Murmurs of Earth
Page 22
But one thing would be clear about us: no one sends such a message on such a journey, to other worlds and beings, without a positive passion for the future. For all the possible vagaries of the message, they could be sure that we were a species endowed with hope and perseverance, at least a little intelligence, substantial generosity and a palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Carl Sagan
The Voyager record project is deeply indebted to literally hundreds of people who generously contributed their time, dedication, hard work, and expert knowledge. Many of them—for example, those who sent greetings into space and the photographers who were responsible for the 118 pictures—are acknowledged elsewhere in this book. Others—such as many of the support people at CBS Records—are too numerous to mention. But here are some acknowledgments I feel are essential; others are made in the acknowledgments by the other coauthors of this book. John Casani of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Voyager project manager, conceived, following the Pioneer 10 and 11 precedent, the desirability of a Voyager message and provided both material and moral support. At NASA Headquarters the help of A. Thomas Young, director of lunar and planetary programs and Noel Hinners, associate administrator for space science, was critical. Alan Lovelace, then acting administrator of NASA, and Gerald Mossinghoff, NASA deputy general counsel, were, considering the peculiar political and legal problems which this project raised, very supportive. Arnold Frutkin, NASA associate administrator for international affairs, played a key role in unclogging the United Nations logjam. Frank Press, director of the office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, secured Mr. Carter’s statement on Voyager. On the actual record production, critical roles were played by Herbert Schlosser, then president of the National Broadcasting Company; Tom Shepard of RCA Victor; Arthur Taylor, formerly president of the Columbia Broadcasting System; Bruce Lundvall, president of CBS Records; Joe Agresti and Al Shulman of CBS Records, who secured worldwide copyright releases on the music; and Russ Payne of CBS, who with exemplary patience and skill mixed the record. The lacquer masters were cut at CBS Records by Vladimir Meller. The pictures were recorded at Colorado Video, Inc., Boulder, Colorado; and the copper mothers cut at James G. Lee Record Processing, Gardena, California. The aluminum covers were etched at Litronic Industries, Irvine, California. Minneapolis Honeywell generously lent us their Model 5600-C recorder. Copyright releases for the flight pictures were obtained by Wendy Gradison, Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell, Amahl Shakhashiri, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Cornell, and Nina Laurence at NASA Headquarters. The same releases for this book were obtained by Susan Lang of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell, who also prepared the two maps and organized the final form of the table of greetings in 55 languages. I am extremely indebted to Shirley Arden of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, who provided major assistance in the preparation of all phases of this book and who, in particular, organized much of the recording sessions for the spoken greetings at Cornell University. Paul Penzo and Mike Helton of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory performed important calculations on the erosion and interstellar trajectories of the Voyager spacecraft at our request. We are grateful to those individuals at NASA’s Office of Public Affairs, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the United Nations Outer Space Committee, and the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations who provided assistance; as well as to President Carter and Secretary General Waldheim for their statements. We also thank Martin Williams, the curator of jazz at the Smithsonian Institution; Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress; Phyllis Morrison of the Children’s Museum, Boston; Frank Oppenheimer of the Exploratorium, San Francisco; Frederick C. Durant III of the Smithsonian Institution; Harry Levin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University; Steven Soter and Bishun Khare, Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell University; many people at the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center at Cornell; Fred Eggens, University of Chicago; as well as my coworkers and consultants on the Voyager Record Committee mentioned in the text, including Robert E. Brown, A. G. W. Cameron, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank D. Drake, Ann Druyan, Timothy Ferris, Wendy Gradison, Robert Heinlein, Alan Lomax, Jon Lomberg, Philip Morrison, B. M. Oliver, Leslie Orgel, Linda Sagan, Murry Sidlin, and Stephen Toulmin.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
F. D. Drake
I wish I could list the names of everyone who helped us make this project successful. But the names are too numerous, the occupations too diversified, and the locations span a continent. I wouldn’t know where to draw the line. Their contributions ranged from small to very large, although I am most reluctant to rank their efforts by these criteria. Each and every bit of cooperation we received was monumental at the time it was given us. I fear I couldn’t begin to do justice to all those colleagues and friends across the nation were I to attempt to list, even in alphabetical order, their names, for I might forget someone, or worse, I may not even know of the input of others who contributed through their work in outside organizations.
Nevertheless, a few individuals, in addition to the ones mentioned throughout the book, stand out among them. These include:
Roscoe Barham. He is an employee of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. On his own time, he consented to play messenger and drive between such locations as George Washington University, the National Geographic Society, and Washington National Airport in order to assure that we received a certain slide of a human embryo in time. He sent us the slide PDQ! Without his help, we would have been hard put to arrange for a substitute, since the only other possible alternative to the embryo slide was available only in Sweden!
Barbara Boettcher. She is the NAIC draftsman. She spent countless hours sketching specific objects for us. She got caught up in the excitement of the project, and she often said that for her no reward could be more meaningful than the fact that her penmanship has been immortalized.
