In praise of ... the Voyager space probe (reaches 100 AU next week)

[muriel_volestrangler]

Editorial in The Guardian:

Their mission began almost 30 years ago, a 1960s dream realised with 1970s technology, aimed at the giant planets. Voyager 1 and 2 have sped past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They provided the first close view of the rings of Saturn, winter on Uranus, the frozen ocean and awesome sulphur volcanos on Jupiter's Galilean moons Europa and Io, as well as showing us Titan's choking atmosphere. And they went on.

Next week the first of these amazing little spacecraft will pass an astronomical milestone: Voyager 1 will be 15 billion kilometres (9.3bn miles) from the sun. That is equivalent to a distance of 100 astronomical units (AU), or 100 times as far from the sun as the sun is from the Earth. The term AU has almost no useful meaning for earthbound travellers. But it is the standard yardstick for the unimaginable distances to the last outposts of the empire of the sun, and Voyager 1, heading away at 17km a second (38,250mph to British motorists), is about to notch its first century.
...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1839454,00.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. 100 AU? I had no idea it was that far away

And still sending back useful data. I was just reading about Voyager crossing the heliopause (where the sun's influence ends)last fall.

They're still trying to interpret the data.

[sakabatou]

3. I thought the signals were to weak at this point...

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Nah, still just detectable

Got to know where you're looking, though - IIRC, the transmitter on the Voyagers is only 200w. They weren't planning on getting this far...

The main problem is the power supply, which has degraded to the point where they can only use a few of the low power instruments.

[Posteritatis]

14. A typical wristwatch uses more power

than Voyager's transmitters have left in them at this point. There's some truly hardcore detection equipment on Earth listening in on what they can hear from that thing at this point.

Some of the more optimistic shots at Voyager's life suggest that it'll still be returning a little bit of data around 2020(!).

[bmbmd]

2. Has the transformation to

Vger happened yet???

[Tesha]

16. No, but it should run into the Vulcans in 5,765 years. (NT)

[Occulus]

4. Maybe it'll find a Saddle Point gateway out there somewhere

:evilgrin:

(Bonus points if you get the joke AND can name the author)

[carlvs]

5. If it's is who I think it is,

better that than a vacuum colapse anyday... :evilgrin:

[Occulus]

6. And that was scary

Not that part in the book, but the little blurb at the end that, um, such a collapse is... actually thought to be possible.

:scared:

I personally wouldn't want to travel at the speed of light if it meant I was "fast forwarding" the way they had to in his books.

Eek. You go out somewhere, come back "immediately", and it's 1000 years later? No, thanks...

edit: Yeah, I think it is who you think it is. Congratulations! :D

[carlvs]

8. Thank you!

Though if we discover that this universe was undergoing one of these nightmares, I guess we would have find a friendly Xelee who would allow humanity to hitchhike with them over to The Ring

Baring that, one could hope to find a Timeship and jump though the Manifold to a parallel Earth... the only problem with that is that you might find yourself on one who's geology has gone into hyperdrive, the classic signature of a Moonseed infection.

In which case, you are definitely (bleeped...)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist...:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:)

[Geoff R. Casavant]

9. I give up

This is an author with whose works I am unfamiliar. Who is it -- the stories at least sound like stuff I'd want to read.

[carlvs]

10. Stephen Baxter

He is what is sometimes called a "hard" sci-fi author, which means that his stories are based on current science or logical extrapolations of such. Even with this restriction, you'll be surprised with what could (at least theoretically) be possible.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

11. Thanks!

Any recommendation which book or books would be best to start? Do his stories have the same characters across books so there is a particular order?

[Occulus]

13. His "Manifold" books are what I've recently read

Manifold: Space, Manifold: Time, and Manifold: Origin.

It doesn't at all matter in which order you read them, because all three involve the same characters in different universes. All three are "hard" sci-fi, meaning they contain at least semi-plausible events occurring in time (at least, at first) close to where our tech level is today.

Remember: each book has the same characters, even if one or two die from one book to the next.

[Posteritatis]

15. I'd recommend Origin last, but the others can be read in either order

I came across Baxter through Vacuum Diagrams, which I'd recommend to anyone who self-describes as a geek and likes science fiction that has a huge scope.

Another Baxter recommendation, more character-driven than the Origin series or VD but still with huge ideas, is Coalescent and its sequels.

[Name removed]

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