Silence Is Golden

Last week featured a big couple of days for the space program. First the image of a frog being blasted high into the sky during a rocket launch in Virginia started to make the rounds in social media, becoming a pop culture phenomenon for a couple of minutes as people tried to figure out if it survived. I know that technically the frog had nothing to do with space exploration but given all the cuts the space program has seen and the fact that we no longer have any of our own shuttles to send astronauts into space, anything which reminds the general public that scientists are still shooting rockets into space has to be counted as a win. (This would drive me crazy if I were a rocket scientist. When you think of all the time and energy put into developing the technology to make space travel possible, the fact the only thing in 2013 which genuinely gets people excited about it is when a frog gets a little too close to the launch pad and it happens to be caught on camera has to be infuriating. It's like buying your kid a $300 toy only to find out all they want to play with is the box.) But, "Rocket Frog" aside the bigger news was came towards the end of the week when NASA announced the Voyager 1 space probe had officially left our solar system, making it the first man-made object to do so. Even better than that was the fact that it sent back some unexpected audio from its journey.

Voyager's official mission ended years ago and even though some of its sensors have stopped working it is still sending data back every day and scientist expect it to keep churning out new information until it runs out of power around 2025. (I'll say this - that was one well-built probe.) But until the day it goes quiet the guys monitoring its progress will take what it feels like showing them. That is why everyone was so excited to learn that it turns out space isn't so quiet, as the density of various interstellar plasma create a low-frequency whistle. They heard this noise last year but didn't want to say anything until they heard it a second time so as to not jump to any conclusions. But now that they have two separate incidents capturing approximately the same noise this is all very exciting for scientists because it proves many theories regarding what lays beyond our solar system and could provide valuable data should we ever get back into the space-exploration game. It's just good planning - whether you are driving around the corner or 13 billion miles from home it's always nice to know what kind of surface you might be driving into and these brief audio files are making a lot of people very excited. It's not exactly the three-notes from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" but it's something and when you remember that these sounds are coming from about 12 billion miles from here, I would say any audio is good audio. Which is what got me to thinking - we have been a little too ambitious with the Golden Record.

For those of you who aren't fans of remembering random facts objects which were hurled into space before you were born, included on Voyager was a Golden Record with various audio recordings (and before you ask the space craft also included instructions on how to build a phonograph just in case). The main tracks were standard greetings in 55 different languages and the disk also had tracks which would give you a listen to many of the sounds you would hear on Earth - waterfalls, wind, thunderstorms. You know, all the dangerous aspects of nature you would want to know about before you went to invade a planet. But, the more interesting thing to me was that the record also included 90 minutes of music from around the world. Everything from the standard wedding march and symphonies from Mozart and Beethoven to Native American chants and good old fashioned rock 'n roll. I just want to know who was on the committee to decide which music was good enough to make the first impression for an entire species. Also, I am not sure I would want that much responsibility as a musician. The most famous song on the disk was Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." The rumor has always been that NASA wanted to include the Beatles "Here Comes The Sun" but while the band was on-board with the idea their record label was not, proving that even back then record label executives were huge pricks because apparently they think distribution rights apply to an entire galaxy.

It is just too bad those choices have to last forever because some really good music has come out since this probe was launched, so I wish the technology had existed back in 1977 which would allow us to upload some new music. I may not have added anything new to my iPod in the last year because I have been so unimpressed with the new music of today but the fact remains that if you told me that what is on there today is all I would be able to listen to for the rest of time I would go slightly mad. On top of that nothing illustrates just how short-sighted these scientists were better than the fact that they used a record in the first place. Think about it - that's about five generations of technology behind where we are now. I'm not saying they should have gone with an 8-track, but tapes were available. Also, these guys were working with the best technology of the day so they had to know CDs were coming soon. It just makes us look bad because if Voyager were to ever run into aliens in their spaceship they are going to think records were the best thing we ever came up with when the truth is that those are more common to time capsules than space shuttles. Now we have to hope whatever aliens eventually find this disk were born before before 1985 because if they are anything like the kids around here they wouldn't have any idea what to do with a record when they get their hands on it. Or even worse, they could be hipster aliens which would be unfortunate proof once and for all that there is no intelligent life on other planets.