The Mix Tape of the Gods: made to be played at 16-2/3 revolutions per second, now traveling 300 million miles per year

August 5, 2011 10:20 AM

August and September 2011 mark 34 years in the journeys of Voyager 1 and 2. The two scientific probes, progeny of the Mariner program, were sent out to survey this solar system and beyond. Voyager 2 completed the Grand Tour in 2009 (excluding Pluto), and Voyager 1 is getting closer to interstellar space (previously). Both scientific probes were sent out in with a time capsule from 1977, golden records secured in plain view on the outside of the Voyager Spacecraft. These greetings from earth (alt links: Coral Cache, Archive.org) were recorded in the form of 116 images, a collection of sounds of this planet, greetings in 55 languages (YT), 27 songs from around the world, and brain waves of Ann Druyan, then recently engaged to Carl Sagan. For all that work, the "Mix Tape of the Gods" almost didn't get sent into space because of some last-minute writing in the run-outs.

Previously: Earth 1977, explained to an alien; Dear Earth, Send More Chuck Berry

posted by filthy light thief (26 comments total)

Is this the thread where I get feedback about my Pioneer / Voyager 2 pulsar map tattoo idea (lower left)?

Seriously though, all of these Voyager / Pioneer / Arecibo message things give me the chills. I'm kind of obsessed with them. Ann Druyan supposedly curated the 27 songs in addition to having her brain waves recorded. Thinking about her and Sagan putting all this together stoned and full of love makes my stomach feel funny.

I also just like how hieroglyphic all the symbology is. Especially the Arecibo message.
posted by nathancaswell at 10:32 AM on August 5, 2011

I really, really hope we're not alone in this universe even if it seems that way. At the same time I hope that if we're not, they're kind to us savages. After all, we have music.
posted by tommasz at 10:39 AM on August 5, 2011

You mean this pulsar map (source).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:39 AM on August 5, 2011

(That was supposed to be a question, to nathancaswell)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:40 AM on August 5, 2011

Juno probe just successfully separated from the Centaur stage on its 5 year journey to Jupiter!
posted by Ironmouth at 10:44 AM on August 5, 2011

You mean this pulsar map (source).

Yes, that one.
posted by nathancaswell at 10:49 AM on August 5, 2011

Juno probe just successfully separated from the Centaur stage on its 5 year journey to Jupiter!

Yay, we sending another probe!

Juno probe just successfully separated from the Centaur stage on its 5 year journey to Jupiter!

Boo, we're only sending one probe at a time!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:54 AM on August 5, 2011

perhaps this will amuse you: Scrambles of Earth
posted by lapolla at 11:01 AM on August 5, 2011

At the same time I hope that if we're not, they're kind to us savages. After all, we have music.

We are ugly, but we have the music.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:10 AM on August 5, 2011

Is this the thread where I get feedback about my Pioneer / Voyager 2 pulsar map tattoo idea (lower left)?

Yes

I've given some thought to getting it as a tattoo but I decided against it because A)it is a straight line composition and some of it's beauty is it simple lines, well, skin isn't like that and those lines might never be straight B)even though it is simple, it has small precise details like the tiny breaks and dots in the lines that indicate period and distance, my worry is that those details might get distorted and then I would never make it home. C) It is longer than it is wide and is spindly and all of it is equally important for triangulation so there's not a lot of places on (my body, at least) where it could fit with adequate detail and also be fully viable without any wrapping. Print it out and try it in a few places D) Poor tattoo artists really wouldn't enjoy making perfectly straight lines with precise dots and shit. It would be simultaneously banal and anxious because of the need for straight lines.

So I decided against it as a tattoo.
posted by fuq at 11:11 AM on August 5, 2011

Placement is what held me back from getting it :/
posted by nathancaswell at 11:12 AM on August 5, 2011

If it's not coming back as a giant, planet devouring space cloud, I may be a little disappointed.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:13 AM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Knowing our luck, they will be found by intelligent space-going aliens, and those 55 greetings will sound exactly like the 55 worst words in the alien language. All that work, to accidentally flip off some distant travelers. Mark my words....
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:16 AM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Knowing our luck, they will be found by intelligent space-going aliens, and those 55 greetings will sound exactly like the 55 worst words in the alien language.

Either that and they'll be the 55 most amorous and they'll show up wanting to fuck like Martians.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:22 AM on August 5, 2011

they'll show up wanting to fuck like Martians.

Oh God, it'll be like that short story that was linked here a while ago where the girl is trapped in space with the blob and it just blob fucks her every which way for eternity. I don't want to get blob fucked.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:24 AM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Don't worry, there was lots of blob fucking too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:36 AM on August 5, 2011

Don't worry, there was lots of blob fucking too.

That's why they invented Nickelodeon Gak®. True story.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:38 AM on August 5, 2011

If it's not coming back as a giant, planet devouring space cloud, I may be a little disappointed.

There's a reason we didn't pursue launching a Voyager 6 in this timeline.
posted by aught at 11:44 AM on August 5, 2011

Am I the only person who learned of the Golden Record from the masterpiece that is Mr. Bach Comes to Call?
posted by knile at 11:52 AM on August 5, 2011

Voyager 2 completed the Grand Tour in 2009 (excluding Pluto),

Now that it's been reclassified we can say that we totally meant to miss Pluto.
posted by XMLicious at 11:53 AM on August 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

and brain waves of Ann Druyan, then recently engaged to Carl Sagan.

Wow, that was a long time ago now.

Druyan still lives (at least part of the time) here in Ithaca where Sagan was an astronomy professor at Cornell. She makes the news these days advocating against the mass killing of deer in the residential neighborhood where her house is located. (It is a dumb and, I think, needlessly cruel plan, though no one can deny the deer are over-populated around here.)
posted by aught at 11:55 AM on August 5, 2011

that short story that was linked here a while ago where the girl is trapped in space with the blob and it just blob fucks her every which way for eternity

That would be this one, which won a Nebula.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:28 PM on August 5, 2011

The thing is consensual blob fucking doesn't seem like it would be all bad. That was not what that (memorably awesomely scary) story was about.

I guess by posting this, I'll be first in line when the world needs blob fuckees to fend off the alien hordes. You're welcome.

I spent so much time thinking about Voyager I/II - specifically the golden records -- as a kid that it is amazing astronomy/xeno- something isn't what I ended up doing with my life.* I thought so much about how aliens could respond to what we sent, what I would have said, etc. and would write so many stories about it. When I think about the space program ramping down, that's what I think most about -- not the scientific achievements but the creativity not sparked.

* - Probably because after puberty I got obsessed with fucking (blob or otherwise)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:34 PM on August 5, 2011

I hate the fucking Eagles, man.

-Zygrib from Planet Cibron
posted by Danf at 2:13 PM on August 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Really surprised this didn't show up in the post (or the comments): GoldenRecord.org, a supercool NASA Flash repository of all the audio and imagery stored on the Voyager album (discussed a few years ago).
posted by Rhaomi at 11:27 PM on August 5, 2011

Joke from SNL in the 70's :

Months after sending the Golden Record into space, Earth receives a message in an unknown language. The world's leading ethnographers and cryptographers spend months working to decode it. Finally, after much effort, they reveal the first communication ever between aliens and the human race. It reads : "Send more Chuck Berry".
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 5:12 AM on August 8, 2011