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I don’t know
about you, but it only seems logical to me to assume that if you
are skilled and experienced in really complicated things, then you
should be able to handle the smaller things. Doesn’t that make
sense to you? I’ll get to that in a minute.
But first,
Case in point. We
now have a spacecraft called Voyager 1 that has been heading out
of our solar system since 1977. It has now traveled over 8
billion, yes, that’s ‘b’ as in boy, billion miles from planet
Earth.
It says in the
article I read that this is the first human object to leave the
solar system. Well, I would think so. If it isn’t and there was
someone going that far before this one, you’d think we’d know
about it, wouldn’t you? I mean if this was launched in 1977, I’m
certain it was using the most modern and up to date technologies
available at that time. It doesn’t seem possible for someone to
have sent something into space any earlier unless it was steam or
gasoline powered. This isn’t possible since I would think it would
attract some attention if it had happened. For one thing, it would
have to be a pretty big spacecraft to have carried enough gasoline
to go 8 billion miles. I don’t recall what gas was selling for in
1977, but surely some newspaper would have picked up the story of
a spacecraft buying 2 million gallons at one time. Man, thinking
about using some of the pumps I’ve had lately makes me thing they
would have had to start filling the tank for that baby in 1949.
No, I’m just
kidding, because we all know you couldn’t fly a gasoline powered
spacecraft since there isn’t any air up in space. Or at least
there isn’t supposed to be any.
However
scientists are now saying that this Voyager 1 is about to hit
something called “termination shock” at the edge of our system. I
don’t know if they know what they are talking about or if I
believe it since they also claim that there are ‘solar winds’
blowing past Earth at something like a million miles per hour.
Now, you would think if this were actually true, we’d feel part of
that every day. We often get some high winds around where we live,
but seldom more than 25 or 30 miles an hour. Trust me I’d know if
the winds got up as high as a million miles or even half that
high. I can’t believe this statement can be verified. So, how do
we know if this so called ‘spacecraft’ ever even left Earth way
back in 1977?
One thing that
makes me suspicious is the fact that scientists state they
included a copy of Chuck Berry’s song called “Johnny B. Goode” as
an example in the spacecraft. If we are trying to impress
inhabitants of other planets is Chuck Berry our best? I mean what
happened to Mozart or Madonna? Bach and Barry Manilow should have
been considered as well.
Voyager also
carries with it messages of greetings in 55 languages. Makes me
wonder what they had to say. Probably something like…”Hello, how
are you? I’m fine. I come in peace from planet Earth. You’ve
probably never heard of it. Here’s a sample of something we call
‘music’ by one of our most popular recording artists named Chuck
Berry. This is a hit song called ’Johnny B. Goode’, I hope you
like it.”
Of course it
doesn’t say just how the recordings would be played even if they
found by some aliens. In 1977 I seem to recall that we were using
8 tracks tapes, so do you think that’s what they sent out as our
latest technology? I hope not. Once those beings from Morplot or
whatever their planet is called try to rewind back to their
favorite song, are they in for a surprise.
The point of all
of this commentary is simply this. If our country has the
expertise and ability to send something out into space and have it
travel over 8 billion miles and still send and receive radio
signals with information ever since 1977….
How come I can’t
get my cell phone to work all of the time? Looks like that would
be a walk in the park compared to Voyager 1 doesn’t it?
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