Tesla: Signals. Rivals. Ruin.Episode 142:10
The Record Built for Another World
Humanity answers the silence by launching a golden record filled with greetings, music, and instructions for an unknown listener.
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Transcript
Both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 with Voyager record copies.
In the 1960s, Frank Drake and Carl Sagan sought intelligent life elsewhere.
The spacecraft faced outward, carrying a question into the dark.
Each spacecraft carried a gold-plated record, Earth's durable message.
Each record carried greetings from Earth in 55 languages. Human voices formed a small belonging archive beyond the solar system.
Each Voyager record contains 90 minutes of music.
Stravinsky, regional recordings, and Chuck Berry shared one capsule.
The Voyager records include “Johnny B. Goode” and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
Ann Druyan helped shape the message that carried Berry's music beyond Earth.
Sagan and Druyan told Berry his music was “out of this world.”
Sagan called the Voyager record the universe's cosmic greeting card.
It carried ordinary human sounds toward uncertainty.
Sagan said the record's probable lifetime was 1 billion years.
We trace that search in an earlier chapter of humanity's signal hunt.
Tesla spent half a year in Colorado Springs testing electrical gear.
A Richmond Times account showed Tesla's instrument on a Colorado hillside. Then, the account described three taps from Tesla's receiver.
In 1901, Tesla claimed radio signals came from Mars.
The press widely reported Tesla's claim. Scientists barely cared.
By the 1930s and 1940s, radio was vital for observing space.
In the 1960s, scientists sought signals indicating intelligent life elsewhere.
The tools improved, but the answer remained beyond reach.
Where it leaves off
The cosmic greeting card left Earth, but it sent the investigation back to Tesla's three taps: had humanity ever received a reply?
Sources
- Messages to and from Outer Spaceloc.govsecondary
- Sample text for Library of Congress control number 2001037808catdir.loc.govsecondary
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