We old folks remember those days wheb there were only three stations.

I remember we had a remote that used a sound clicker to turn the power on and off -- like a tuning fork or something inside... but lo and behold, it worked!

Dad used to build Heathkits so there was always a garage full of goodies around

... and if you tapped it with a spoon, the TV would change channels.

me and two sisters

I remember having 3 channels until about 1985... though I got a snowy glimpse of the fourth earlier than that.

the cable remote was connected to the TV by a wire.

Oh yeah! Mid 1960's, the remote was connected to the TV with a 15 foot cord.

We could get NY stations or turn the antenna and get Philly as well! That was the height of technology in those days!

I grew up with BBC 1, BBC 2, and Southern (later TVS). London stations were available with a large outdoor antenna, forbidden in our neighborhood at that time. So we had the three South Coast stations. Channel 4 came to the South very late - we moved in the later 80's and we finally got Channel 4 with an antenna pointed at London. Along with Thames (weekday) and London Weekend TV (well... weekends).

Ireland had it worse - two channel land for most of the country at that time. Many households in Dublin had antennas on very high poles pointed at Wales to get the British channels.

When I was a kid my father was stationed in Berlin (just before the Wall went up. We had one TV station, and it was in German from the Communist side. Our "cartoons" were having the Sunday comics read on AFN radio.

snip from the article>

These days, a handful of engineers diligently listen for the Voyagers from a satellite campus not far from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the spacecraft.

The control room, with its cubicles and carpeting, could be mistaken for an insurance office if not for a blue sign overhead that reads "Mission Controller" and a warning on a computer: "Voyager mission critical hardware. Please do not touch!"

There are no full-time scientists left on the mission, but 20 part-timers analyze the data streamed back. Since the spacecraft are so far out, it takes 17 hours for a radio signal from Voyager 1 to travel to Earth. For Voyager 2, it takes about 13 hours.

snip>

anybody know?

On edit: nuclear powered according to the article at the link.

I wonder what those advanced civilizations will think of the BeeGees and Led Zeppelin? Oh, the inhumanity!

The beeGees and Led Zeppelin is better music then 99% of the crap thats out there today

but the music does stink and this is coming from someone who grew up in the 80's I know bad music.

nt

On voyager two, I think.

And what happens when Vger comes back?

Voyager 6 fell through a black hole and ended up near a world ran by machines and those machines built a HUGE space craft for Voyager.

not to mention bad 70's haircuts

Star Trek moment. Archaic cultural reference. My bad.

Have to worry about Voyager I, buy Voyager II will be destroyed by the Klingons in about 200 years (opening mi utes of Star Trek V). Stupid turtle heads and their target practice.

(on edit: beaten by six minutes while I researched exact spelling. No probs! Good going.)

Nothing like a bald robot that looks like your ex-girlfriend in your shower asking you for information.

Must be a little like alimony payments.

the bald held freaked me out as a kid lol

Lead any good moon rebellions with Mike helping out?

And we need to muster the will to stop destroying each other and the planet. So much potential and energy is eaten up in man's quest to destroy himself and everything around him.

.. just at the time it was designed.

As a Rocket Scientist in the real world, I am always painfully aware how far behind we are.. by the time of launch.

The shuttle's main computers were 8 bit word, 1 megahertz cycle rate, 64 K main memory. (Yes, I said 64 K! )

And those who remember the days of 64k ram and 1M hard drives may still retain their frugal digital habits.

I chuckle when people complain that their .5Tb hard drive is full. They probably use about 1% of the data.

but don't open the power system

Just maybe long enough for us to build up our starfleet to repel the alien armada.

any of you all ever in your lifetime build a crystal set radio? kf6uxj here .

Eventually, Pioneer 10 and 11 will join it, but they are just reaching or in the heliosheath.


On November 17, 1998, Voyager 1 overtook Pioneer 10 as the most distant man-made object from Earth, at a distance of 69.419 AU (1.03849×1010 km). It is currently the most distant functioning space probe to receive commands and transmit information to Earth. The spacecraft's mission now is its eternal mission, to study and wander the interstellar medium. At 17.26 km/s (10.72 mi/s)[15] it has the fastest heliocentric recession speed of any man-made object.[16]

Voyager was 60 AU in 97 and about 120 AU in 2012.

Too bad it was launched with chemical rockets and not nuclear pulse propulsion.

If I can get a seat. I'm sure it will be crowded.

The auditorium has a full scale replica of voyager in the corner and a display of the photos and sounds that the spacecraft carry.

I would love to go to that!

It was very interesting.
I learned some things I didn't know about the mission.

Did you know they received some startling unexpected data just last week!

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/25191976

All we have to do is believe!

If we launched today (maybe, im 32 and if it took 50 years)

It was launched in 2006 and is less than 3 years away from Pluto now. It speeds by Pluto in July 2015. Then through the Kuiper Belt and on to the stars as well.

Only thing that would give Voyager 1 a leg up on New Horizons is the gravity assists from Jupiter and Saturn.

Imagine if all of our cars etc were as reliable?

'cause that is all this baby has for data storage.