N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L - Drake Equation @50

With little fanfare, American astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Donald Drake fifty (50)years ago organized the National Academy of Sciences-sponsored meeting convened a meeting on detecting extraterrestrial intelligence. The meeting was held at the Green Bank radio telescope facility. In preparation of the meeting in 1961, Drake postulated the so-called Drake Equation (sometimes called the Green Bank equation or the Green Bank Formula) was formulated and launched the first meeting of SETI. Drake says humanity has a long way to go to look for life among the stars, [BBC documentary].

"In 1961, I was asked by the National Academy of Science to convene a meeting of scientists interested in SETI to explore what the possibilities were," says Drake. "In preparing the agenda for the meeting, I listed all the factors one needed to know to predict the number of detectable civilisations in our galaxy. I recognised that if they were all multiplied together, one got an estimate of the number of detectable civilisations."