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There's something very beautiful about Voyager's journey so far. I hope one day when we're a true interstellar species we'll still keep tabs on it. The data ma

There's something very beautiful about Voyager's journey so far. I hope one day when we're a true interstellar species we'll still keep tabs on it. The data may not be useful anymore, but it would be cool to imagine a year 3000 society with a little "Look at where Voyager is now :)" tool that you can see its path and where humans have colonized by comparison.

Buttons840 3y ago
Perhaps our descendants will build a museum around it without ever changing its velocity.
- beeeeerp 3y ago
  I’ve never thought about it this way. What a cool idea!
- justinclift 3y ago
  Someone (something?) will probably make a religion out of it. ;)
  - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
    There is no destination; there is only the voyage. There was no beginning; there is only the voyage. In life, we voyage together, and in death we shall voyage alone. Now, then, and forever voyaging.
- el-duderino42 3y ago
  I think a 19 year old yobbo, whose dad is a successful interstellar logistics businessman, who out of a guilty conscience for never having had time for his son and having bought him an overpowered spacecraft, will either put grafitti on it or misjudge his afterburner and half burn it while trying to fly a very tight corner around it, in order to impress the 2 girls he has on board.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Wasn't there a Star Trek enemy that was based on Voyager colliding with some kind of doomsday machine?
- sebazzz 3y ago
  There was a Star Trek: Voyager episode in which Voyager finds one of the original Voyager probes on a planet. The episode is called Friendship One [0]. [0]: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_One_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_One_(episode...
- ioblomov 3y ago
  [SPOILER ALERT] It was the surprise ending for the first Star Trek film... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Pictur...
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    That was Voyager 6, a fictional probe based on the real life probes of the same name. Earth probe gone bad is a common trope in Sci-Fi. Star Trek alone has a few episodes: - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_1 https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_1 Also the Doomsday machine was a very different type of probe to V’ger https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(e...
    - layer8 3y ago
      Strangely, this isn’t listed as a trope here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StarTrekTheMotio...
      - hnlmorg 3y ago
        The article does also say > As a side note, the general story is nearly identical to the Original Series episode "The Changeling," That episode was one of the other examples in my post (Nomad).
echelon 3y ago
> when we're a true interstellar species If we can harness all of the energy and mass available in our solar system, we [1] can likely compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans. We might even begin to test the edges of physics. Maybe we don't need to go anywhere at all. Maybe we [1] have all we need right here to become literal gods. [1] Our digital descendants. Humans are very much fit to the gas exchange and metabolism envelope of our gravity well.
- science4sail 3y ago
  > compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans Unfortunately the simulated classical humans in your Matrioshka Brain will want to mine Bitcoin, which means that our digital descendants will have to become a true interstellar species anyway in order to convert the Laniakea Supercluster into coin-mining computronium.
  - eigenket 3y ago
    This is essentially the plot of a book called Accelerando, published way back in 2005!
- eru 3y ago
  > If we can harness all of the energy and mass available in our solar system, we [1] can likely compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans. We might even begin to test the edges of physics. I grant that. But why would that keep us from pressing on? If we have more resources in general, we will also have more resources for interstellar adventures.
  - echelon 3y ago
    I'm sure we will send interstellar probes of some sort. But I think that assuming we'll want to send lots of entities vast distances in space and time might be a lot like thinking we'll have flying cars. We already have quite a lot to exploit in the region around us. We assume we understand our future wants, needs, costs, and capabilities. (Granted, any future thinking is also subject to this, including my own.)
iampivot 3y ago
Do we know how long the power source will last?
- Fatnino 3y ago
  It has a few years left as best. Supposed to run out in the 2020s
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yeah too bad they didn't put a bit more plutonium in it. But it's already lasted beyond the designers' wildest imagination.
- retrac 3y ago
  The plutonium 238 decays according to a curve, and the thermocouples are degraded as well by heat and radiation according to a curve. So the power output drops rather predictably: "The radioisotope thermoelectric generator on each spacecraft puts out 4 watts less each year." [1] The Voyagers will soon no longer have enough power to operate any of their instruments. They'll have enough power to continue operating the transmitter (which serves as a science experiment of its own) into the 2030s. The power of the signal will drop before the electronics and control brown out (if it works as designed), and it the signal might become too weak to detect before the probe completely stops operating. Such a fate befell Pioneer 11, who may yet still be warbling away at low power no longer pointed at Earth; its carrier was last detected in 2003. [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ Also: Even if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth. That FAQ covers a lot of interesting ground (though it talks about 2020 in the future tense). After Voyager 1 took its last image (the "Solar System Family Portrait" in 1990), the cameras were turned off to save power and memory ... I didn't realize that was the last image. ... it is very dark where the Voyagers are now. While you could still see some brighter stars and some of the planets with the cameras, you can actually see these stars and planets better with amateur telescopes on Earth.
datavirtue 3y ago
Oh, you sweet summer child...
- tempestn 3y ago
  This patronizing phrase should really be scrubbed from the modern lexicon.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Even if you construe this phrase as unequivocally negative, you can't scrub negative emotions and intentions. If you were able to actually scrub some word or phrase from the language, another would take its place, like with all the racial and intellectual disability slurs.
    - tempestn 3y ago
      Yes; I'm basically saying one should reconsider before ever using this phrase, as it drips with condescension, and therefore is not conducive to productive discourse.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        There is a time to be productive and a time to be condescending. When being condescended to it's your choice to either be incensed or reflect on maybe you deserved it.
        nineteen999 3y ago
        > When being condescended to it's your choice to either be incensed or reflect Or just chuckle at and ignore the misinformed idiot doing the condescension and move on with your life if appropriate.
  - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
    It is the modern lexicon, it's from the game of thrones.
divbzero 3y ago
I’ve imagined a scene playing out, in sci-fi or for real in the distant future, where astronauts test out a new propulsion system by flying out towards Voyager 1 and catch up to it with ease. As they approach, they see the ancient probe grow larger and larger in their window until…
- randomtoast 3y ago
  If my math is correct, we would already need to build a spaceship that can travel at 1/10th the speed of light to reach Voyager 1 within one week. It will be quite an engineering challenge for the future.
  - Aachen 3y ago
    https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ says the furthest is 24.4 million km from earth. Pulling out the trusty qalculator: $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week / c to %' (((24.4 * (10^6)) kilometers) / (1 week)) / SpeedOfLight = approx. 0.0134572816% So this is using the "millions of kilometers per week" as a speed unit (like km/h but bigger), then dividing by the speed of light (c) to get the fraction of c this is, and finally asks it to format it as a percentage Edit: found a potentially easier (more intuitive to understand) query, giving the same result, as well as how to ask it nearly for the how manyth part of c this is. I'm still learning all the tricks of this tool :) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to c%' [...] approx. 0.0134572816(%c) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to 1/c' [...] approx. 7430.92125 c^-1
    - divbzero 3y ago
      That’s pretty cool. Wolfram Alpha also yields approx. 0.134 c for 1 week of travel time: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+1+week https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... --- Perhaps targeting 100 weeks of travel time would be more plausible: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+100+weeks https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... 0.00134 c is approx. two times the top speed of 0.00064 c for the fastest space probe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe If only we could harness gravity assist at will…

