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Very nice overview of the Voyager program. I love the words from the President included on the spacecraft: “We hope someday, having solved the problems we face

Very nice overview of the Voyager program. I love the words from the President included on the spacecraft: “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 good will in a vast and awesome universe.”

hansjorg 4y ago
That's a nice sentiment. Suprisingly humble, coming from Reagan.
- boulos 4y ago
  Except it was Carter...
  - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
    People inexplicably hate Carter - not only was he a fantastic president… albeit unlucky but good, but also a genuinely amazing human.
    - mc32 4y ago
      Carter is a really nice man. He was not a good president though. Granted much of the badness was out of his control, but such is life.
      - Ma8ee 4y ago
        How was he a bad president?
        cpuguy83 4y ago
        Mainly record high inflation and the gas crisis (which was way worse than today's). Whether or not anyone could have stopped that doesn't matter, ppl attribute this to him.
        TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        He was also blamed for not bringing home the American prisoners that Iran kidnapped.
        perilunar 4y ago
        I never understood that. He authorised a mission to do it; it was hardly his fault the mission failed.
        mc32 4y ago
        "Mission Accomplished!" Yes, they all get blamed for things not under their control.
        Spooky23 4y ago
        His biggest issue was that he was a manager, focused too much on processes and policy detail. A President usually sets the tone and direction of policy, but avoids personal accountability for the details for a variety of reasons.
      - helloooooooo 4y ago
        I think his presidency is stained by the impossible geopolitical and economic environment of his era.
    - BbzzbB 4y ago
      Is it one side of the aisle that hates Carter? Because from what I've seen/read from the outside (Canada) looking in, I saw nothing but praise for his humility and humanity. I saw conflicting opinions on what he did or didn't do during his tenure, but only positive with regards to his person and character.
      - sixothree 4y ago
        Yes. Even to this day, high praise for Nixon and Reagan; and nothing but utter contempt for Carter. More telling of the people laying the condemnation than of the man himself.
        christophilus 4y ago
        Not sure. I was raised by conservatives (albeit somewhat middle of the road) and they and most conservatives I’ve chatted with really admire Carter as a person; just thought he was an incompetent president. My childhood church group (all Republicans, I’d guess) used to build houses with Habitat. It’s kinda hard to think poorly of Carter when he built something that does so much good. I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? Not sure. I may also just be in a bubble of reasonable centrists. My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
        zizee 4y ago
        > maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented Often referred to as the "silent majority". > My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation. I think this is many (?most?) people's experience, whilst media (social/traditional) are geared towards demonizing both "sides", to increase engagement. I say "sides", because most people's opinions skew left/right depending on the issue in question, rather than fitting perfectly into the stereotypical archetypes.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? They are all voting for Trump and the Trumpists. How moderate are they?
    - MandieD 4y ago
      As my very conservative, East Texan father says, Carter is too good a man to have been any good as president.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      It’s not inexplicable, it was a manufactured consensus by the media. I was a Carter fan before it was cool, seems like more and more people are coming around and revisiting his legacy.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - pengaru 4y ago
      In case you haven't noticed, a substantial portion of Americans favor assholes.
      - johnohara 4y ago
        Agree. The past 59 years have been particularly notable.
    - smitty1e 4y ago
      There are copious fine individuals one could name. This doesn't make them great Presidential material. Nor should we care. It is of far greater significance to be a good parent or a Gary Flandro than to be President.
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
      There's a good PBS documentary series on all the modern presidents and it's worth a watch if you haven't seen it already. The Carter episode dug into how he was technically well qualified and capable, but just did not have the connections and support of Congress at the time and that ultimately doomed his administration to failure. None of his ideas were able to get funding or support in Congress so his administration just flailed.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        The big problem. Policy is super interesting and fun and touches on so many diverse and stimulating areas. Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage.
        javajosh 4y ago
