Another LIGO scientist here. It takes an overwhelming amount of energy to generate gravitational waves, and detecting them from terrestrial sources is about 20

Another LIGO scientist here. It takes an overwhelming amount of energy to generate gravitational waves, and detecting them from terrestrial sources is about 20 orders of magnitude more difficult than the measurement we just made. Space, is extremely stiff; bending it enough to be detectable requires a huge amount of mass-energy.