Valentin Boriakoff. A research associate with NAIC, Val devoted considerable time and effort to locating the proper electronics needed for recording the picture signals. His dedication to the success of this project was heartwarming. He sacrificed his own research time by taking many trips to Colorado, often via circuitous routes and often on last-minute call, where he also advised and participated in the recording session. Val’s contributions were rewarded amply, according to him, when he was chosen to perform for one of our special pictures. For the next billion years, he will represent humanity in the matter of the way in which we eat sandwiches.
Herman Eckelmann, NAIC staff photographer. I do mention “Eck” in my chapter, and so does Jon Lomberg. However, his relentless, self-sacrificing pursuit of the success of the project was a thing to marvel at. Many were the nights when he was in his darkroom until past midnight. Occasionally he had a quick sandwich, usually dry by the time he got to it, while clicking away his camera as he was taking pictures from magazines, books, and so forth. Days of personal leave, planned on as a family venture, were postponed while Eck spent the days running around Ithaca taking pictures of highways, supermarkets, airports, hospitals, and so on. Without his determination the picture sequence on the record would not have been done on time.
Wendy Gradison. Wendy took to this project with a fantastic zeal. Many of her days and nights fused to become one inseparable working session. Initially she did most of the legwork with Jon Lomberg, gatherering the huge ensembles of photos from which selections were to be made. Finally, on behalf of NASA, she undertook the challenging but unrewarding task of securing permissions from the picture contributors for the use of all photos selected to appear on board the spacecraft. Hers is the only human image to appear twice in the pictures, thereby outdoing Alfred Hitchcock!
Jon Lomberg. Jon is one of those unique individuals whose creative talents seem to propel him into a constant state of energy and zip. He set aside his normal life completely for the sake of the picture sequence. He took up residence
in Ithaca, worked thirteen to fifteen hours each day, and got so wrapped up with this task that all his being, for the duration of the project, was centered around making this message. I have often thought that, of all the possible forms of extraterrestrial creatures who might capture this record, Jon Lomberg’s “twin” should be the lucky one. No one else would enjoy it, learn from it, or glory in it more.
Dan Mitler. An engineer with NAIC, he worked hand in hand with Valentin Boriakoff to convert the TV picture–quality signals into the lower frequency of recordable signals. Dan flew to Colorado, accompanied by a Honeywell recorder, and spent a few days of inconvenience shuttling between Ithaca, New York City and Boulder. Dan was like a pinch hitter—quiet, but there when he was needed.
Amahl Shakhashiri. As assistant to the director of NAIC (now also my wife), she was very close to the thinking underlying the making of the record. As a member of the team, she had something to do with almost every aspect of putting together the picture sequence. She was quick to spot concepts that were not included in our “draft” sets of pictures and was able to find in short order the appropriate photos to fill the voids. She gave up many nights as we toiled over the photos to make our final selections, and provided valuable suggestions for the content of the sequence as well as ideas for picture sources. Her voice extends the greeting in Arabic in the “greetings” part of the record.
Colorado-Video Inc. This is a small company located in Boulder, Colorado. As a public service, CVI contributed the use of its equipment and personnel. Its president, Glen Southworth, personally assisted, even in the wee hours of the morning, in the actual recording of the pictures. Technician Hannaway and Engineer McClelland spent many hours operating the equipment, and making adjustments that would assure that the quality of the recording was at its highest. CVI also played a key role in negotiating for the loan of a Honeywell 5600C recorder from Honeywell, Inc., in Denver. CVI’s zeal and enthusiasm for this project was heartwarming. At the cost of disrupting their normal operations, they endorsed our wish to have a trial run prior to the final recording session; on short notice they accommodated our last-minute frantic efforts to include, in picture format, the message from President Carter and the names of both House and Senate members of space-related committees.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center. Some members of our staff—even some of our graduate students—embraced the concept of the Voyager message and diverted considerable time and effort both from their primary duties at NAIC as well as from personal leisure to the completion of the project. Their biggest thrill came when they had a sneak preview of the entire “show,” and their delight was beyond measure when they realized that their efforts might breach the long expanse of interstellar communication.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Jon Lomberg
Elizabeth Lumley, Arthur Fuller, Michael Schulman, Pat Kellogg, Max Allen, Fred Durant, Shirley Arden, Toronto Library Picture Collection, Richard Lee, Stuart Edelstein, Steven Soter, Tom Prendergast, Hannah Bruce, Jon Schneeberger, Walter Shostal, Gary Davis, Joan Winterkorn, Lilly Lomberg
Acknowledgments
Ann Druyan
Joe Agresti CBS
Hank Altman CBS
Shirley Arden Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell University
Alan Botto Vantage Sounds
Dr. Margaret Bullowa Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jonathan Cott Rolling Stone Magazine
Marty Gindi New York University Medical Center
Wendy Gradison Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell University
Bud Graham CBS
Dr. Ronald Hoy Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University
Jimmy Iovine
Mickey Kapp Warner Special Productions
Dr. Julius Korein New York University Medical Center
Phyllis Kronhaus New York University Medical Center
Dr. Richard Lee University of Toronto
Lucie Levidow New York University Medical Center
Dr. Lise Menn Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Roger Payne
Katy Payne Rockefeller University and The New York Zoological Society
Russ Payne CBS
Dr. John Rogers Yale University
Willie Ruff Yale University
William R. Schoppe, Jr. CBS
Dr. David Simpson The Lamont-Doherty Geological Laboratories
Laurie Spiegel Bell Laboratories
Acknowledgments
Timothy Ferris
Sandro Baratheli, William Boswell, Robert Brown, Chou Wen-chung, John Cohen, Sandra LeBrun Holmes, Bruce MacIntyre, Tim Oliver, Delfina Rattazzi, Colin Turnbull
Acknowledgments
Linda Salzman Sagan
Shirley Arden, Michael Bronfenbrenner, Department of Languages, Cornell University, Phillip Freedman, Suzanne Freedman, Cary Frumess, David Gluck, Wendy Gradison, Bishun Khare, Joe Leeming, Alexander Marshack, Clara T. Pierson, Susan A. Robinson, Debbie Sidlin, Murry Sidlin, Dr. Ralph Solecki, Dr. Steven Soter
Appendix A
A Message to the Future
(Text of a NASA press release, April 15, 1976)
[Compare with the figure on this page]
* * *
A message has been sealed inside Lageos in the event it should be retrieved from orbit or discovered after its return to Earth some 10 million years from now.
