Blasting Beatle music into the cosmos in a “hi-frequency” hello to aliens is behind the power curve.

Using its Deep Space Network, NASA is blasting the Beatles Across the Universe directly into deep space at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, February 4th. The transmission is being aimed at the North Star, Polaris, which is located 431 light years away from Earth.

But Jamaican musician Bob Marley and his reggae rhythms were shot spaceward some nine years ago. That’s the word from Charles Chafer, the Chief Executive Officer and originator of the Cosmic Call concept. He reminded me of the following:

“In 1999 and again in 2002, my company leased the large (70 meter) steerable radio astronomy dish in Evpatoriya, Ukraine from Energia and the Ukrainian Air Force. Under the direction of Russian Academy of Sciences astronomer, Dr. Alexander Zaitsev, and Richard Brastaad, we beamed over 100,000 messages from people from all over the world to several stars selected on the basis of possibly having an Earth-like planet near them,” Chafer said.

“I used my prerogative to be certain that the music of Robert Nesta Marley — the song, One Love – was included in both transmissions. I love the Beatles, but somehow I felt that Bob Marley’s music best captured the spirit of the planet, so I selected that song as a representation of Planet Earth,” Chafer advised me.

Meanwhile, there’s quite the discussion underway regarding intentional broadcasting to alien civilizations, an off-shoot from the traditional Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in listen-only mode. Do we want to tip off our hand that we are here…radio waving to less than friendly aliens?

It’s dubbed “Active SETI” - and I asked astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute to relay to me what he thinks.

“I am sympathetic to the idea that active SETI might be a worthy endeavor. The problems are (1) who will pay for it, given that even passive SETI — which could succeed virtually immediately — doesn’t ever seem to be over-abundant with funds, and (2) what is the strategy? Just pinging random star systems would take a very long time with the kind of equipment we can muster, and then there’s always the matter of monitoring for replies that would be at least decades away,” Shostak told me.

Also, take into consideration the thoughts of Colorado-based astronomer, Steve Kilston:

“Active SETI at this time is, I believe, just a pipedream. Once we find some likely life-bearing places — Polaris is very unlikely — to beam signals toward, there may be some credibility in what we do, but I think that may more likely succeed (on a centuries-long time scale at the shortest) if we use lasers and large optical telescopes for our transmissions,” Kilston noted.

Kilston added: “I have none of the worries, absurd to me, about notifying ‘hostile’ ET intelligence about our presence. If they have the technology to harm us, they would also be able to find out about us easily, no matter how we tried to hide.”

A final point raised by Kilston is based on his feelings that the individual human has rights, not merely as a member of Earth society, but also as a citizen of the universe.

“Therefore, I tend to resist warnings that the institutions of Earth (with all their vested interests) must have control over what any individual wishes to beam across space. Of course, there could be pathological cases society would want to and act to avoid, but until we truly have governments and other institutions ‘of, by, and for the people’ I don’t wish to relinquish my personal decisions to the discretion of some ‘active SETI control board’”, Kilston concluded.

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