Voyager Spacecraft Celebrate 30th Anniversary

Raver32 writes to mention that 30 years after the original launch of Voyager 2, both Voyager spacecraft are still going strong. Flying away from us some billions of miles from our solar system's edge they continue to be a wealth of information more than 25 years after their original mission concluded. Voyager 1 currently is the farthest human-made object at a distance from the sun of about 9.7 billion miles (15.6 billion kilometers). Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion miles (12.6 billion kilometers).

Comments

From a time when NASA actually "worked"

[newgalactic]

We need Probes!!! Thousands of Probes, streaking across the cosmos, searching, observing, huge "shelf life". Manned space flight is nothing but an election day promise. Our standard mode of operation should be automated probes. It's cheaper, easier, and doesn't bring the whole process to a screeching halt when something blows up.

Re:From a time when NASA actually "worked"

[jdigriz]

Agreed, automated probes are where it's at for long-range exploration. But imagine how much cheaper it would be to produce and send those thousands of probes if they already had orbital velocity at construction time as opposed to being launched from the Earth. We need space-based industry and infrastructure!

Re:From a time when NASA actually "worked"

[Opportunist]

No, but the engineer who builds it can.

Do we really need figureheads that direly? Everyone knows Gagarin, but who knows Korolyov? Everyone knows Armstrong, but who knows Webb or Paine? They could give far more interesting and insightful speeches about space programs.

Re:From a time when NASA actually "worked"

[zaffir]

The raw materials for those probes need to be placed in orbit in the first place. I don't see how building them out there helps.

Jsut shows you teh further away from

[Farakin]

our government, the better everything works...robots...farmers....technology...

Re:The really amazing thing

[ScrewMaster]

Puts interstellar travel into perspective.

I'd say it puts our lifespans into perspective. We really don't live long enough to play in this game.

Re:You are the Kirk Unit? You will assist me.

[LordSnooty]

I wish Slashdot had a filter, like "remove all Star Trek posts"

Richard Dawkins

[Nymz]

Mr Dawkins made a statement that our society is increasing belief in superstitions, even as we make progress in science and technology. I can't help be reminded of this with the Voyager aniversary as news programs focus on the Golden Record and Chuck Berry. Sure, at first I thought it was fun, but then reality sets in when I witness so many people that fully believe aliens and or angels are watching us, and just waiting for us to contact them.

I'm sure at the time the record might of seemed harmless, except for the outcry over the naked images of a man and woman (for the sake of the children I'm sure), but today it feels like that small acquiencence was simply a foothold for drawing an ever growing shadow over... reason.

Re:technology from the 70s was quite good enough

[DerekLyons]

On ancient technology, more than one archaeological site has been utterly destroyed - partially or totally unmapped and unstudied - because some country or other wanted to build a dam. Water is important, sure, but you can collect water in any number of ways, and even if the dam is imperative, it'll take years to decades to build. Allowing scientists a few months to collect irreplaceable data isn't going to kill anyone or anything. Denying them does kill our chances of understanding the past.

If the dam takes years-to-decades to build... Why in hell aren't the scientists and archeologists out there doing their digging and collecting from friggin' day one of earth moving? They keep getting denied because they wait till the last damn minute - and then complain loudly they don't have time to do in a few months what they've put off for years-to-decades.