"We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."

I have to give credit where credit is due. I was reminded of this by a post on a mySpace page of an old colleague, Kenny Ray.

There have been four man-made, Earth-launched objects that have escaped the influence of our Sun: Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2. The latter two, the Voyager probes, were equipped with albums made of gold-plated copper. These records contain 116 images (no nudes - sorry Carl) of diagrams and pictures from Earth, along with musical selections from Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Stravinsky and Chuck Berry. The chances of anything or anyone ever encountering either of these probes in the unimaginably vastness of interstellar space is unfathomably impossible. However, just in case some other civilization comes across them (or future humans track them down), the former president Jimmy Carter wrote the following little message:

"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."

-- U.S. President Jimmy Carter