What a Voyage!
This has been the month of the science of the cosmos. The total solar eclipse kicked off last week. And August 20th marked the 40th anniversary of the launching of Voyager 2 in 1977. Well, what happened to Voyager 1? It was launched a month later, and September 5, 1977 marks its 40th anniversary. Given launch calculations and the boomerang effect of using planets in our solar system to propel the space vehicles further into space, Voyager 1 is now almost 13 billion miles from earth while Voyager 2, despite the head start, is only 10.6 billion miles away. What does a few billion miles matter when you’re talking about interstellar travel? (http://www.pbs.org/the-farthest/ home/)
I’ve read some great articles about these scientific achievements by NASA (the National Aeronautical and Space Administration) and its scientists. You can also get a good look into the planning and hopefulness of NASA’s scientists by watching NOVA’s “Farthest – Voyager in Space.” It aired last week on KPBS on the weekly NOVA program, and I’m sure it’ll be around for another fly by. If I was a kid, after watching this program, I’d surely want to become a space engineer. Where did I put that application for Cal Tech with an internship at the JPL? Maybe it’s not too late.
I loved the simulations of the Voyagers flying through our solar system and filming planets. I love video that makes me feel I’m hurtling through space. It’s lonely you say, and empty. You, bet. But it’s also the place of discovery, and that’s the feeling I get from watching “Farthest.” These men and women who designed and monitored the Voyagers as they travel through space are primarily explorers. They anticipated that these probes would go beyond where the telescopes cannot see and collect temperature and radiation data unavailable to land or spaced basedspace-based observatories. Let me be clear about this; I am not a natural scientist. Yet, the stuff of these probes is incredible.
We didn’t know much about the Voyager launches outside of news headlines since they were launched in the pre-internet stage. As one of the engineers said about one of many momentous events, you wouldn’t have known much about it unless you had been in the auditorium at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Nowadays, with instant and continuously streaming news, we’d expect a CNN cameraman to be strapped to the rocket giving us more info than we’d ever want to know about Voyager.
In “Farthest,” the interviews with the engineers capture the drama of the Voyagers’ ascent to the stars. Nothing was preordained. Problems occurred at every turn. Contact would be lost with the probes. Upon launch, Voyager 2 communicated troubling adjustments as it sought to stabilize itself amidst the vibration and thrust of the rockets accelerating it away from earth. Eventually, the successful Voyagers broadcasted images of Jupiter and Saturn, and the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune. Surprises became commonplace, but never ordinary proving the worth of the missions. Planets’ moons were found to have volcanic activity spewing ash and dust hundreds of miles into space. Jupiter’s great red spot revealed storms of gigantic proportion. Saturn’s rings comprised of ice crystals were able to be analyzed more closely. All of this was shown through the marvels of computer animation and the Voyagers’ actual images. Making it even “spacier” was the use of Pink Floyd’s music as background. Oh, brother, we were flying at thousands of miles per minute with a great soundtrack.
On board Voyager 1 is a golden record. It’s a shot in the dark since it carries music (Chuck Berry), data and images of human life on earth in the hope that one day it will be intercepted by intelligent beings, worlds away. Voyager has passed the earth’s heliosphere and is heading toward outer, outer space and other solar systems. Strangely, it will continue its flight after the sun has exploded and ended our solar system. Good luck, Voyager. Congrats and thanks to the pioneers who built and launched it.