        If you're in US Congress, your vote is incredibly valuable. Yet we want our representatives to vote for what is best for our nation. These two objectives are in obvious conflict. This conflict doesn't trouble me (it has always been so) but rather the loss of awareness that this conflict exists and must constantly be mitigated is what troubles me. Congress is now full of people who are overtly self-interested, and their constituents love it. This is evidence of a major structural breakdown of American society, and it's not clear what caused it or what might heal it.
        medvezhenok 4y ago
        There's a good argument to be made about the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act as being one of the first places to look. Up until then, Congress voted on a secret ballot, and the congressional votes were not made public - so lobbying had a much higher hurdle to clear (since the lobbyists could not guarantee a return on their investment by verifying that the Congressperson kept their end of the bargain). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kvUxQIJlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kvUxQIJlA
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage. That's what the sociopaths want you to think. Look at the most successful people politically, who got the most done - Lincoln, FDR, MLK, etc. They weren't sociopaths. The recent sociopath at the top of the ticket underperformed their own party.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      Genuinely amazing human sure, but terrible President. He didn’t get anything done and nearly lost the nomination from his own party for a second term, which is rare.
    - thedougd 4y ago
      Carter taught me that there are four ways to pronounce pecan.
    - dehrmann 4y ago
      I don't think anyone hates him as a person. He's a Mr. Rogers-level humanitarian.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Carter the President was terrible. Carter the Man, however, is admirable and one of my favorite people. Yes, both can be simultaneously true.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      An example of why Carter was a terrible President. Remember the looong gas lines? I sure do. For years, just getting gas was a miserable experience with arbitrarily long waits, up to hours. Reagan's first act was to sign an Executive Order eliminating all oil and gas price and allocation controls. The gas lines vanished literally overnight (and I'm not exaggerating) and never returned. Boy do I remember that. Carter could have done that. But he simply didn't understand economics. Sadly, Biden is considering having the government control fuel distribution again.
      - ggm 4y ago
        Without going full conspiracy, is there any chance this was a pre Koch brothers example of industry undermining government authority until it gets the government it wants?
        WalterBright 4y ago
        If Carter was making bad decisions because Koch told him to, then that still makes Carter a bad President.
        ggm 4y ago
        Firstly, The Koch brothers are fiercely republican and were not making decisions through Carter. Secondly, I said pre-Koch. Btw, the oil price controls were a Nixon initiative, continued by Ford. Carter did not invent them, he just didn't remove them. Reagan was the beneficiary of the collapse of the OPEC price war internationally.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Funny how the OPEC price war collapsed the day Reagan took office and repealed those damned price and allocation controls. Something Carter could have done at any time. But he didn't. Reagan did. > he just didn't remove them That's right, for 4 years he didn't. He gets the blame for it for those 4 years.
mistermann 4y ago
> “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 good will in a vast and awesome universe.” This is a lovely saying, but it feels like fairly strong false advertising. "We hope X", interpreted literally, implies that people physically engage in such forms of thinking. I do not believe this is actually true at ground level, rather, I think this is more of a story that we like to tell ourselves about ourselves.
- kortilla 4y ago
  SpaceX is actively working towards that goal.
  - Planktonne 4y ago
    SpaceX's own mission statement doesn't mention becoming part of a community of civilisations [1]. It mentions making humans multiplanetary, but that is a very different aim [2]. Further, it's a good idea to be skeptical of corporate mission statements generally. SpaceX is doing exciting stuff in the field of rocketry; that's really happening and it's worth being excited about, but they aren't doing more. It's misguided and dangerous to treat them as utopian idealists. [1] https://www.spacex.com/mission/ https://www.spacex.com/mission/ [2] https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet-00-e.html https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilent...
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      If Starship isn’t designed to go to Mars and back they’ve made some odd design choices.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > but they aren't doing more Criminy, aren't they doing great? I finally found a way to buy some shares of SpaceX. I don't even care if that investment does badly, I just want to share in a tiny bit of SpaceX. > dangerous ?? On the scale of things that terrify me, SpaceX doesn't move the needle.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
This guy makes his own space documentaries on YouTube — very deep dive into the Voyager program: https://youtu.be/M62kajY-ln0 https://youtu.be/M62kajY-ln0

hansjorg 4y ago

That's a nice sentiment. Suprisingly humble, coming from Reagan.

