Summer Space Program Considers Shift to Virtual Version Due to Coronavirus

The SETI Institute, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit that seeks to explore and explain the nature and origins of life in the universe, is gearing up to host the fifth iteration of its competitive, NASA-funded summer program, the Frontier Development Lab. FDL brings together a diverse cadre of researchers each year since its inception to rapidly leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced computing capabilities--all to ultimately help America's space agency accelerate its own research and discoveries. While SETI envelops the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence," its inside efforts touch a range of areas across space, science and beyond. But the 2020 program might run a little differently than those that came before. "Now, what's interesting is, we may--for the first time actually--undertake the program virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic," Bill Diamond, president and CEO of the SETI Institute, told Nextgov recently. "All indications are that this is going to be with us through at least the early part of the summer, and it may preclude the in-person working system that normally is characterized by the FDL program."