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Star Stuff: An Exploratory Case Study of the Cosmos Television Franchise

1970s - The Work of Sagan Post Moon Landing

Introduction to the Unmanned Era of Space Exploration

1. Viking

The Mission that inspired Cosmos (An Appreciation)

2. Voyager

The ideas origin in pioneer
Introduction of the Golden Record
Sagan and Druyan's meeting (Book quote)
What was learned for Voyager 2

Own Television Studio where they interviewed scientists
Voyager 1 & 2 is discussed in Episodes 6 and 7 of Cosmos A Personal Voyage

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VOYAGER II-URANUS FLY BY National Archives and Records Administration VOYAGER II-URANUS FLY BY U.S. Information Agency. (1982 - 10/01/1999) VOYAGER II-URANUS FLY BY - HIBBS/STONE/SMITH/GAUTIER/BRAHIC. ARC Identifier 59760 / Local Identifier 306-WNET-188. TELEVISION DISCUSSION: AL HIBBS, DR. EDWARD STONE, DR. BRAD SMITH, DR. DANIEL GAUTIER, AND DR. ANDRE BRAHIC, SCIENTISTS, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, DISCUSS THE DISCOVERY OF NEW MOONS, ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION OF URANUS, THE NINE KNOWN RINGS OF URANUS, THE DISCOVERY OF A 17-HOUR DAY, PLANET TEMPERATURE, AND THE FACTS UNCOVERED ABOUT URANUS' MAGNETIC FIELD. SHOWS RECENT VOYAGER PHOTOGRAPHS. Made possible by a donation from Shawn Masters.
Pioneer F Plaque Symbology The Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space, carries this pictorial plaque. It is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. (With the hope that they would not invade Earth.) The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The "1-" symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a "1" unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a "universal clock," and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick" for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the binary number representing "8" shown next to the woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. Across the bottom are the planets, ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars, and swinging by Jupiter.
Pioneer F Plaque Location The Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space, carries this pictorial plaque. It is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. (Hopefully, any aliens reading the plaque will not use this knowledge to immediately invade Earth.) The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The "1-" symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a "1" unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a "universal clock," and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick" for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the binary number representing "8" shown next to the woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. Across the bottom are the planets, ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars, and swinging by Jupiter.
Viking 1 Launch
Viking 1's 30th! 20 July 2006 Viking 1 landed 30 years ago today, on 20 July 1976. It was the first U.S. landing on Mars and a very exciting time for Mars exploration. Since that time, four additional spacecraft have successfully landed on Mars and conducted their science investigations. Today, new missions to the martian surface are in the works, with landings expected in 2008 (Phoenix) and 2010 (Mars Science Laboratory). The Viking 1 lander is difficult to see in Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images. The western Chryse Planitia landing site is often obscured by dust hazes and occasional storms, especially during northern winter, which would otherwise be the best time to look for the lander from orbit because the sun casts longer shadows in winter. When the atmosphere is clearest, in portions of the spring and summer, the sun is higher in the sky as seen from MGS's orbit. The spacecraft always passes over the landing site region around 2 p.m. in the afternoon. The suite of pictures shown here describes the best MOC view of the landing site. These were previously released in May 2005, but the MOC team felt that 20 July 2006 is an appropriate time to review this story. The first figure (left) visually tells how the lander was found. The initial observations of the location of Viking 1, as originally determined by members of the Viking science team based on sightlines to various crater rims seen in the lander images (black lines), did not show the detailed features we knew from the lander pictures (middle) to be in the area. Using geodetic measurements, the late Merton Davies of the RAND Corporation, a MGS MOC Co-Investigator, suggested that we should image areas to the east and north of where Viking 1 was thought to be. Timothy J. Parker of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), using sightlines to crater rims seen in the lander images (white lines), deduced a location very close to that suggested by Davies. The MOC image of that location, acquired in 2003, showed additional near-field features (rocks associated with a nearby crater) that closely matched the Viking 1 images (center and right frame, where B denotes "Volkswagen Rock"). The inset (upper right) is an enlargement that shows the location of the Viking 1 lander. The MOC image of the Viking 1 lander site (right) was acquired during a test of the MGS Pitch and Roll Observation (PROTO) technique conducted on 11 May 2003. (Following initial tests, the "c" part of "cPROTO" was begun by adding compensation for the motion of the planet to the technique). The PROTO or cPROTO approach allows MOC to obtain images with better than its nominal 1.5 meters (5 ft) per pixel resolution. The image shown here (right) was map projected at 50 centimeters (~20 inches) per pixel. The full 11 May 2003 image can be viewed in the MOC Gallery, it is image R05-00966. In addition to celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first U.S. robotic Mars landing, we note that 20 July is also the 37th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There are two dates that are most sacred in the space business (three, if you count the 4 October 1957 launch of Sputnik 1). The other date is 12 April, which celebrates the 1961 launch of the first human in space, and the 1981 launch of the first space shuttle orbiter.
Plains West of Viking Lander 2 Image PSP_001435_2280 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on November 16, 2006. The complete image is centered at 47.7 degrees latitude, 134.0 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 316.0 km (197.5 miles). At this distance the image scale is 31.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~95 cm across are resolved. The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 cm/pixel and north is up. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:11 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 49 degrees, thus the sun was about 41 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 136.2 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo.
