September 7, 1977

Message Bottle Cast Into Cosmic Ocean

The second Voyager spacecraft is well along on its endless journey into space, and each carries a 12-inch copper phonograph record that is at once hopeful and desperate.

The records, titled "Sounds of Earth", contain greetings in 60 languages, music, animal noises, scientific formulas, TV signals, and a message from President Jimmy Carter.

Idea for the out-of-this-world project is that of Astronomer Carl Sagan of Cornell University.  He says there is only a small chance the records ever will fall into the hands of intelligent beings.  But he adds: "The launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

President Carter, speaking for all Earth people, makes some thought-provoking points.

"This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America.  We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than four billion who inhabit the planet Earth.

"We human beings still are divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

"We cast this message into the cosmos.  It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed.  Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, some - perhaps many - may have inhabited planets and space-faring civilizations.  If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

"This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings.

"We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.

"We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations.

"This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.  Jimmy Carter, president of the United States of America."

Included with the records are phonograph cartridges and needles, along with drawings of how to assemble the information package.

Interestingly this ultimate use of the phonograph record comes in the 100th anniversary year of its invention by a Buckeye son, Thomas Alva Edison.

Contents of the record were assembled by a group of prominent scientists and educators.  The languages used represent both the principal and some of the minor speech groups of our planet.  The music ranges from century-old symphonies to modern rock and roll, and from several different cultures.

The records also contain electronic information that a technological civilization could convert into pictures, diagrams and printed words.

Chief objective of the Voyagers is a close look and accurate measurements of giant Jupiter and ringed Saturn, 11 of their moons and possibly little Uranus before the space craft swing out into an endless journey through space.

The scientific information sent back to us by the Voyagers should advance us a step farther along the road that may be man's divine mission - to people the universe.

Though the conditions for intelligent life probably exist on billions of planets in millions of star systems, we may be the only thinking creatures alive anywhere in the universe.

It is this possibility that places an awesome responsibility on mankind.  There may not be anyone else out there to intercept our little message.  Perhaps in great time Voyager may complete the great circle of curving space and return intact for our own descendents to interpret.

These ineffable thoughts lead to disquieting perspective on Mr. Carter's words!

The president's use of the word "still", when describing our division into nation states, allies him with the one-worlders who see the demise of individual nations and nationalism.  That world, where patriotism becomes a hindering attitude, may be the wave of the future.  However, few people of the world are yet ready for this.

Carter's phrase, "we are attempting to survive our times", casts a doubt I am unwilling to admit.  We will survive, because we must if we are to carry out our purpose for existing.

I wish Astronomer Sagan and President Carter had used some other analogy than that of casting a bottle into the ocean.  Shipwrecked sailors throw bottles into the sea as a last faint hope.

Much more reassuring are Mr. Carter's final words - "having solved" our problems, and "represents our determination."

This is the stuff the future is made of.

Author: Lindsey Williams