Bon Voyage
This week marked a milestone in the ever interesting progression of human communication. What makes this communiqué unique is that it left the Earth in 1977 and was destined for no one in particular. After twenty-six years, the first of two Voyager spacecraft is reaching the utmost limits of our solar system; farther than any probe has ever gone before. Voyager has already remarkably performed its first and foremost objective, the collecting of data from near encounters of the Jovian and outer planets of our system. The photographs returned to Earth from this mission are still some of the most revealing and beautiful images ever collected from our planetary neighbors, not to mention the scientific data recorded throughout its journey. Now it has fulfilled its duty. What was hoped for during its life expectancy has been accomplished. There is no way for these probes ever to return to Earth. They will continue traveling into interstellar space fully functional until about the 2020’s. After that, they will become sailing relics into the vast unknown waiting for any kind of interception. Taking this scenario into consideration, scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached to these space probes bits of information about our world just in case they might be recovered by another form of intelligent life. The information was prepared in the form of a gold-plated copper phonograph record along with a cartridge and a stylus and instructions for use. In hindsight, we probably would have sent a CD or DVD, but this was the technology what we had at our disposal at the time. The point is that any beings capable of recovering a foreign meandering space object would be much farther advanced than we and should have no trouble deciphering our simplistic methods. What’s interesting to me is the content of this record. Much debate went into the production of this message from Earth. After all, this would be the first physical human gesture into space. Radio waves have been traveling out since the 1930’s and television waves since the 50’s. Just imagine what they might think of us from that! Information was graphically displayed on the jacket of Earth’s position in our solar system, rudimentary information about our genes and a schematic of the phonograph system in which to play the record. What was recorded was a salutary greeting in sixty different languages. Also included were recordings of Earth sounds such as buzzing bees, mooing cows, a crying baby and urban street noise. The majority of the LP was made up of recorded music samples. These selections range from Bach to Stravinsky, all the way to Chuck Berry. Chances are that these first mechanical beacons ever to leave our corner of the galaxy will never reach anything of considerable intelligence, but it’s fascinating to me that they are out there speeding into territory that nothing we know has ever gone before. It’s as if we as a civilization have tossed a good-will paper airplane into the distance with a simple greeting of, “Hello.”
This week marked a milestone in the ever interesting progression of human communication. What makes this communiqué unique is that it left the Earth in 1977 and was destined for no one in particular. After twenty-six years, the first of two Voyager spacecraft is reaching the utmost limits of our solar system; farther than any probe has ever gone before. Voyager has already remarkably performed its first and foremost objective, the collecting of data from near encounters of the Jovian and outer planets of our system. The photographs returned to Earth from this mission are still some of the most revealing and beautiful images ever collected from our planetary neighbors, not to mention the scientific data recorded throughout its journey. Now it has fulfilled its duty. What was hoped for during its life expectancy has been accomplished. There is no way for these probes ever to return to Earth. They will continue traveling into interstellar space fully functional until about the 2020’s. After that, they will become sailing relics into the vast unknown waiting for any kind of interception. Taking this scenario into consideration, scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory attached to these space probes bits of information about our world just in case they might be recovered by another form of intelligent life. The information was prepared in the form of a gold-plated copper phonograph record along with a cartridge and a stylus and instructions for use. In hindsight, we probably would have sent a CD or DVD, but this was the technology what we had at our disposal at the time. The point is that any beings capable of recovering a foreign meandering space object would be much farther advanced than we and should have no trouble deciphering our simplistic methods. What’s interesting to me is the content of this record. Much debate went into the production of this message from Earth. After all, this would be the first physical human gesture into space. Radio waves have been traveling out since the 1930’s and television waves since the 50’s. Just imagine what they might think of us from that! Information was graphically displayed on the jacket of Earth’s position in our solar system, rudimentary information about our genes and a schematic of the phonograph system in which to play the record. What was recorded was a salutary greeting in sixty different languages. Also included were recordings of Earth sounds such as buzzing bees, mooing cows, a crying baby and urban street noise. The majority of the LP was made up of recorded music samples. These selections range from Bach to Stravinsky, all the way to Chuck Berry. Chances are that these first mechanical beacons ever to leave our corner of the galaxy will never reach anything of considerable intelligence, but it’s fascinating to me that they are out there speeding into territory that nothing we know has ever gone before. It’s as if we as a civilization have tossed a good-will paper airplane into the distance with a simple greeting of, “Hello.”
