Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Communicating To The Unknown
It has been 40 years since two gold-plated copper records were affixed to two spacecrafts and blasted into the universe. Voyagers I and II are now far away in interstellar vacuum. It will be hundreds of years before they reach another solar system and by then, who knows what the earth will be like and if it will even be here. The chances of another civilization retrieving one or both of the craft is exceedingly slim. Yet, NASA tried to communicate to the unknown. What was put on the disks was instructive. The scientists tried to summarize life in sound and pictures. There was hubris in the attempt, but idealism as well. We may never know if there is life on the exo-planets being discovered weekly now. We do know there are thousands of them, but learning whether they have a solid surface and water is a slow and sometimes impossible process. The challenges of communicating to the unknown are nearly insuperable. Even if another civilization were to intercept a Voyager, would it know what the disk is for and would it be able to decipher the instructions for playing it? Scientists took their best guess. NASA has not tried to communicate to the unknown again, but it should be honored for making the attempt at least once.
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