Buttons840 3y ago

Perhaps our descendants will build a museum around it without ever changing its velocity.

beeeeerp 3y ago
I’ve never thought about it this way. What a cool idea!
justinclift 3y ago
Someone (something?) will probably make a religion out of it. ;)
- RheingoldRiver 3y ago
  There is no destination; there is only the voyage. There was no beginning; there is only the voyage. In life, we voyage together, and in death we shall voyage alone. Now, then, and forever voyaging.
el-duderino42 3y ago
I think a 19 year old yobbo, whose dad is a successful interstellar logistics businessman, who out of a guilty conscience for never having had time for his son and having bought him an overpowered spacecraft, will either put grafitti on it or misjudge his afterburner and half burn it while trying to fly a very tight corner around it, in order to impress the 2 girls he has on board.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Wasn't there a Star Trek enemy that was based on Voyager colliding with some kind of doomsday machine?

sebazzz 3y ago
There was a Star Trek: Voyager episode in which Voyager finds one of the original Voyager probes on a planet. The episode is called Friendship One [0]. [0]: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_One_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_One_(episode...
ioblomov 3y ago
[SPOILER ALERT] It was the surprise ending for the first Star Trek film... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Pictur...
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  That was Voyager 6, a fictional probe based on the real life probes of the same name. Earth probe gone bad is a common trope in Sci-Fi. Star Trek alone has a few episodes: - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_1 https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_1 Also the Doomsday machine was a very different type of probe to V’ger https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(e...
  - layer8 3y ago
    Strangely, this isn’t listed as a trope here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StarTrekTheMotio...
    - hnlmorg 3y ago
      The article does also say > As a side note, the general story is nearly identical to the Original Series episode "The Changeling," That episode was one of the other examples in my post (Nomad).

echelon 3y ago

> when we're a true interstellar species If we can harness all of the energy and mass available in our solar system, we [1] can likely compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans. We might even begin to test the edges of physics. Maybe we don't need to go anywhere at all. Maybe we [1] have all we need right here to become literal gods. [1] Our digital descendants. Humans are very much fit to the gas exchange and metabolism envelope of our gravity well.