boulos 4y ago
Except it was Carter...
- diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
  People inexplicably hate Carter - not only was he a fantastic president… albeit unlucky but good, but also a genuinely amazing human.
  - mc32 4y ago
    Carter is a really nice man. He was not a good president though. Granted much of the badness was out of his control, but such is life.
    - Ma8ee 4y ago
      How was he a bad president?
      - cpuguy83 4y ago
        Mainly record high inflation and the gas crisis (which was way worse than today's). Whether or not anyone could have stopped that doesn't matter, ppl attribute this to him.
        TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        He was also blamed for not bringing home the American prisoners that Iran kidnapped.
        perilunar 4y ago
        I never understood that. He authorised a mission to do it; it was hardly his fault the mission failed.
        mc32 4y ago
        "Mission Accomplished!" Yes, they all get blamed for things not under their control.
      - Spooky23 4y ago
        His biggest issue was that he was a manager, focused too much on processes and policy detail. A President usually sets the tone and direction of policy, but avoids personal accountability for the details for a variety of reasons.
    - helloooooooo 4y ago
      I think his presidency is stained by the impossible geopolitical and economic environment of his era.
  - BbzzbB 4y ago
    Is it one side of the aisle that hates Carter? Because from what I've seen/read from the outside (Canada) looking in, I saw nothing but praise for his humility and humanity. I saw conflicting opinions on what he did or didn't do during his tenure, but only positive with regards to his person and character.
    - sixothree 4y ago
      Yes. Even to this day, high praise for Nixon and Reagan; and nothing but utter contempt for Carter. More telling of the people laying the condemnation than of the man himself.
      - christophilus 4y ago
        Not sure. I was raised by conservatives (albeit somewhat middle of the road) and they and most conservatives I’ve chatted with really admire Carter as a person; just thought he was an incompetent president. My childhood church group (all Republicans, I’d guess) used to build houses with Habitat. It’s kinda hard to think poorly of Carter when he built something that does so much good. I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? Not sure. I may also just be in a bubble of reasonable centrists. My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation.
        zizee 4y ago
        > maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented Often referred to as the "silent majority". > My left wing and right wing friends are pretty centrist in my estimation. I think this is many (?most?) people's experience, whilst media (social/traditional) are geared towards demonizing both "sides", to increase engagement. I say "sides", because most people's opinions skew left/right depending on the issue in question, rather than fitting perfectly into the stereotypical archetypes.
        wolverine876 4y ago
        > I wonder if the loud, vitriolic right wingers make it seem like the right thinks as a united, extreme block, when maybe there’s a large, quiet group that is not well represented? They are all voting for Trump and the Trumpists. How moderate are they?
  - MandieD 4y ago
    As my very conservative, East Texan father says, Carter is too good a man to have been any good as president.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    It’s not inexplicable, it was a manufactured consensus by the media. I was a Carter fan before it was cool, seems like more and more people are coming around and revisiting his legacy.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - pengaru 4y ago
    In case you haven't noticed, a substantial portion of Americans favor assholes.
    - johnohara 4y ago
      Agree. The past 59 years have been particularly notable.
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    There are copious fine individuals one could name. This doesn't make them great Presidential material. Nor should we care. It is of far greater significance to be a good parent or a Gary Flandro than to be President.
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    There's a good PBS documentary series on all the modern presidents and it's worth a watch if you haven't seen it already. The Carter episode dug into how he was technically well qualified and capable, but just did not have the connections and support of Congress at the time and that ultimately doomed his administration to failure. None of his ideas were able to get funding or support in Congress so his administration just flailed.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      The big problem. Policy is super interesting and fun and touches on so many diverse and stimulating areas. Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage.
      - javajosh 4y ago
        If you're in US Congress, your vote is incredibly valuable. Yet we want our representatives to vote for what is best for our nation. These two objectives are in obvious conflict. This conflict doesn't trouble me (it has always been so) but rather the loss of awareness that this conflict exists and must constantly be mitigated is what troubles me. Congress is now full of people who are overtly self-interested, and their constituents love it. This is evidence of a major structural breakdown of American society, and it's not clear what caused it or what might heal it.
        medvezhenok 4y ago
        There's a good argument to be made about the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act as being one of the first places to look. Up until then, Congress voted on a secret ballot, and the congressional votes were not made public - so lobbying had a much higher hurdle to clear (since the lobbyists could not guarantee a return on their investment by verifying that the Congressperson kept their end of the bargain). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kvUxQIJlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kvUxQIJlA
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        > Politics though is awful and puts sociopaths at an advantage. That's what the sociopaths want you to think. Look at the most successful people politically, who got the most done - Lincoln, FDR, MLK, etc. They weren't sociopaths. The recent sociopath at the top of the ticket underperformed their own party.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    Genuinely amazing human sure, but terrible President. He didn’t get anything done and nearly lost the nomination from his own party for a second term, which is rare.
  - thedougd 4y ago
    Carter taught me that there are four ways to pronounce pecan.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    I don't think anyone hates him as a person. He's a Mr. Rogers-level humanitarian.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Carter the President was terrible. Carter the Man, however, is admirable and one of my favorite people. Yes, both can be simultaneously true.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    An example of why Carter was a terrible President. Remember the looong gas lines? I sure do. For years, just getting gas was a miserable experience with arbitrarily long waits, up to hours. Reagan's first act was to sign an Executive Order eliminating all oil and gas price and allocation controls. The gas lines vanished literally overnight (and I'm not exaggerating) and never returned. Boy do I remember that. Carter could have done that. But he simply didn't understand economics. Sadly, Biden is considering having the government control fuel distribution again.
    - ggm 4y ago
      Without going full conspiracy, is there any chance this was a pre Koch brothers example of industry undermining government authority until it gets the government it wants?
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        If Carter was making bad decisions because Koch told him to, then that still makes Carter a bad President.
        ggm 4y ago
        Firstly, The Koch brothers are fiercely republican and were not making decisions through Carter. Secondly, I said pre-Koch. Btw, the oil price controls were a Nixon initiative, continued by Ford. Carter did not invent them, he just didn't remove them. Reagan was the beneficiary of the collapse of the OPEC price war internationally.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        Funny how the OPEC price war collapsed the day Reagan took office and repealed those damned price and allocation controls. Something Carter could have done at any time. But he didn't. Reagan did. > he just didn't remove them That's right, for 4 years he didn't. He gets the blame for it for those 4 years.

