Frank Drake

For the comic book character, see Frank Drake (comics). For the 16th century naval commander, see Francis Drake.

Frank Drake
File:Frank Drake at Cornell, October 2017 (cropped).jpg Drake speaking at Cornell University in 2017
Born	Frank Donald Drake (1930-05-28)May 28, 1930 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	Aptos, California, U.S.
Fields	Astronomy, astrophysics
Institutions	University of California, Santa Cruz, SETI
Alma mater	Cornell University Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Known for	Arecibo message Drake equation Pioneer plaque Project Ozma Voyager Golden Record
Spouse	Elizabeth Procter Bell (m. 1952; div. 1976) Amahl Shakhashiri (m. 1978)
Children	5, including Nadia

Frank Donald Drake (May 28, 1930 – September 2, 2022) was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. Drake made significant radio studies of the planets and was notably involved in the first search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including, mounting the first observational attempts at detecting extraterrestrial communications in 1960 in Project Ozma, developing the Drake equation, as the creator of the Arecibo message, a digital encoding of an astronomical and biological description of the Earth and its lifeforms for transmission into the cosmos, and as one of the first trustees of the SETI Institute.

Drake is considered one of the pioneers of the modern field of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence with Giuseppe Cocconi, Philip Morrison, Iosif Shklovsky, and Carl Sagan.

Early life and education

Born on May 28, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, Drake showed an early interest in electronics and chemistry. Drake first considered the possibility of life existing on other planets as an eight-year-old, after conjecturing that if human civilization was the result of chance then civilizations might also exist elsewhere in the universe.

He enrolled at Cornell University on a Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship. Once there he began studying astronomy. His ideas about the possibility of extraterrestrial life were reinforced by a lecture from astrophysicist Otto Struve in 1951. After receiving a B.A. in Engineering Physics, Drake served briefly as an electronics officer on the heavy cruiser USS Albany. He then went on to graduate school at Harvard University from 1952 to 1955 where he received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Astronomy. His doctoral advisor was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Career

Drake started his career undertaking radio astronomical research on the planets in 1958–63 at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia, where he spearheaded the conversion of the Arecibo Observatory to a radio astronomical facility. Using the radio-telescope at Green Bank, Drake mapped the center of the Milky Way Galaxy for the first time, discovered the ionosphere and magnetosphere of the planet Jupiter, and made significant observations of the atmosphere of the planet Venus. In April 1959, Drake secured approval from the director of NRAO for Project Ozma to search for extraterrestrial radio communications. Initially, it was agreed to keep the project secret for fear of ridicule. However, Drake was compelled to publicize his work after Cocconi and Morrison published a paper in Nature in September 1959 entitled "Searching for Interstellar Communications" Drake started measurements in 1960, using the NRAO 26-meter radio telescope to search for possible signals from the Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani star systems. No extraterrestrial signals were detected and the project was terminated in July 1960. However, Project Ozma did lead to the then graduate student Carl Sagan contacting Drake, resulting in a lifelong collaboration between the two scientists.

In 1961, Drake devised the Drake equation to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations that might be detectable in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation subsequently became known as the "second most-famous equation in science", after E=mc2.

In 1963 Drake briefly served as section chief of Lunar and Planetary Science at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, before returning to Cornell in 1964 where he was appointed the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy in 1976 In 1972, Drake co-designed the Pioneer plaque with Carl Sagan and Linda Salzman Sagan. The plaque was the first physical message sent into space and designed to be understandable by any sufficiently technologically advanced extraterrestrial lifeforms that might intercept it. In 1974, Drake wrote the Arecibo message, the first interstellar message transmitted deliberately from Earth. Drake later served as technical director, with Sagan and Ann Druyan, in the creation of the Voyager Golden Record carried on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. Drake served as associate director of the Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, as director of the Arecibo Observatory from 1966 to 1968, and as director of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), which includes the Arecibo facility, from its establishment in 1971 to 1981.

In 1984, Drake left Cornell and served as dean of Natural Sciences at the University of California at Santa Cruz. After stepping down from this role in 1988, he remained professor and served as president of the board of trustees SETI Institute after its founding in 1984, and director of its Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe. Drake was President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1988 to 1990. From 1989 to 1992, Drake served as chairman of the Board of Physics and Astronomy for the National Research Council. He retired from teaching in 1996 but remained emeritus professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California. In 2010, Drake stepped down as director of The Carl Sagan Center for the Study of life in the Universe but continued to serve on the SETI Institute's board of trustees.

Personal life

Drake's hobbies included lapidary and the cultivation of orchids.

He had five children, including science journalist Nadia Drake.

Drake died on September 2, 2022, at his home in Aptos, California, from natural causes at the age of 92.

Honors

• Asteroid 4772 Frankdrake is named after him.
• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1972
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974.
• 2001 Drake award from the SETI Institute
• 2018 National Space Society's Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering

See also

• Lick Observatory
• The Farthest, a 2017 documentary on the Voyager program
• The Search for Life: The Drake Equation

External links

• Frank Drake's academic tree
• "Estimating the Chances of Life Out There" – brief biography for astrobiology workshop at the NASA Ames Research Center.
• Frank Drake's 2010 article on "The Origin of the Drake Equation"
• "Finding Aliens 'Only a Matter of Time', Says Father of SETI" A Q&A with Frank Drake about his famous equation and the meaning of SETI, from an interview in February 2010, leading up to the 50th birthday of SETI
• "Estimating the Chances of Life Out There" on YouTube A public talk by Frank Drake in the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series
• 2012 Interview with Frank Drake looking back on his career
• 2014 closertotruth.com Interview with Frank Drake looking at the question of Intelligent E.T. and a Space based Radio Telescope
• "The Drake Equation" – Astronomy Cast transcript (html), Fraser Cain and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville professor, Dr. Pamela Gay, Monday February 12, 2007. (Full pdf transcript)
• Frank Drake at the Internet Movie Database
• Frank Drake discography at Discogs