Technology and Shit

As you can see with this:  TECH, I have a fascination with old technology.  Especially if it is still working and being used successfully.  Now, if you read the link that I have there, you know that I'm obsessed with the media end of it, and maybe the computer end...

The more I think of it, the more it goes from being a mere interest, to being a question of our own humanity in a way. 

Right now Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, are still heading out toward the heliosphere.  They were both launched in 1977.  They're still fucking chugging along. They are powered by plutonium rods (I think), which means they must have small reactors inside them of a sort, hence 50 years of power.  But get this: the information they store is kept on digital 8 track tapes that continually overwrite as necessary.  

They're still sending information back, through radio waves.  The signal is weak because it is traveling across 15 billion miles of space.  That's right, 15 billion!!  So NASA set up antennas that are so strong that they can make sense of those incredibly weak radio transmissions.  Transmissions that take some 22 hours to reach their destinations. 

Here's where it really spins my skull.  In 2024 there was a breakdown with Voyager 1.  It was sending back garbage information.  So they fixed 47 year old technology from 15 billion miles away.  I can't make hide nor hair of what's going on with their McGuyvering, so check this shit out:  NASA

They basically rewrote the code somehow with whatever 1977 computer technology is on that thing using programming here on Earth from the now.  From 15 billion miles away.  

I can't comprehend how smart these people are... I'm lucky if I can tie my shoes. 

But look, man.  Human Americans can reprogram a 50 year old probe that's 15 billion miles from Earth, but we can't figure out how to make a refrigerator, washer/dryer or dishwasher give us 15 solid years without a problem?

These hunks of space program metal are headed toward interstellar space in absolutely frigid temperatures using technology of power, propulsion, computer memory, signal broadcast, instrumentation, heating and who knows what else that were top of the line during the Summer of Sam.  When Ron Guidry was pitching for the Yankees.  When Jimmy Carter was president.  Star Wars was number one at the box office, and Fleetwood Mac's Rumors was the top selling album.  VCRs cost $5,000.00 in todays dollars.

The Voyager twins are continuously sending back information on plasma waves, magnetic fields, cosmic rays, particles, and its own engineering health.  From 15 billion miles away. 

Here on Earth we can't talk to each other and our gubmint has decided just this week to bail on the EPA energy law that was turning the corner on ozone layer depletion, car emissions and power plant releases.  Why?

They felt like we needed to use "beautiful, clean coal" (a fucking oxymoron if there ever was one) more than we were cuz money.  That whole wind, sun, energy thing.... just too much work.  We need to fuck the planet up for our kid's kids because money. 

So we're still learning about what's going on 15 billion miles away in the depths of areas that Ripley and the Nostromo were navigating in Alien (a film only a year younger than the Voyager Twins) while we fuck up our own corner of the Solar System. 

Nice.