mistermann 4y ago

> “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 good will in a vast and awesome universe.” This is a lovely saying, but it feels like fairly strong false advertising. "We hope X", interpreted literally, implies that people physically engage in such forms of thinking. I do not believe this is actually true at ground level, rather, I think this is more of a story that we like to tell ourselves about ourselves.

kortilla 4y ago
SpaceX is actively working towards that goal.
- Planktonne 4y ago
  SpaceX's own mission statement doesn't mention becoming part of a community of civilisations [1]. It mentions making humans multiplanetary, but that is a very different aim [2]. Further, it's a good idea to be skeptical of corporate mission statements generally. SpaceX is doing exciting stuff in the field of rocketry; that's really happening and it's worth being excited about, but they aren't doing more. It's misguided and dangerous to treat them as utopian idealists. [1] https://www.spacex.com/mission/ https://www.spacex.com/mission/ [2] https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet-00-e.html https://www.gutenbergcanada.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilent...
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    If Starship isn’t designed to go to Mars and back they’ve made some odd design choices.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > but they aren't doing more Criminy, aren't they doing great? I finally found a way to buy some shares of SpaceX. I don't even care if that investment does badly, I just want to share in a tiny bit of SpaceX. > dangerous ?? On the scale of things that terrify me, SpaceX doesn't move the needle.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

This guy makes his own space documentaries on YouTube — very deep dive into the Voyager program: https://youtu.be/M62kajY-ln0 https://youtu.be/M62kajY-ln0