[FPSPACE] FW: The PI's Perspective: Nine Mementos to the Ninth Planet

[LARRY KLAES]

What the New Horizons team really should have done was placed something
akin to the Voyager Record aboard, to help future human generations and/or
ETI who may one day find the probe drifting among the stars better 
understand
those who built and launched it.

If they wanted to add those other items like so many trinkets one finds in 
an
amateur time capsule, so be it. Extra information about us cannot hurt, 
though
it may not be comprehensible.  And in the case of the two CDs, those images
and signatures will likely be destroyed by cosmic radiation in relatively no 
time,
to say nothing of being difficult to read in general.  At least with the 
Voyager
Records, one could take the stylus that was included with them and run the
needle through the grooves, so at least the audio portions could be 
recovered.

As for Clyde Tombaugh's ashes, I do have these things to say on that:

1.  I am actually glad on an emotional level that the first human being to 
leave
the Sol system in some form was Clyde (I met him in person in 1990).

2.  Can anything be interpreted from ashes about a human body?  Besides
the fact that we are made up in part of carbon?

3.  Did any organization have any say in the sending of human remains into
space and out of the Sol system into the galaxy?  We worry about 
contamination
by alien microorganisms from space, so I wonder what the protocol is, if 
any, on
sending any form of an actual human being into the void?

I think it is clear that some kind of organized plan for placing and sending 
items
on all future interstellar probes into the Milky Way galaxy is in order.  
The idea
is not as trivial as it may seem, and there will be more such probes in the 
future.
What they contain may have vast implications for us and the recipients.

Larry


>From: Kosmos327 at aol.com
>To: ljk4 at msn.com, fpspace at friends-partners.org
>Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] FW: The PI's Perspective: Nine Mementos to the Ninth 
>Planet
>Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:46:01 EDT
>
>
>Interesting choices, but I REALLY have a problem with the piece of  
>Spaceship
>One being included. There are still so many of us that consider it to  have
>been more of a sub-orbital glider rather than a real "spaceship". Perhaps  
>it
>will lead to bigger and better things. Perhaps it was the highest flying
>circus act we'll ever see.
>
>My two cents...
>
>David L. Rickman
>
>
>
>
>**************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy
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