that extraterrestrial radio signals exist, it focused on scanning the skies for signals that could indicate the presence of intelligent life forms.^[1]