The message was prepared by Dr. Carl Sagan of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Two copies of the message, which is etched on stainless steel sheets measuring 10 by 18 cm (4 by 7 inches), are installed in the satellite—one at each end of the bolt connecting the two hemispheres which make up Lageos.
In its upper center the message displays the simplest counting scheme, binary arithmetic, which uses only zeros and ones. The numbers 1 through 10 in binary notation are shown. At upper right is a schematic drawing of the Earth in orbit around the Sun, an arrow indicating the direction of motion. The arrowhead points to the right, the convention adopted for indicating the future. All arrows accompanying numbers are such “arrows of time.” Under the Earth’s orbit is the binary number one, denoting the period of time used on the plaque—one revolution of the Earth about the Sun, or one year.
The remainder of the Lageos plaque consists of three maps of the Earth’s surface, all in a common projection that permits the entire surface of our planet to be viewed at once. Beneath the first map is an arrowhead pointing left, denoting the past, and connected to a large binary number. In decimal notation this number is equivalent to about 268 million years ago. The map shows the approximate configuration of the continents in the Permian period, about 225 million years ago. The binary number could have been made more accurate, but was “rounded off” to avoid giving the impression of spurious accuracy. Since detailed knowledge of continental drift is still very limited, all the continents are shown together in one mass, sometimes called “Pangaea.”
The close fit of South America into West Africa was one of the first hints that continental drift actually occurs. Australia is shown as lying originally between Antarctica and West Africa; in other reconstructions, it is thought to have been in contact with Western Antarctica. These maps are not intended to be a precise representation of continental drift, but rather a means of portraying dramatically the existence and extent of continental drift.
The middle map displays the present configuration of the continents. Below it is a symbol indicating zero years, and arrows denoting simultaneously the past and the future; that is, the present. This map represents the zero point in time for the other two maps. Lageos is shown being launched into space from the Western Test Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The final map is coded by an arrow pointing to the right and a binary number, again rounded off, denoting an epoch 8.4 million years from now—very roughly, the estimated lifetime of the Lageos spacecraft. The satellite i
s shown returning to the Earth. Many important changes in the Earth’s surface are shown, including the drift of Vandenberg Air Force Base and the rest of southern California out into the Pacific Ocean. This separation, along the San Andreas Fault, is an expected consequence of the crustal motions which Lageos is designed to investigate. Many of the other changes in the map of the Earth shown are little more than guesses. Our knowledge of them should be significantly improved by Lageos.
Whoever comes upon the Lageos plaque need only compare a current map of the Earth’s geography with that in the lower two maps to calculate roughly the time between his own epoch and ours. Drift rates of about an inch per year can, in fact, be estimated by comparing the bottom two maps. Thus, the prime objective of Lageos and the method of telling time of the spacecraft’s plaque are identical.
Lageos will return to Earth at a time in the future more distant than the time in the past of the origin of the human species. The Earth will surely have changed profoundly by that future time, and not only with respect to the disposition of its continents. Whoever is inhabiting Earth in that distant epoch may appreciate a little greeting card from the remote past.
Appendix B
Messages of the UN Delegates Aboard the Voyager
* * *
Mohamed El-Zoeby of Egypt (Arabic):
“People and Djinn, if you could pierce the boundaries of Earth and Sky then do it, and you will do it only with authority.”
Chaidir Anwar Sani of Indonesia (Indonesian):
“I want to give you a short message for this Voyager …”
Bernadette Lefort of France (French):
“ ‘Above the lakes, above the vales,
The mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,
Beyond the sun, beyond the ether,
Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,