Jimmy Carter. Here’s his letter that’s heading into the cosmos:
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 these 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 may 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
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 16, 1977
wdwerker on
I’ve always respected the man more since he left office. I think he is the finest ex president we have ever had. He devoted himself to the betterment of people around the world. Built homes for the working poor and I just hope that he isn’t suffering from his brain cancer.
84thPrblm on
Thank you for reminding us that this great man celebrates 100 trips around the sun next Tuesday!
RBelbo on
This is nice but kind of useless for any aliens. The text is too short for any alien hoping to decifer it. We have problems decifering any short text from ancient languages on Earth. So there’s no chance that this could be decifered by any alien whatsoever. Probably not even by future humans, if some disaster happens and we forgot English altogether. A better idea would have been to translate the text into pictures.
Far-Pair7381 on
Carter’s nicer than Jack Handy:
“Whether they ever find life there or not I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.”
RunaroundX on
I feel like, even if we find life, trying to move long distances while chasing a moving target could be challenging. Like it’s not like a planet is static in space at a set of coordinates, but bouncing around the galactic core and spinning. You won’t just find something by chance.
6 Comments
Jimmy Carter. Here’s his letter that’s heading into the cosmos:
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 these 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 may 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
THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 16, 1977
I’ve always respected the man more since he left office. I think he is the finest ex president we have ever had. He devoted himself to the betterment of people around the world. Built homes for the working poor and I just hope that he isn’t suffering from his brain cancer.
Thank you for reminding us that this great man celebrates 100 trips around the sun next Tuesday!
This is nice but kind of useless for any aliens. The text is too short for any alien hoping to decifer it. We have problems decifering any short text from ancient languages on Earth. So there’s no chance that this could be decifered by any alien whatsoever. Probably not even by future humans, if some disaster happens and we forgot English altogether. A better idea would have been to translate the text into pictures.
Carter’s nicer than Jack Handy:
“Whether they ever find life there or not I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.”
I feel like, even if we find life, trying to move long distances while chasing a moving target could be challenging. Like it’s not like a planet is static in space at a set of coordinates, but bouncing around the galactic core and spinning. You won’t just find something by chance.