Voyager I and II

Voyagers I and II tug at the imagination in profoundly visceral and philosophical ways.  The attractions are only partly related to the scientific tasks they have completed, their remarkable durability, and the ingenuity of the engineers and scientists who designed them.

The National Aeronautic and Space Administration’s most successful mission, the two 1,820-pound space probes turned 25 this summer.  Streaking away from Earth at between 35,000 and 40,000 mph, they have more than fulfilled their scientific purposes conceived in the 1970s and expanded in the 1980s.  They have given astrophysicists closer looks at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, their moons, and a view of the solar system 1 billion to 3 billion miles away from Earth.

On their one-way flights, they have sent back stunning images of planets, moons, the solar system, and interstellar space.  They have forced revision of ideas on the composition of Jupiter, its moons, and the function of Saturn’s rings.  They have opened up the possibilities of Pluto and its environs as fruitful areas of exploration.  They may not have found life as we know it, but their findings have suggested new ways that life, as we know it might exist.

Now, they have only one more scientific task: send back data from the edge of the solar system and the beginning of interstellar space – the heliopause.  NASA expects that encounter in about four years.  In another 16 years, the Voyager’s plutonium-driven power plants will stop, and the two satellites will drift endlessly, perhaps forever, through the universe.  They may still be going 3 billion years from now when the Earth is expected to be a lifeless, hot rock orbiting without spin around a dying Sun.  But by then, they will be well into their much larger mission, begun after they endured the electromagnetic shock of the heliopause and left the influence of the Sun’s gravitational pull: the Earth’s first ambassadors to possible worlds and beings in intergalactic space. 

Their portfolios – 12 inch gold plated copper recordings.

Before their launches, a group of scientists led by Carl Sagan, the late Cornell astronomer and great science popularizer, put together a collection of what might be called a portrait of the human enterprise.  The idea was to give whatever intelligent being that might encounter either of the Voyagers an idea of the life form that created them.  The collection was digitized and stored on the discs.  Each looks like a contemporary laser disc.  But with its strange markings (directions in symbolic language on how to use it), it has the ambiance of the golden Sun plate – elaborately engraved with plants and animals, as big as a wagon wheel – Given by Montezuma to Cortes before the conquistador started his 70-league journey across Mexico in the early 16^th century.

 And what was the Voyager mission’s idea of the human experience back in the 1970s?  The assignment might strike any reasonably intelligent person as an exercise in futility, noteworthy more by what it omits than what it includes.  However, its contents show that its compilers did a pretty good job at showing what we are about.

There are spoken greetings in 55 languages, from “Adonish lu shumo (May all be well),” uttered by Akkadians 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, to “Bonjour, tout le monde,” a salutation of contemporary French speakers.  Former President Jimmy Carter and former United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim express their regards, in English, in more extended fashions.

There are 155 digitized images: astronomical and geometric diagrams, drawings of human anatomy, sketches of Bushmen; Ansel Adams prints of the Grand Tetons and the Golden Gate Bridge; photographs of a Guatemalan man, a mountain climber, a gymnast, house construction in Africa, Soviet sprinter Valeri Borzov in the 1972 Olympics, rush-hour traffic in India, and a nursing mother.  There are 90 minutes of music; selections from Bach violin and piano works, a Beethoven symphony, a Mozart opera, and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”; great works from China, India, Japan and Java; songs from Australia, Zaire, New Guinea, Azerbaijan, and Bulgaria; instrumental works from Peru, Mexico, the Solomon Islands, and Senegal; and American works by the Navajo, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and Blind Willie Johnson.

There are scores of sounds: fire, volcanoes, mud-pots; crickets, frogs, hyenas, elephants, chimpanzees, wild dogs, tame dogs; trains, tractors, ships, fighter jets, rockets; footsteps, laughter, a heartbeat – a kiss.  Those interested in a more complete look at what’s on those recordings can consult the NASA Web site for Voyager, <vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/record.html> or find a copy of “Murmurs of the Earth,” by Mr. Sagan, Frank Drake, and Jon Lomborg.  It is out of print, but the latest editions, which should be available in libraries or through used-book services, include a CD-ROM of the entire Voyager disc.

One can only wonder what might happen if and when living creatures find one of the Voyagers’ golden discs.  Will they figure out how to use it?  (A tone arm, cartridge, and stylus are included in the aluminum casing that encloses the recording).  After they hear it, will they grumble in incomprehension or sneer in derision and toss it away as if it were some highway nuisance?

Or will they, like Cortes’ men, marvel at the culture that produced such wonders, envy its riches, and seek to make contact?  And should they make that contact, will there be a human race to greet them?

Prepared by Charles Saydah in an editorial for the New Jersey Bergen Record, August 26, 2002 issue.

EndNote:  Why would I want to copy and record a newspaper editorial?  I spent much of my adult life in a series of high-tech programs, many of which were space related.  One of these programs was the Voyager project, in which I was involved with the development of the plutonium power plants.  These small but powerful generators were mounted on the end of a long boom extending from the spacecraft to protect the craft’s electronics from the residual radiation.  Over the years, memories fade – and then the editorial was prepared!  What better way to recall than to use the editorial writer’s research to remember the golden days of the space program?

On August 30, 2002 the Record printed a letter received from Guy Webster, media relations representative for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.  In the letter, Mr. Webster states:

                ‘“Exploring the universe’ (Editorial, Aug. 26) was wonderful and eloquent.  I’ll try to see that many of the

               people who made Voyager possible see it.  I love the analogy to the Aztec sun plate.

             

              There are some minor errors, however.  Ed Stone and other scientists are predicting that Voyager I’s encounter with the heliopause is about seven to 21 years away, rather than four years.  (Within four years, there could be an encounter with a nearer feature, the ‘termination shock,’ where solar wind begins to pile up against the heliopause.)  And the records are actually metal phonograph disks with analog data, rather than digital and resembling CDs or DVDs.  Also the URL you offer for more information does work, but an updated version posted this year is at http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html.”

2002

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It has been twelve years since I prepared what you just read and much has happened in the continuing Voyager program.

In August 2012 Voyager II left the Solar System and entered interstellar space.

When launched in 1977, both Voyagers were equipped with a Plutonium 238 power source mounted on a long boom with a shield to protect Voyager from residual radiation.  Plutonium 238 has a half-life of 88 years and during its lifetime will provide the power needed by Voyager to function and the heat needed by Voyager to prevent freezing from the intense cold of outer space.  

While the instrument package installed in 1977 is still functioning after 37 years, it is anticipated that the first instrument will shut-down in 2020 and by 2025 all instruments will have shut down.  

Voyager II will continue its transit of space in the general direction of the star AC+79 3888, about 17.6 light-years from Earth, for about 40,000 years, passing within 1.7 light-years on its continuing journey.  At the time of its passage, Voyager II will have long become a lifeless block of ice.

While all of its equipment had ceased to function eons ago, the Voyager disc is expected to survive its journey and provide any distant civilization with information on the originators of  the space vehicle, thereby achieving the prime objective of the Voyager program.  

November 2014

LFC