Posted on 11/20/2017 3:55:17 PM PST by Elderberry
The Voyager mission was only supposed to last four years. But four decades after the launch of Voyager 1 and 2, the spacecraft are still sending back messages from the farthest reaches of the final frontier
When you think of legendary voyages of discovery you probably think of Columbus and Magellan, or Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. But what may be the greatest journey of exploration mankind has ever undertaken is happening right now. It began in 1977 when NASA launched two spacecraft named Voyager 1 & 2. The mission was only supposed to last four years, but now, 40 years later, against all odds, the two little spacecraft are still out there, traveling beyond the most distant planets in our solar system, reporting back on what they find. They're the outer-space equivalents of the Little Engine that Could. Nothing man-made has ever traveled so long and so far, and wherever they go, they carry with them a message from earth for any other lifeforms that may find them.
When Voyager 1 & 2 took off in August and September of 1977, they had cameras and sensors and something no other spacecraft ever had -- two golden records, filled with music.
"Johnny B. Goode" had no idea just how far he would go.
They've been going ever since. Giving us our first intimate views of the most distant planets in our solar system -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and their distinctive moons. What the Voyagers found surprised scientists and made us think about our place in the universe in a whole new way. It was only possible because of a rare alignment of the planets.
Once every 176 years Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are lined up in such a manner you can swing by one onto the next
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Backed when NASA could actually do things.
L
Yes, but what does Voyager say about climate change?
A must when nasa was nasa and not obama’s Moslem outreach corps
Is Voyager the one with a diagram of a man and a woman, and a map of the solar system, indicating which planet it came from?
By today’s standards it’s binary and hetero normative to show a man and a woman. Just observation of how things have changed.
I believe that was the Pioneer.
A really good segment once you get past Anderson Cooper reporting it.
I can only imagine what graphic would be on one we lunched now.....discusting
Originally called Mariner J/S. Ted Kennedy did his best to kill it before launch. After the first pictures came back he became a cheer leader.
V’ger.
I love that these guys will be moving away from us long long after we are gone.
Backed when NASA could actually do things.
...
Back when NASA wasn’t afraid to use nuclear power.
bkmk
I remember those times. That was when NASA was concerned about outer space, not Muslim Outreach and Globull Warming.
Ah, America. When we used to dream big and accomplish even bigger.
Live Long and Prosper!
Thanks.
Anyone in the Army who has been deployed in recent years knows that Goldstone is connected to Ft Irwin, CA next to Death Valley. The Commander at Ft Irwin calls it the worlds largest cul-de-sac because it is 35 mines from I-15 to a dead
end at Ft Irwin.
bttt
(eye roll)
The Voyagers are interesting spacecraft, though.
Voyager was build by evil white men didn’t realize that they couldn’t build anything without turd-world H-1B visa holders. Otherwise it would have have quit working before it passed the orbit of the Moon.
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