Do
you remember the first Star Trek movie? The original that came out in 1979.
The thing I remember most is how slo-o-o-ow that movie was. Star Wars IV: A New Hope,
with its fast action adventure, had come out two years before. Star Trek: The
Motion Picture couldn't compare. To me, it was such a disappointment.
One
thing I remember most is the “alien” who talked through one of the crew and
threatened the starship Enterprise. It called itself V’ger (vee-ger). Since the movie has
been around for forty years, I’m not going to warn “spoiler.” If you haven’t
seen it by now, my telling you about V’Ger won’t make a difference. It turns
out that V’ger was the probe Voyager sent out over 300 years before. Its
purpose: to collect data and transmit it back to Earth.
For over forty years, the Voyagers have been sending back data and pictures of the places they've been. The scientists who've been working on the Voyager project now include second and third generations. Imagine working on the same project as your mother/father and grandfather/grandmother.
Every
time I hear or read about the probe Voyager, I think V’ger from that movie. NASA
sent out two Voyagers 42 years ago. They are the only machines that have gone
beyond our solar system and crossed over into interstellar space (Voyager 1 in
2013; Voyager 2 in 2018).
They
both carried a “golden record” that would give alien civilizations who
encountered Voyager a glimpse of Earth. That glimpse includes images from Earth, sounds of
nature (like surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales,
and other animals), musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken
greetings from Earth people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President
Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim.
Are you wondering who decided what to put on that record? A committee
chaired by Carl Sagan. They even included illustrated directions on how to play
the record. [I hope the directions are better than those that came with my air
fryer.]
"The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played
only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar
space." - Carl Sagan
Considering
the scary movies in which aliens invade Earth or wipe out the inhabitants to
they can salvage Earth’s resources, I wonder if we really want to reach out to
alien civilizations. Do we want them to know we’re here?
But
then I think remember awe-inspiring movies like Contact, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek: First Contact. Aliens
could be friendly. They could want to help us achieve interstellar travel.
What
do you think? Was it a good idea to send out the Voyagers?
