? 2004 Election Guide | Main | Imperialism ?
October 12, 2004
Greetings from Earth
What if Voyager encounters intelligent life as it travels beyond our solar system?
The outer cover illustrates how to play the Golden Record and a reference for locating the spacecraft's home star.
There is a scene in Cosmos where Carl Sagan cheerfully calls out "Greetings from Earth" and the Four Seasons or some such starts to play. It is a wonderful scene evoking the optimism and adventure that are the very best of humanity and, one would hope, the qualities embodied in the Voyager message to some distant reader. Now I look at the record instructions and the politically astute but scientifically nonsensical choice to include greetings in a variety of mutually incomprehensible human languages and I am disappointed at this effort. Worse yet are a selection of creepy photos (human mouth function?). At least the uranium 238 timekeeping is a clever idea.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2004 05:41 AM
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