NASA’s unexpected controversy
Published on Aug 15, 2006 at 2:10 am.
4 Comments.
Filed under space exploration.
Five spacecraft are leaving the Solar System. This is a tale of the first two: Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. Earlier, I had a posting about these spacecraft. But, now I’m going to say a few things about the first two that a lot of people don’t know.
Since these were the first spacecraft to leave the Solar System, they would be our first ambassadors to the rest of the galaxy. Now, it is unlikely that anyone out there would ever find the Pioneers. But, it seemed like a good gesture to include a message to any extraterrestrials who might find the craft. Unlike the Star Trek universe, where all the aliens seem to be be bipedal huminoids who speak English, any real aliens, if they exist, may be different from us. So, it wasn’t really clear what sort of message would be appropriate. Eric Burgess, a freelance journalist approached astronomer Carl Sagan with a suggestions that the Pioneers include a message to any intelligent life that may find it. Carl Sagan, a planetary atmosphere astronomer, and Frank Drake, a radio astronomer, had been key players in the first attempts to detect signals from space. Both were prominent astronomers, and when they lobbied to send a message along with the Pioneers, NASA took the idea seriously. Besides, reasoned NASA administrators, this would be a good public relations scheme. After all, people like the idea of extraterrestrial intelligences.
So, Carl Sagan, his wife Linda Sagan, and Frank Drake designed a gold plated 9 inch by 6 inch plaque to be affixed to the side of the Pioneer craft. This plaque included two humans, a male and a female standing next to the Pioneer craft to show scale. The man’s hand is raised in a greeting. A shematic showed the Solar System, with nine planets, the sixth one with rings, and with small Pioneer leaving the third planet. A map of sor
ts showing distances to various Pulsars indicates the position of the Solar System. The little cirlces at the top are an attempt to show the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen, which produces a specific frequency and wavelength microwave emission. Pioneer 10 was launche with the plaque on March 3, 1972. NASA administrators were pleased with the plaque, and proudly announced it to the press.
Then the controversy started.
First, the plaque was rather cryptic. When shown to a collection of human scientists, most could not figure out all of what it was trying to say. So, how could aliens figure it out??? Also, how are we to know that aliens would regard a raised hand as a friendly guesture? Might it not be an aggressive gesture in some cultures? Perhaps we were telling the aliens that we were coming to conquer them.
But the real controversy centered on the human figures. Feminists were outraged that the woman was just standing there looking at the man raise his hand. She was shorter and standing slightly behind. That would make her appear lesser than the man to any aliens, they reasoned. But, the absolute biggest controversy was that neither figure was clothed. Newspapers ran pictures of the plaque with bars or smudges strategically placed over the figures. NASA was bombarded with letters decrying sending porn into interstellar space. Congressmen promised to hold hearings on the whole controversy. What was anticipated to be a public relations bonanza for NASA had turned into a public relations nightmare.
And of course, within just a few years, the whole Solar System schematic was seen to be wrong. Saturn is not the only planet with rings. All of the gas giants have rings. Now, we have found that there are objects even larger than Pluto farther out in the Solar System. Even now, astronomers are meeting in Europe to perhaps determine the definition of “planet.” If Pluto is on the list, several other objects should be. But, if Pluto isn’t a planet, then the whole plaque is wrong. Well, it is wrong anyway, of course, since there are other objects like Pluto not indicated.
NASA learned its lesson, though. When the Voyagers were launched, instead of this plaque, they included a phonograph record. So, any aliens who find it only need to place it on the turntable in their flying saucer, rotate it at 33 1/3 rpm, and place a stylus on it to hear the sounds of Earth. Hmm. OK, so that might not work. Never fear. NASA learned from that. The Cassini spacecraft has a CD on it. That way any aliens who have a PC running Windows 95 can read it!
-Astroprof
aurea on August 19, 2006 at 8:40 pm: 1
Hi, I just found your blog, and you have some good reading material here!
As for our first contact with the aliens, how about including some color photographs instead (on acid-free paper)? Or some “typical human” action figures?
Messages in a bottle: The Pioneer plaques and Voyager records « Mysterious Universe on June 19, 2007 at 6:06 pm: 2
[…] Links: Astroprof’s Page: NASA’s unexpected controversy Enterprise Mission: The Pioneer plaque Heavens Above: Spacecraft escaping the solar system NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Voyager golden record Net.project: Voyager’s greetings to the universe (contains links to images and sounds stored on the record) […]
Lokesh Dash on February 26, 2008 at 9:16 am: 3
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Astroprof’s Page » Names in Space on May 28, 2008 at 12:14 am: 4
[…] message into space. The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft all had messages to extraterrestrials on board. But, in those days, only so much information could be sent into […]