First Soviet American Conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence

First Soviet-American Conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence was a conference held on September 5–11, 1971, at the Byurakan Observatory, USSR. The conference was jointly organized by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (with assistance from the U.S. National Science Foundation) and the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.

Organizing committee: Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, Philip Morrison, Nikolai Kardashev, V. Ambarzumian, Iosif Shklovsky, V. Troitsky.

Notable participants: Freeman Dyson, Marvin Minsky, Kent V. Flannery, Thomas Gold, David H. Hubel, Kenneth Kellermann, William H. McNeill, Bernard M. Oliver, Leslie Orgel, John R. Platt, Gunther Stent, Charles Hard Townes, Francis Crick.

As a result of the conference, the following research directions were formulated:

1. A search for signals and for evidence of astroengineering activities in the radiation of a few hundred chosen nearby stars and of a limited number of other selected objects, covering the wavelength range from visible to decimeter waves, using the largest existing astronomical instruments.
2. A search for signals from powerful sources within galaxies of the local group, including searches for strong impulsive signals.
3. Exploration of the region of minimum noise in the submillimeter band, in order to determine its suitability for observing extraterrestrial civilizations.
4. The design, among others, of powerful new astronomical instruments with roughly the following parameters:
   1. A decimeter wave radiotelescope with an effective area >1 km².
   2. A millimeter wave telescope with an effective area > 10⁴ m².
   3. A submillimeter wave belescope with an effective area > 10³ m².
   4. An infrared telescope with an effective area 10² m².
5. The definition of a system for keeping the entire sky under constant surveillance, which could lead to a search of wider scope than those listed under #1 and #2.