The other night we hosted a dinner party.  One of our guests worked at JPL.  I brought out my copy of the box set Murmurs of Earth, published by Time Warner about 20 years ago.  It’s one of the box sets I saved when moving and downsizing last summer, because it’s rare and amazing.

The Voyager Spacecraft has fascinated me, not because I have a scientific mind, but because there are so many interesting things about it.  Among them are the fact that President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter, put on the time capsule aboard the spacecraft, that implied an awareness that otherworldly civilizations might be out there.  Second, that there was a music soundtrack on the time capsule, put together by Carl Sagan and Alan Lomax, that included classical music, jazz, blues, and world music.  Third, that Voyager is still out there, 40 million+ miles away, still pinging earth from deep space after 35 years.

Jimmy Carter once saw what he thought was a UFO.   Read More →