This year marks the 30th anniversary of the launches of Voyager I and II, NASA's interstellar probes. Both probles were carrying copies of the Golden Record, a phonograph disc with photos, music, and other material to give an extraterrestrials a sense of life on Earth. Carl Sagan led the committee to pick what was on the record, and it quite a strange and interesting collection of stuff, from a Blind Willie Johnson tune to a surreal photo "demonstration of licking, eating and drinking." From Jimmy Carter's message recorded on the Golden Record:
"Of the 200 million stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."
Link to the Golden Record page at NASA, Link to more at Popular Science (via Fortean Times)
