The Farthest (2017)
Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977. Voyager 1 carries a golden record with messages from earth. It is now in interstellar space. It is proof of humanity’s existence and an attempt to communicate with any space faring races out there.
This documentary tells of the Voyager project and its discoveries and its limitations. There were no geologists in the Voyager project which succeeded the Pioneer mission. The scientists make odd pronunciations of Uranus and go on about gravity assist, orbital speed and an alignment of planets that occurs every 176 years that make the Voyager project possible.
Everyone talks about the golden record, there are old clips of Carl Sagan and the golden record is a message in a bottle. People talk about how it was constrained by weight and space. There is no mention of why Voyager did not go to Pluto. There are 2 hours of sounds on the golden record and the location of earth is given in terms of its distance from pulsars. People talk about the wisdom of giving out earth’s location.
Are there aliens? People discuss the unfathomable distance of space. The Jet Propulsion Lab, with its logo of Dare Mighty Things, built Voyager. The golden record was made in 6 weeks. Voyager and its dated camera and power source is the size of a bus. The Beatles wouldn’t licence their music for outer space. The press conference was treated as a joke. Voyager was launched on a Titan rocket aka a former ICBM. Footage of the launch is shown.
This was grandiose. All the images sent back from Voyager were black and white. Tinfoil was used to insulate it. A mission navigator saw the first evidence of a volcano on a world beyond earth. A Neptune moon, Miranda, has fault locks. The footage from Neptune came back just as Challenger blew up distracting attention away from Voyager.
They saw geysers on a moon of Neptune. Carl Sagan’s son talks. In 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space. It is in the cold dark regions and will any space faring civilisations find it? This was okay. The alien contact element gets all the attention and Voyager and its golden record will never return home.
Best Lines:
“The only evidence we ever existed.”
“Exploration was wooden sailing ships.”
“Pick a target point.”
“Make the study the study of extra-terrestrial life credible.”
“Old style LP recording.”
“If they even have heads.”
“Advanced intelligence beyond us.”
“The universe we know about.”
“The what if people.”
“Fuzzy blobs.”
“You have to launch in that window.”
“Useless from a scientific standpoint.”
“Parking orbit.”
“Tricks for fish.”
“NASA was sending smut to space.”
“What’s that good for?”
~
C.H.U.D 2: Bud The C.H.U.D’ (1989)
No.