Hi all, This week's poll is about news that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has almost entered interstellar space. Discuss here your thoughts on this accomplishment, and, if you like, the poll results themselves.
Thanks!
Justin
Yep, I was a Junior in high-school and I remember its' launch. And how some folks debated the rationale of sending the "golden record" with it (i.e.---as to whether is was such a good idea to tell extra-terrestrials how to find us). And the nude images on the cover of the disc also had its' critics. Amazing that something of such (comparatively) old technology still works today and is still functioning so well... "Channeling the spirit of jboy..."
I don't see that there's any accomplishment in its leaving the solar system. It's essentially just coasting. It was eventually going to happen. What was accomplished was done years ago when it sent back pictures and data of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons and, to a lesser extent, the fact it's exceeded it's anticipated life and is still able to send back data. As far as remembering it being launched, no I don't. I was a kid during Mercury and Gemini. The whole country stopped what it was doing when one of those went up. So voyager's launch was no big deal. But I did think it sent back some fantastic pictures.
Of course I remember the day Voyager was launched: that day I met a pretty nice girl I fell in love for. That time I was a young graduated electrical engineer dealing with IBM mainframes and a sci-fi fan too. Today I still love sci-fi and that girl is actually my wife; instead mainframes and space frontier seem to belong to the past. I am surprised so many people remember Voyager.
I was in kindergarten in 77 I remember NASA personnel coming to my school talking about it. I was hooked on space and science from that moment on. I still believe we need to spend more than 17.7 Billion a year if we as a species want to continue and become more. In the end space is our lifeline be it due to our own petty behavior or the eventual end of Earths ability to support life. Seems we lost our edge in this field when we won the space race, though who would have believed that would be the outcome.
