The exo-adventures of Voyager 2

  Today marks 12,000 days of continuous service from our Voyager 1 spacecraft (12,015 days for Voyager 2) Our ambassadors to the outer solar system are still keeping in touch after 33 years away from home, and delivering some important information as they journey deeper into uncharted territory. In tribute, I decided to dust off the old blog and publish a draft I had written in May about hard-working Voyager’s more sensitive side, it’s musical message of humanity:  

So here and now I present to you, the exo-adventure of Voyager 2   !

   I came across an exciting, if not entirely credible story that one of our first deep-space probes, Voyager2, had been abducted by aliens and could now be broadcasting an encrypted message back to us. On April 22, with all other systems functioning normally, Voyager2’s data stream came home in an unknown format. The story was immediately interpreted by first-contact hopefuls as alien intervention, that is until NASA could prove otherwise in the weeks to follow.

 The idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds. When the Voyager twins were launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system, it was well-considered that someday on their interstellar journey, they may be intercepted by some curious passer-by. Although the probes are incredibly wee compared to vastness of interstellar space, the possibility warranted more than just a Pioneer style plaque. A committee, chaired by Carl Sagan at Cornell University, would be responsible for compiling a message from humanity.   As an acomplished doctor in the philosophy of astronomy and astrophysics, Sagan understood that a  message into deep space is nothing to take lightly. He had already inspired millions with his passion for the planets, and his work with SETI made him somewhat of an expert on interstellar messages. He and his associates would design the gold-plated copper phonographic records for the two Voyager spacecraft containing sounds and songs of the Earth, multicultural greetings, as well as 115 analog images from around the world. Some of my favorite selections include Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Good, the whale songs, and an hour of recorded human brain activity. Talk about pressure to think good thoughts! I might have chosen a Buddhist monk for this mental message of peace, but it sounds like Sagan’s wife to-be, committee member  Ann Druyan, did a good job on humanity’s behalf.

” I had a one-hour mental itinerary of the information I wished to convey. I began by thinking about the history of Earth and the life it sustains. To the best of my abilities I tried to think something of the history of ideas and human social organization. I thought about the predicament that our civilization finds itself in and about the violence and poverty that make this planet a hell for so many of its inhabitants. Toward the end I permitted myself a personal statement of what it was like to fall in love.”          

The gold records were attached to the voyager spacecraft in a casing that was electroplated with a uranium isotope. Should the probes ever be recovered, the isotope’s half-life of over 4.5 billion years will make dating the probe a sinch for any advanced civilization. However, decoding the discs playing instructions may be another problem all together. The case was engraved with a graphical representation of how the record should be played, comparing its playing speed to the transition of the hydrogen atom. As a bonus, there is an included playing cartridge and stylus, just incase ET’s old turntable isn’t up to par anymore.

         

Finally, what alien communication could be complete without a word from the president of the United States? Jimmy Carter included a written letter with the disc addressed to an advanced civilization, a humbling activity that I think every politician should take part in. It’s a motivational activity, like writing a letter to yourself in the future. We might have all our future presidents do it from now on, just to keep them humble. Writing letters to aliens  would certainly make their actions more accountable to a “higher power”.    

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but the states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some –perhaps many– may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations.

If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

       This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

– Jimmy Carter

President of the United States of America”

  So far our message has travelled over 21 billion kilometers and remains unread. NASA was able to determine that the sudden scrabbled message in April was caused by a flipped-bit within Voyagers computer. The problem was quickly corrected from a mere 15 billion kilometers away, and Voyager was back in full health for its 12k anniversary on June 28th, but the exo-adventure is far from over. In the coming decade the probes will hit some rapids as they enter a region where solar winds gust against the interstellar medium. The probes final mission, as they journey ever farther into deep space, will be to measure the interactions between our star and the surrounding galactic environment.    

   From there, the probes will be little more than travelling monuments to intelligent life in our solar system. Their distance in space will mark our achievements, and our limitations, in a unique era. Perhaps the Voyager probes and the messages they carry will never hold much significance to extraterrestrial civilizations, but they will certainly serve as a point of interest to future generations, and remind us all that the human bar of achievement is set a million and a half kilometers higher everyday.                          

Robotic space plane launched with classified cargo

I love space secrets! Nothing gets the imagination moving quite like withheld information. It allows you to consider all kinds of mind-boggling possibilities, that may be in your best interests not to know. 

 

The X-37B was launched last night, with intentions not fit for public knowledge. This picture shows the x-37B, built by Boeing’s “Phantom Works” advanced-concepts shop, looking a little too innocent in the belly of the space shuttle. Once considered as a potential life boat for the ISS, the vehicle was later passed over to the Department of Defense for what I can only conclude to be secret defensive space purposes. 

The X-37B recharging its sinister battery

 

The experimental unmanned space plane is designed to make orbital passes and automated landings that could go unnoticed by opposing territories. The Iranian government has even come to regard the mini-shuttle as a “secret space warplane.” The truth is never usually as interesting as anything we could imagine, so lets all take a moment to enjoy the mystery.