Jacob Huck Misra, a research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Science Institute, suggested that people buy lottery bonds, which would give them a chance to get a lot of cash. SETI won this award when it found evidence of life in other parts of the universe. Different from the traditional lottery, SETI lottery functions like a bond, and the holder gets a small part of its value every year, thus increasing the value of the lottery.
"SETI lottery bonds are perpetual bonds with fixed interest rates. When it expires, there will be a lottery ticket, and it will be mature only when extraterrestrial intelligent life is discovered and confirmed, "Huck Misra wrote in his paper, which was published in Space Policy magazine and has a preprint of ARXIV. The yield of shares purchased by investors of SETI lottery bonds is fixed, and it is indefinite before SETI succeeds. At that time, a part of the randomly drawn shares will receive bonuses from the lottery fund pool.
Related: Space lasers help robots "sniff out" alien life along the way.
Huck Misra explained in an email to Explorer that if you want to invest in other places, you can sell the bonds to others.
"The total amount of funds raised in this way will be managed by a financial company and will grow over time, just like the management of funds and other financial products today." He added: "A certain percentage of interest will be repaid to investors every year, and regular payments will also be provided to maintain SETI's research." The fund manager will also ensure that there are enough funds for the lottery prize pool. "kdspe", "kdspe" and "kdspe" are impressions of an artist. They come from a newly discovered planet, about the size of the earth, 4 light years away from the earth. It is not clear whether there is intelligent life in the universe, but researchers continue to look for planets the size of the earth in the habitable areas of their respective stars. (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Although there will be some complicated problems in the implementation of the system, Huck Misra said that reward will be a funding model, which is different from many scientific funding, and it focuses on long-term success. If it takes generations to find life, bondholders can pass them on to future generations. If individual bonds prove to be expensive, Huck Misra suggested raising some money through crowdfunding.
The disadvantage of SETI is that there are no financial institutions authorized to engage in gambling and banking business in the United States, which will force SETI to consider options such as offshore investment groups.
Huck Misra also said: "There is evidence that lottery bonds are very popular in some parts of the world, and there is further evidence that there is demand for such products in the United States." SETI lottery bonds are another step towards long-term savings, which may be a new way to increase participation in scientific and financial savings. Originally published in The Explorer.