science4sail 3y ago
> compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans Unfortunately the simulated classical humans in your Matrioshka Brain will want to mine Bitcoin, which means that our digital descendants will have to become a true interstellar species anyway in order to convert the Laniakea Supercluster into coin-mining computronium.
- eigenket 3y ago
  This is essentially the plot of a book called Accelerando, published way back in 2005!
eru 3y ago
> If we can harness all of the energy and mass available in our solar system, we [1] can likely compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans. We might even begin to test the edges of physics. I grant that. But why would that keep us from pressing on? If we have more resources in general, we will also have more resources for interstellar adventures.
- echelon 3y ago
  I'm sure we will send interstellar probes of some sort. But I think that assuming we'll want to send lots of entities vast distances in space and time might be a lot like thinking we'll have flying cars. We already have quite a lot to exploit in the region around us. We assume we understand our future wants, needs, costs, and capabilities. (Granted, any future thinking is also subject to this, including my own.)

iampivot 3y ago

Do we know how long the power source will last?

Fatnino 3y ago
It has a few years left as best. Supposed to run out in the 2020s
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yeah too bad they didn't put a bit more plutonium in it. But it's already lasted beyond the designers' wildest imagination.
retrac 3y ago
The plutonium 238 decays according to a curve, and the thermocouples are degraded as well by heat and radiation according to a curve. So the power output drops rather predictably: "The radioisotope thermoelectric generator on each spacecraft puts out 4 watts less each year." [1] The Voyagers will soon no longer have enough power to operate any of their instruments. They'll have enough power to continue operating the transmitter (which serves as a science experiment of its own) into the 2030s. The power of the signal will drop before the electronics and control brown out (if it works as designed), and it the signal might become too weak to detect before the probe completely stops operating. Such a fate befell Pioneer 11, who may yet still be warbling away at low power no longer pointed at Earth; its carrier was last detected in 2003. [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ Also: Even if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth. That FAQ covers a lot of interesting ground (though it talks about 2020 in the future tense). After Voyager 1 took its last image (the "Solar System Family Portrait" in 1990), the cameras were turned off to save power and memory ... I didn't realize that was the last image. ... it is very dark where the Voyagers are now. While you could still see some brighter stars and some of the planets with the cameras, you can actually see these stars and planets better with amateur telescopes on Earth.

datavirtue 3y ago

Oh, you sweet summer child...

tempestn 3y ago
This patronizing phrase should really be scrubbed from the modern lexicon.
- jojobas 3y ago
  Even if you construe this phrase as unequivocally negative, you can't scrub negative emotions and intentions. If you were able to actually scrub some word or phrase from the language, another would take its place, like with all the racial and intellectual disability slurs.
  - tempestn 3y ago
    Yes; I'm basically saying one should reconsider before ever using this phrase, as it drips with condescension, and therefore is not conducive to productive discourse.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      There is a time to be productive and a time to be condescending. When being condescended to it's your choice to either be incensed or reflect on maybe you deserved it.
      - nineteen999 3y ago
        > When being condescended to it's your choice to either be incensed or reflect Or just chuckle at and ignore the misinformed idiot doing the condescension and move on with your life if appropriate.
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  It is the modern lexicon, it's from the game of thrones.

divbzero 3y ago

I’ve imagined a scene playing out, in sci-fi or for real in the distant future, where astronauts test out a new propulsion system by flying out towards Voyager 1 and catch up to it with ease. As they approach, they see the ancient probe grow larger and larger in their window until…

randomtoast 3y ago
If my math is correct, we would already need to build a spaceship that can travel at 1/10th the speed of light to reach Voyager 1 within one week. It will be quite an engineering challenge for the future.
- Aachen 3y ago
  https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ says the furthest is 24.4 million km from earth. Pulling out the trusty qalculator: $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week / c to %' (((24.4 * (10^6)) kilometers) / (1 week)) / SpeedOfLight = approx. 0.0134572816% So this is using the "millions of kilometers per week" as a speed unit (like km/h but bigger), then dividing by the speed of light (c) to get the fraction of c this is, and finally asks it to format it as a percentage Edit: found a potentially easier (more intuitive to understand) query, giving the same result, as well as how to ask it nearly for the how manyth part of c this is. I'm still learning all the tricks of this tool :) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to c%' [...] approx. 0.0134572816(%c) $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week to 1/c' [...] approx. 7430.92125 c^-1
  - divbzero 3y ago
    That’s pretty cool. Wolfram Alpha also yields approx. 0.134 c for 1 week of travel time: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+1+week https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... --- Perhaps targeting 100 weeks of travel time would be more plausible: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷+100+weeks https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷... 0.00134 c is approx. two times the top speed of 0.00064 c for the fastest space probe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe If only we could harness gravity assist at will…