A Billion Years Minus 43; the Voyager Record; also: Memories of Viking

The golden records carried aboard each Voyager spacecraft are 43 years into their billion year journey to the stars. Their message from Earth will last until they are eroded away by interstellar dust. The Design Director of this unique project reconsiders it four decades after he helped make it.

MEMORIES OF VIKING by Jon Lomberg: A look back at the first successful landing on Mars by a human spacecraft, seen through the lens of the Visions of Mars DVD. This disk, a gift to future human colonists, is now on Mars aboard NASA’s Phoenix lander. It contains a recording of the night we landed on Mars as well as greetings from Carl Sagan and others. This retrospective is narrated by a reporter who covered the mission and a composer who has worked with scientists to imagine how Mars might sound.