Drake, Frank

Drake, Frank (Donald)

(1930– ) astronomer; born in Chicago. His was the first organized search for extraterrestrial intelligence radio signals at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia (1958–63). While on the Cornell University faculty (1964–84), he also directed the world's largest radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. At the University of California: Santa Cruz (1984), he displayed a stained-glass representation of the "Arecibo message" to extraterrestrials sent from Puerto Rico (1974).