Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Credit: Voyager Project, JPL, NASA Launched twenty-five years ago, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are now over 10 billion kilometers from the Sun. Still operational, the Voyagers are being tracked and commanded through the Deep Space Network. Having traveled beyond the outer planets, these remarkable spacecraft are only the third and fourth human built artifacts to escape our solar system, following in the footsteps of Pioneer 10 and 11. A 12-inch gold plated copper disk containing recorded sounds and images representing human cultures and life on Earth, is affixed to each Voyager - a message in a bottle cast into the cosmic sea. The recorded material was selected by a committee chaired by the late Carl Sagan. Simple diagrams on the cover (visible above) represent symbolically the spacecraft's origin and give instructions for playing the disk. The exotic construction of the disks should provide them with a long lifetime as they coast through interstellar space. The two spacecraft will not make a close approach to another planetary system for at least 40,000 years.
wet1 "Launched twenty-five years ago, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are now over 10 billion kilometers from the Sun" that's not even 1/2 a light day. wet1 "The exotic construction of the disks should provide them with a long lifetime as they coast through interstellar space. " Unfortunately, their powers sources will run out in approximately 2020. Wet1 "The two spacecraft will not make a close approach to another planetary system for at least 40,000 years." At present speed it will take another 76,650 years (give or take a few hundred) just to reach the next nearest star! But then 40,000 or 76,650 what does it really matter, humans probably won't make it another 50! Doesn't it worry anyone that by today's standards, the information provided on the Voyagers is so primative that any superior species finding it will toss it aside as coming from a civilization not worthy of the trouble to contact?
Who says a superior species will find it? If we really are vanquished by our own magics then what remains of our civilization should be enough to avert the fate of those almost certainly on the same path. I predict that if they are intelligent and able to understand and work with the graphics, they will trace the origin to our system, attempt at least a robotic flyby of earth, and find it crystallized with radioactivity, much to their disapointment. All a worst case scenario though. My personal prediction is that the speed of light will one day be easily broken and contact with other races significantly easier than is imagined today. The Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft making a wonderful museum piece in the distant (or if I, personally, am lucky) or near future.
Giskard, It demonstrates, by how little the space probes have traveled, how far we have to go to make traveling in intersteller space a reality. You know these things are making record braking distances for mankind. We don't even know what is out there for sure. These probes may not even leave heliosphere, you never know till you try. In a way it is a nice thing, I think, to have some record of the species you belong to, something about it, recorded for the future and put where we can not destroy it. Someday, somewhen, maybe it is found. If they are smart enough to figure it out, I would think they would be smart enough to know how old this craft would be and what that meant for the originators' age as a species. (At least from the launch of the craft) I do not think anyone finding this craft will just trash can it. Most will have an idea of its significance. We study ancient remains with an interest (and they are our own remains). They may be that species, like ours, that has no proof that anyone else does or did exist.
It's safe to assume that sooner or later someone will find it if it isn't destroyed by a meteorite or something. Chances are it's gonna be a reaaaaaal long time.
Wherever it finally ends up. the people who first see it are going to think they saw a UFO. If it crashes on some planet and any of it survives, the residents will reverse engineer it and make themselves a record player. Way to go. NASA! Should've included a recording of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon'.
