Here's to Voyager 1 & 2: 30 years in flight!

[Neroon]

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It's amazing when you consider all that these two spacecraft have observed, and where they travel now. They helped us see into the outer reaches of our own neighborhood, and who knows what they will encounter next.

 

[Neopeius]

Beautiful craft, they. I strongly remember August 24, 1981, when Voyager II passed Saturn. I had just seen the Nova: Resolution on Saturn episode.

 

[Brent]

AWESOME craft indeed

 

[Mallory]

NASA sure got these missions done right. They are indeed awesome spacecraft and the designers and engineers that produced did an outstanding job.

 

[Hofner]

(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

 

[Neopeius]

hofner said:
(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

You and me both, Robert. I had the Spinoffs from 1976-1980, and the last issue had a section on Voyager at Jupiter.

Those were exciting times.

 

[Amaris]

Neopeius said:

hofner said:
(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

You and me both, Robert. I had the Spinoffs from 1976-1980, and the last issue had a section on Voyager at Jupiter.

Those were exciting times.

I consider the Mars rovers exciting times, too, but oh, what it must be like to have seen the first real photos of Saturn & Jupiter.

-J.

 

[Neopeius]

J. Allen said:

Neopeius said:

hofner said:
(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

You and me both, Robert. I had the Spinoffs from 1976-1980, and the last issue had a section on Voyager at Jupiter.

Those were exciting times.

I consider the Mars rovers exciting times, too, but oh, what it must be like to have seen the first real photos of Saturn & Jupiter.

-J.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's amazing how much they've managed to learn about Mars. I really should read more journal articles, especially now that I've got my library proxy back up, but Mars is just the least interesting planet to me.

But being able to get live weather reports from another planet? Wicked cool.

 

[Cooter Brown]

Wow.

I knew it'd been 30 years, but I didn't know it'd been exactly 30 years. I vaguely remember the lanuches (I was a seven-year-old science geek at the time), but I was blown away by the pictures and the discoveries announced when the spacecraft did their Jupiter flybys.

More pictures and mission details were published a few months later in National Geographic, to which my family (like many) subsrcibed. I probably read that article a dozen times.

Godspeed, Voyager I and Voyager II. You taught us so much. Here's hoping humanity will reach the stars before you do.

 

[Neroon]

I highly recommend this CD: Voyager-Grand -Tour Suite as a nice bit of background music. It's a bit new age like for some, but I still find it beautiful.

 

[Hofner]

J. Allen said:

Neopeius said:

hofner said:
(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

You and me both, Robert. I had the Spinoffs from 1976-1980, and the last issue had a section on Voyager at Jupiter.

Those were exciting times.

I consider the Mars rovers exciting times, too, but oh, what it must be like to have seen the first real photos of Saturn & Jupiter.

-J.

I consider the exploration of Mars exciting also. What I ALSO remember is when the Viking landers sent the first pictures of Mars' surface.

But the first Voyager pictures of Jupiter and moons were so exciting not just because they were spectacular but so many huge discoveries were being made. Jupiter had a ring, a bunch of other moons besides the four big ones, Io had active volcanos, Europa was covered with ice and so on.

Likr Neopeius said it was a very exciting time.

Robert

 

[Mysterion]

Neroon said:
I highly recommend this CD: Voyager-Grand -Tour Suite as a nice bit of background music. It's a bit new age like for some, but I still find it beautiful.

Well, there's always Holst's The Planets if you want something a bit more classical.

 

[GMac]

Wow - I didn't realise it was quite that long since those two were launched. Heck of a job by the scientists who designed, built and launched them - the photos and data they sent back was impressive to say the least. And to think they're both still functioning today..... :thumbsup:

GM

 

[Outpost4]

I'm so frickin' old I can remember reading about how we were going to miss this "once in an eternity" chance to visit all of the gas giants on the Grand Tour that Voyager 2 eventually flew. First there was the commitment to build the crafts but NASA was only confident enough to send them to Jupiter and Saturn. After the success of Voyager 1's encounter with Jupiter, NASA got some balls and agreed to send Voyager 2 on a riskier flight path through Jupiter's radiation and Saturn's rings in order to reach Neptune and Uranus.

Here NASA went from not having a craft in production to building one and sending it on a mission they thought they could accomplish only to expand both the risk and the reward. Thirty years later, those craft are still operating. That was when NASA was an inspiring agency.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

A moment of silence for Voyager's now quiet cousins, Pioneer 10 and 11.

Next Saturday marks the 28th Anniversary of Pioneer 11's Saturn encounter. I remeber being on vacation with my family, they went to the beach, I stayed in the camper and watched the signals coming in from deep space on public TV.

AG

 

[Dude]

So, where are these craft at now?

 

[Kolrad]

I remember hearing about Voyager 2's flyby of Uranus when I was six, and then staying up late to watch "Neptune All Night" on PBS three years later. It was exciting to learn so much that was unknown about those planets (like that Neptune has rings, and a Great Dark Spot).

An amazing achievement.

 

[Just_Bob]

hofner said:
(Showing my age here.) I still remember when the first pictures came out of Jupiter and its moons. They were simply amazing, we'd never been able to see that much detail before.

Robert

I don't mind showing my age. Those were the days. Eh, Robert? 30 years later and they keep on ticking. Venerable craft, indeed. My glass is raised. :thumbsup:

 

[Neopeius]

Alpha_Geek said:
A moment of silence for Voyager's now quiet cousins, Pioneer 10 and 11.

I remember when Pioneer 10 went silent. I'd been following the probe's progress for years. I have a friend who built some stuff for that probe.

 

[Turbo]

DJP691 said:
So, where are these craft at now?

Pioneer 10's last communication with Earth was on January 23, 2003. It is the first man-made object to leave the solar system. Its last known position was 7.5 billion miles from Earth, moving towards the red giant Aldebaran in Taurus at about 2.6 AUs per year. If Aldebaran had no relative velocity, Pioneer 10 would reach the star in about 2 million years.

Pioneer 11's last signal was received in November 1995. It was 4.1 billion miles from Earth, traveling towards the constellation Aquila at 2.4 AUs per year. It will pass near one of the stars in Aquila in about 4 million years.

Voyager 1 is currently further from the Sun than any known natural solar-system object, including Pioneer 10. As of March 2007, it is 102 AU, or 9.5 billion miles, from Earth, traveling at 3.6 AUs per year. It is not currently traveling towards any astronomical point, but in 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be within 1.7 light years of the star AC+793888 in the constellation Camelopardis.

Voyager 2 is currently 7.7 billion miles from Earth, traveling at 3.3 AUs per year. Like its sister probe, Voyager 2 is not traveling towards any particular star.

Both Voyagers are expected to have enough power to run their science instruments into the 2020s. They are currently being used to study the outer solar system, and Voyager 1 is expected to enter the heliopause in 2015, well before its instruments will power down.