19 replies to this topic

[JohnM]

Fantastic Voyage

Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977......
Sustained by their radioactive power packs, the probes' instruments continue to function well and return data to Earth, although the vast distance between them and Earth means a radio message now has a travel time of about 16 hours.

[Millman]

Fantastic Voyage

Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977......
Sustained by their radioactive power packs, the probes' instruments continue to function well and return data to Earth, although the vast distance between them and Earth means a radio message now has a travel time of about 16 hours.

Good article. Why was 2 launched before 1, anyone know?

[ckn]

Fantastic Voyage

Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977......
Sustained by their radioactive power packs, the probes' instruments continue to function well and return data to Earth, although the vast distance between them and Earth means a radio message now has a travel time of about 16 hours.

There's a real groundswell among the electrical and electronic engineering community for a return to simple designs that do one job and do it outstandingly well. Modern electronic engineering produces bloated systems with complex programming and far too many places for tiny errors to hide that will kill it at an unfortunate and unrecoverable time. Your mobile phone will have significantly more computational power than the Voyager craft yet I know which one will still be relevant and capable in 10 years time. (Edit: well, Voyager craft may be running short on power in 10 years time but then they don't have a handy wall socket available for recharge )

In the 70s and 80s, there was such a limited space available for complex programming that it had to be whole orders of magnitude more efficient than today's programming that has nearly unlimited memory and computational capacity to bloat into with untidy work.

[Steve May]

Fantastic Voyage

Voyager 1 was launched on 5 September 1977, and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2, on 20 August 1977......
Sustained by their radioactive power packs, the probes' instruments continue to function well and return data to Earth, although the vast distance between them and Earth means a radio message now has a travel time of about 16 hours.

The transmission power on those probes is about 13 watts. Which means that detecting them is an extraordinary feat of engineering in itself.

Imagine a very dim lightbulb 11 billion miles away.

[Millman]

The transmission power on those probes is about 13 watts. Which means that detecting them is an extraordinary feat of engineering in itself.

Imagine a very dim lightbulb 11 billion miles away.

Or imagine exxile's intellegent output, from two feet away.

[Steve May]

Or imagine exxile's intellegent output, from two feet away.

That would have been a better comment if you'd spelt intelligent correctly.

[Millman]

That would have been a better comment if you'd spelt intelligent correctly.

Damn you!

[fieldofclothofgold]

its supposed to return from its mission sometime in the 23rd century

[Shaggy]

its supposed to return from its mission sometime in the 23rd century

...seeking its creator and destroying Klingons on the way.

[High Peak Rhino]

What a great read. I can remember reading about them as a kid when they were only a few years into the mission and being fascinated by them. Didn't realise they were still going.
Second good read in AOB today, keep them coming.

[goldcard]

The transmission power on those probes is about 13 watts. Which means that detecting them is an extraordinary feat of engineering in itself.

Imagine a very dim lightbulb 11 billion miles away.

Or a BMW in the fog.....

[Padge]

Out in front of the Voyagers are Pioneer 10 an 11, though they stopped transmitting a long time ago.

[Steve May]

Out in front of the Voyagers are Pioneer 10 an 11, though they stopped transmitting a long time ago.

I think one of the Voyagers is further out because it's moving faster. You'll have to look it up.

Worth looking up the "Pale Blue Dot" photograph as well.

[Padge]

I think one of the Voyagers is further out because it's moving faster. You'll have to look it up.

Worth looking up the "Pale Blue Dot" photograph as well.

Possibly, but since the Pioneers stopped transmitting we don't really know where they are, they could have hitched a lift with the Vogans and sped off into hyperspace. May have to dig into that and see where the Pioneers are.

[Steve May]

Possibly, but since the Pioneers stopped transmitting we don't really know where they are, they could have hitched a lift with the Vogans and sped off into hyperspace. May have to dig into that and see where the Pioneers are.

Here's a cool little map I found on wikipedia.

[Steve May]

The Pale Blue Dot

If you look very carefully, about half way up the brown band on the right hand side of the photograph is a tiny, pale, blue dot.

It's Earth, taken by Voyager 1 looking back from 4 billion miles away.


Carl Sagan suggested the idea and he wrote:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

[Millman]

The Pale Blue Dot

If you look very carefully, about half way up the brown band on the right hand side of the photograph is a tiny, pale, blue dot.

It's Earth, taken by Voyager 1 looking back from 4 billion miles away.


Carl Sagan suggested the idea and he wrote:

Powerful words though.

[Padge]

Here's a cool little map I found on wikipedia.

The Pale Blue Dot

If you look very carefully, about half way up the brown band on the right hand side of the photograph is a tiny, pale, blue dot.

It's Earth, taken by Voyager 1 looking back from 4 billion miles away.


Carl Sagan suggested the idea and he wrote:

Cool stuff indeed Steve, thanks for that.

Voyager one seems to setting the pace indeed, by a long way.

In the scheme of the universe we really are totally insignificant.

[l'angelo mysterioso]

The Pale Blue Dot

If you look very carefully, about half way up the brown band on the right hand side of the photograph is a tiny, pale, blue dot.

It's Earth, taken by Voyager 1 looking back from 4 billion miles away.


Carl Sagan suggested the idea and he wrote:

maybe we can get padge to turn it into a scene with a greek fishing boat

[goldcard]

The Pale Blue Dot

If you look very carefully, about half way up the brown band on the right hand side of the photograph is a tiny, pale, blue dot.

It's Earth, taken by Voyager 1 looking back from 4 billion miles away.


Carl Sagan suggested the idea and he wrote:

In a way, it's what "The Total Perspective Vortex" in HGGTTG was about, the insignificance and futility of it all.