It makes me sad to read that despite all the wealth floating around, we humans have failed to build and operate an international network of dishes listening to all spacecraft out there. When are we going to realize the importance of space exploration and act united... Did I mention that it’s a very nice read and if you want to have a look at what exactly the DSN is doing right now, go to https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
Everyone I’ve ever talked to has agreed that NASA should get DOD level funding - and that we’d have colonies all over/“flying cars”/who knows really by now (insert other breakthroughs here). It’s funny how popular an idea can appear and not be mentioned nationally. The idea being a much better funded NASA.
> A signal as powerful as a refrigerator lightbulb
That's about the most interesting part of the article, although it must be a gross oversimplification. If it was actually just a single wattage lightbulb on a satellite, that would be actually funny. Now I wonder what kind of antennas are used 1W in the relevant band could be seen from such a distance. In the spherical cow on a frictionless plane kinda sense, 1W transmitting radially at a 100 Million km distance to earth for example, the earth surface would see roughly 1e-48 of that. The deep space network covering much less area than that would see even less, I guess it wouldn't see anything.
> Like much of NASA, which receives less than 1 percent of the total federal budget every year, the DSN is underfunded
Once a century we will give all the budget to just one institution.
