Those efforts will no doubt continue. However, Dr. Horowitz, who heads the new telescope project says that many in the SETI community have come to appreciate the promise that light may hold for making first contact. A laser beam, for example, can pack more information than radio. If humans have the ability to build laser transmitters, it would be easy for more advanced cultures to do the same. Therefore, another 10-meter telescope 1,000 light years away would have no problem picking up the signals.
Astronomers estimate that within that distance the sky holds roughly a million sun-like stars.
Because Congress banned the use of federal funds for SETI work in 1993, optical projects remain privately funded. Optical communications between solar systems is not a new thing. In 1958 Arthur Shawlow and Charles Townes announced their invention of the laser. Three years later they published a paper in the journal Nature describing how lasers could be used for SETI work. However, the U.S. did not take on the concept as a means of searching for other civilizations.