More Modern Perspective
Many, but not all, of the conclusions have withstood the test of time - there is a chapter in the book SETI 2020 that revisits the conclusions of the Cyclops report. Particular differences include:
- Points 4 and 5: Cyclops preferred the low end of the microwave band. With technology advances, the disadvantages of higher frequencies are smaller, and they have other advantages. Anything from microwave through optical looks roughly equivalent.
- Point 6: The highest frequency of such an array can, and should be, much higher.
- Point 8: Beacons will probably be pointed, and not omni-directional. Modern processing power makes this possible, and it is much more energy efficient.
- Point 9: Although not called out in SETI 2020, the point "Beacons ... will surely be highly monochromatic," has suffered substantial criticism. As Earth's communication technology moves toward spread spectrum signals, SETI observations are being augmented with searches for high bandwidth signals.
- Point 10: The optical processing of Cyclops should be replaced by digital signal processing.
Read more about this topic: Project Cyclops
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