Submission + - Astronomer Who Inspired Carl Sagan's "Contact" Retiring (cbsnews.com)
ideonexus writes: "Jill Tarter, the woman who inspired the fictional character Ellie Arroway in Carl Sagan's "Contact," is retiring as a SETI Astronomer after 35 years in order to focus entirely on raising funds to keep the SETI project operational, which employs 150 people and costs $2 million a year to operate, but had to shut down for several months in 2011 due to budget problems."