On weekday mornings from about third to fifth grade, my siblings and I would complete our morning routines as quickly as possible in order to still have time to crowd around the TV and watch PBS kids until we had to leave for school. My favorite show that we would watch on these mornings was a space exploration-themed show called Ready, Jet, GO! New episodes of the show are no longer released, but some of my favorite memories from when I was younger are centered around re-watching episodes of Ready, Jet, GO! over and over again. The premise of the show followed the Propulsion family, human-looking aliens from a fictional exoplanet called Bortron 7, as they attempt to assimilate into human culture while still exploring our solar system and galaxy. It was unlike any other show on PBS Kids, as it was the only astronomy-related show, and it was simultaneously engaging, fun, and educational. Explaining it this way might make me sound like a complete nerd (can you tell I wasn’t allowed to watch Spongebob?), but thinking about this beloved show now, I genuinely think I would watch it again if given the chance.
I feel that the pursuit of Astronomy and Aerospace Science are rotten figs of mine, for a lack of a better term. For a long while I considered majoring in Aerospace Engineering or Astronomy here at KU just because I’ve been so fascinated by so many NASA missions ever since I could remember hearing about them on PBS Kids or the NPR News Hour. I remember learning about Apollo 11 in elementary school and then checking out books written by Buzz Aldrin in our school library just to learn the perspective of the second guy on the moon, since I felt bad that everyone always seemed to only talk about the first guy on the moon, Neil Armstrong. Keeping track of where the International Space Station was in its orbit, looking at the newest Hubble images, trying to map the constellations myself—I feel that my childhood was ridden with these, always operating in the background of my life. Eventually, I figured out that it was not the one thing I wanted to pursue for the rest of my life, but of course I still think about it all the time. I miss the feeling of learning about the immensity of the universe for the first time—trying to understand the incomprehensible, to fathom the unfathomable.
This all having been said, it is appropriate to tell you now that I’ve been following the Artemis missions for years. I remember learning about the multi-phase plan in my Freshman year of high school, being shocked that there was a plan to land on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. I continued to do extensive research on the missions until Artemis I launched in November 2022, after months of delays. Since then, NASA has been gathering data from that mission in preparation for Artemis II, which launched just a few days ago. Artemis III is set to launch sometime in 2027, and this will be the final undocked mission until Artemis IV, which is set to land on the south pole of the moon probably the following year. The amount of work and planning that has been put into these missions over the past decade (or more) has been inexplicable. For the first time in over fifty years, humans will once again have a view of the Earth while standing on the lunar surface. It’s so exciting to me!
As I was thinking about the Artemis missions and this collective achievement of humanity, I was stuck with an insurmountable feeling of hope and love for everyone on our Earth (once again). The curiosity that we humans have toward the world and the universe we live in is so deep and vast that we enthusiastically spend centuries and dedicate entire lives to the cause of simply figuring out the answers to the questions of “Why is it this way?” “Why are we here?” and, most intriguingly, “What if there is someone else out there?” NASA and other space agencies have spent billions of dollars on various missions to gain more knowledge of the answers to these questions, while still knowing that we will probably never get a definite answer—the only path is to keep learning, forever and ever.
Two missions stand out to me the most when thinking about humanity’s pursuit of cosmic exploration: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. In August and September of 1977, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes were launched into our solar system, with a set trajectory to travel far beyond the planets of our solar system. Both probes conducted fly-bys of Jupiter and Saturn, with Voyager 1 also completing an atmospheric study of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and Voyager 2 completing fly-bys of Uranus and Neptune, providing the first photos of these far-away worlds. They were monumental missions at the time of their launch, and still continue to be, as the probes still send data back to Earth despite passing the threshold into what NASA calls “interstellar space,” or, in other words, very very far away. Voyager 1 is currently the farthest man-made object from Earth at a staggering 16 billion miles away. NASA knew that these spacecraft would travel further than anything has before, so in preparation of meeting any extraterrestrial neighbors, the agency provided identical Golden Records attached to the probes to tell anything in the “out there” about us on our little blue dot.
The Golden Records might be my favorite invention of all time. There might be nothing I love more than the idea of wanting to connect with the possibility of an unknown sentience so much so that we would send a time capsule containing nothing but information about where we are, who we are, and how to get to us out into the deep vacuum of space, holding out hope that someone will answer at some point in time. Carl Sagan, a significant name in astronomy from the 1970s and 80s, came up with the idea of making the Golden Records. In designing them, he was tasked with summarizing all of humanity onto a 12-inch disk. Sagan took this as a challenge, and with a $1,500 budget, he created one of the most amazing feats that everyone on the Earth can take credit for, since we are all part of it. The records contain many different pieces of media in an attempt to encapsulate everything that has ever been. There is an interstellar map on one side of the record, showing the location of our solar system in the galaxy. There are photos of humans doing human things, like eating, shopping, running, teaching, and smiling. There are photos of our achievements, like buildings, planes, and x-ray machines. But most importantly, Sagan and his team wanted to include music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, and even Chuck Berry, to name a few artists that were included. When one of his colleagues criticized the choice of adding Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” for being “adolescent,” Sagan replied, “There are a lot of adolescents on the planet,” which basically sums up the whole mission.
I love each addition to the records, but my favorite is a five-minute audio recording of people speaking greetings in 55 different languages. Ancient Greek was strangely included among many other old and modern languages alike. The recording closes with a clip of Carl Sagan’s six year old son, Nick Sagan, saying, “Hello from the children of planet Earth!” Listening to the five minute recording and Nick’s voice at the end always moves me in an indescribable way, because I know that I am not the one supposed to be hearing the message. Nick’s voice is meant for the idea of another being, billions or trillions or more miles away, that might just listen to the greeting and think, “What are these people?” just like I often ponder as well.
Voyager 1 and 2 with their Golden Records were launched in 1977, a year of social unrest. The tensions of the Cold War still loom over everyone’s conscience. The Cambodian-Vietnamese War, the Ethio-Somali War, and the Libyan-Egyptian War begin. The deadliest aviation accident in history occurs, causing 583 deaths. US Senate hearings on MKULTRA begin. The Food Stamp Act of 1977 is enacted. The 1970s Energy Crisis is ongoing, as well as the tail end of the Sexual Revolution. Star Wars: A New Hope is released. What the world needed most after enduring the trials and tribulations of ’77 and the war-ridden years before it was something that brought everyone together, something that was a symbol of the intrinsic togetherness of us all, and Sagan and his team at NASA provided that in the Golden Records. They stood then and remain to stand as a reminder that through hardship, we are still one people experiencing the world as it comes. We all breathe the same air, walk on the same ground, are warmed by the same sun, and gaze at the same stars and moon. Our laughs all sound similar to the one on the record, our words the same as Nick Sagan’s greeting.
Given the state of the world right now, I hope that the Artemis missions today can provide the same solace and consolation that the Voyager missions provided to people in 1977. The Voyager probes and Artemis stand as a reminder that when we focus on a common goal for the betterment of humanity, we can achieve leaps and bounds more than we initially conceived. I hope that everyone can keep this in mind when they think about Artemis. I hope that we can watch the launch or learn about the individuals on the Orion spacecraft and understand that we are all part of something much bigger than us, that we compose a world that is too complex for our own feeble minds to completely comprehend. I hope that when we land on the moon again, finally, in a few years, we will see the footsteps of the Apollo astronauts and be reminded of the Golden Records, billions of miles away, still hoping to relay their message to anyone on the other side of the galaxy.
“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 that we may live into yours.” – President Jimmy Carter in his own message, recorded onto the Golden Record for anyone, for anything to hear.