The Voyager Golden Record, Cover of the Voyager Golden Record, The golden record's location on Voyager (middle-bottom-left). The Golden Record Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The Golden Record Cover In the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour. The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to ordinary television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster, showing that there are 512 vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Electroplated onto the record's cover is an ultra-pure source of uranium-238 with a radioactivity of about 0.00026 microcuries. The steady decay of the uranium source into its daughter isotopes makes it a kind of radioactive clock. Half of the uranium-238 will decay in 4.51 billion years. Thus, by examining this two-centimeter diameter area on the record plate and measuring the amount of daughter elements to the remaining uranium-238, an extraterrestrial recipient of the Voyager spacecraft could calculate the time elapsed since a spot of uranium was placed aboard the spacecraft. This should be a check on the epoch of launch, which is also described by the pulsar map on the record cover. The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a sort of time capsule . Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years ' distance of the star Gliese 445 , currently in the constellation Camelopardalis , in about 40,000 years . Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet." The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University . The selection of content for the record took almost a year. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales ). To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's), and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim . The record also includes the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code . The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA , and human anatomy and reproduction . Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition . All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe . The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as J.S. Bach (interpreted by Glenn Gould ), Mozart , Beethoven (played by the Budapest String Quartet ), and Stravinsky . The disc also includes music by Guan Pinghu , Blind Willie Johnson , Chuck Berry , Kesarbai Kerkar , Valya Balkanska , and electronic composer Laurie Spiegel , as well as Azerbaijani folk music ( Mugham ) by oboe player Kamil Jalilov . The inclusion of Berry's " Johnny B. Goode " was controversial, with some claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet." The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, Linda Salzman Sagan , Frank Drake , Alan Lomax , Ann Druyan as creative director, artist Jon Lomberg , Timothy Ferris as producer, and Jimmy Iovine as sound engineer. The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan . During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love. After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg , with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs. The pulsar map and hydrogen molecule diagram are shared in common with the Pioneer plaque . The 115 images are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at 16⅔ revolutions per minute. Jimmy Iovine , who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project at the recommendation of John Lennon , who was contacted to contribute but was unable to take part. Sagan's team wanted to include the Beatles song " Here Comes the Sun " on the record, but the record company EMI , which held the copyrights, declined. In the 1978 book Murmurs of Earth , the failure to secure permission for the song is cited as one of the legal challenges faced by the team compiling the Voyager Golden Record. In the book, Sagan said that the Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk." When asked about the obstacle presented by EMI with regard to "Here Comes the Sun", despite the artists' wishes, Ann Druyan said in 2015: "Yeah, that was one of those cases of having to see the tragedy of our planet. Here's a chance to send a piece of music into the distant future and distant time, and to give it this kind of immortality, and they're worried about money ... we got this telegram [from EMI] saying that it will be $50,000 per record for two records, and the entire Voyager record cost $18,000 to produce." However, this was refuted in 2017 by Timothy Ferris; in his recollection, "Here Comes the Sun" was never considered for inclusion. In July 2015, NASA uploaded the audio contents of the record to the audio streaming service SoundCloud . In the upper left-hand corner is a drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom . The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record—about an hour (more precisely, between 53 and 54 minutes). The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to analog television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster , showing that there are 512 (2 9 ) vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. Color images were represented by three images in sequence, one each for red, green, and blue components of the image. A color image of the spectrum of the sun was included for calibration purposes. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the Solar System with respect to 14 pulsars , whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Blank records were provided by the Pyral S.A. of Créteil , France. CBS Records contracted the JVC Cutting Center in Boulder, Colorado , to cut the lacquer masters which were then sent to the James G. Lee record-processing center in Gardena, California , to cut and gold-plate eight Voyager records. After the records were plated they were mounted in aluminum containers and delivered to JPL. The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238 . Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years. It is possible (e.g. via mass-spectrometry ) that a civilization that encounters the record will be able to use the ratio of remaining uranium to the other elements to determine the age of the record. The records also had the inscription "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" hand-etched on its surface. The inscription was located in the "takeout grooves", an area of the record between the label and playable surface. Since this was not in the original specifications, the record was initially rejected, to be replaced with a blank disc. Sagan later convinced the administrator to include the record as is. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990, and left the Solar System (in the sense of passing the termination shock ) in November 2004. It is now in the Kuiper belt . In about 40,000 years, it and Voyager 2 will each come to within about 1.8 light-years of two separate stars: Voyager 1 will have approached star Gliese 445 , located in the constellation Camelopardalis ; and Voyager 2 will have approached star Ross 248 , located in the constellation of Andromeda . In March 2012, Voyager 1 was over 17.9 billion km from the Sun and traveling at a speed of 3.6 AU per year (approximately 61,000 km/h (38,000 mph)), while Voyager 2 was over 14.7 billion km away and moving at about 3.3 AU per year (approximately 56,000 km/h (35,000 mph)). Voyager 1 has entered the heliosheath , the region beyond the termination shock. The termination shock is where the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically charged gas blowing continuously outward from the Sun, is slowed by pressure from gas between the stars. At the termination shock, the solar wind slows abruptly from its average speed of 300–700 km/s (670,000–1,570,000 mph) and becomes denser and hotter. Of the eleven instruments carried on Voyager 1 , five of them are still operational and continue to send back data today. It is expected that there will be insufficient energy to power any of the instruments beyond 2025. On September 12, 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had left the heliosheath and entered interstellar space , although it still remains within the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence.