It used to be when I wanted to receive a message from the universe, all I had to do was order some Chinese food and crack open a fortune cookie. I love the messages in fortune cookies. On the top shelf of my closet sits a zip lock bag where I keep some of the best fortunes I’ve gotten over the years. I like to check them every so often to see how my life is measuring up. “Your life will get more exciting” – check. “You will travel far and wide for both pleasure and business” – check again. “A man’s best possession is a sympathetic wife” – no. Actually, I kept that one because it was hilarious. But no.
These days, though, fortune cookies have a lot of competition. I feel like I’m drowning in messages, and no place is safe. I tear open a packet of sweetener (the yellow one), but not before it assures me, “The Perfect Moment is Now.” Or, in case that isn’t enough, “YOU GOT THIS! Be Your Best Today!” The manufacturer of a feminine product I purchased sends a text reminding me I’m the master of my menopause journey. The foil wrapper on a piece of chocolate urges me to “Dare to cross the line.” (That one actually sounds a bit concerning.) Even my breakfast cereal feels compelled to inform me that dining al fresco reduces stress, and living in the moment will make me happier.
I can’t argue with any of these. They’re all good messages. Like fortunes in a cookie, I might even have folded some of them, or something close, into conversations with people I care about. Maybe not the one about being master of my menopause journey, but the other ones. Still, there comes a point when too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing. When there are so many signals bouncing around the universe that they start to feel like noise. I think we’ve reached that tipping point.
Which, naturally, brings me to the spacecraft known as Voyager I. (And yes, there’s also Voyager II, which actually launched first, which is an excellent metaphor for sibling rivalry and an essay for another day.) Our Voyager’s had quite the career since it launched in 1977. It’s toured the Solar System, flown by Jupiter and Saturn, and pierced the Heliosphere, the bubble that marks the outer edge of the Sun’s authority. Voyager’s still going, venturing into interstellar space, where it’s influenced far more by the space between the stars than it is by our Sun. Incidentally, it’s carrying a message in a yellow packet too. But unlike my sweetener, Voyager’s yellow packet doesn’t say “Every Day is a New Opportunity.” Voyager’s carrying a Golden Record that holds an encyclopedia’s worth of Earthly sights and sounds, to be puzzled over by whatever extraterrestrial being happens to cross its path someday. That’s an elegant message. And all this time, for over forty-six years, Voyager’s been taking the measure of its surroundings, snapping photos (until 1990, when scientists turned off its camera to save energy), and sending all that data back our way, like radio-wave postcards from space.
It’s January (almost February) 2024, and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been waiting for a message from Voyager since last November. But all Voyager’s sending back lately is a bunch of repeating ones and zeroes, the functional equivalent (in computer terms) of the silent treatment. The fact Voyager isn’t speaking these days has the scientists at JPL flummoxed. Like my younger son when I don’t respond immediately to the very first text he sends, they’re (in scientific terms) flipping out. I’m sure they’re all sitting at their computers, waiting for a signal, muttering something along the lines of what my grandmother used to say. “You’re never too busy to call.”
Some of you tech-savvy readers (a demographic my kids define using the well-known equation: All readers – mom = tech savvy readers) might be inclined to blame Voyager’s onboard equipment. After all, it’s packing technology that feels a bit quaint, even for a mid-life explorer like me – an 8-track tape recorder, a transmitter that runs on about as much power as a refrigerator light bulb, and computers with memory equal to what the New York Times described in 2013 as 1/240,000th of what you’d find in “a low-end iPhone.” And yes, we’re talking about whatever was considered “a low-end iPhone” in 2013. But all this equipment has worked just fine, thank you very much, for forty-six years, even though it was designed to last for just five. So I’m not sure we can blame the equipment.
With all that vintage equipment, Voyager probably couldn’t receive the latest questionable message bouncing around the universe – a cat video. (And don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good cat video and a quirky cat as much as the next human. I was a big fan of Grumpy Cat before she went commercial.) Why bring cat videos into the mix, you ask? Don’t ask me. Ask the scientists at JPL, who recently transmitted an ultra-high-definition video all the way to Earth from Psyche, a spacecraft 19 million miles away. Ask them, because when they undertook this important work to enhance humanity’s ability to send messages across the immensity of space, they chose to transmit a video of a cat named Taters chasing a laser beam.
I have to admit I’m conflicted about the whole Taters thing. Part of me thinks there’s an important message within the message, about humanity’s ability not to take itself too seriously. But another part of me feels that perhaps a message should meet the moment. When Samuel F.B. Morse demonstrated the telegraph for the first time in 1844, the message he chose to transmit was, “What hath God wrought?” That was an appropriate message for humanity’s very first long-distance transmission – and the distance was only forty miles. And it’s this part of me that wonders if transmitting a video message across 19 million miles might merit something a bit more momentous than Taters the Cat. Yet another part of me fears Taters may just be that tipping point I mentioned, that it’s only a matter of time before our universe becomes saturated with cat videos, affirmations, and reminders about the benefits of dining al fresco. Let’s just hope Taters doesn’t get an agent.
Maybe Voyager’s silence began as a glitch, but I’m not so sure that’s still the case. Maybe I’ve just got AI on the brain, but I wonder if there’s something more going on. If it’s a choice. When I look at Voyager giving scientists the silent treatment, I see a spacecraft trying to conserve its energy amid the noise, taking a little time to look back at the places it’s been, get a little perspective, and reflect on how the sun, which used to seem so important, is just another star. I know it’s hard on the scientists at JPL, but there’s something deeply appealing about the possibility that Voyager may simply be taking a break. We live in a noisy universe, and it keeps getting noisier. Whether Voyager’s acting with intention or not, what I see is a spacecraft sending a message by not sending a message. We all need a moment. And that’s a message worth saving in a zip lock bag.
You go, Voyager. YOU GOT THIS! Be Your Best Today! Take your well-earned moment. Whenever you decide to reach out will be perfect, because The Perfect Moment is Now. We’ll all be here when you’re ready. All of us. Even Taters.
Love the audio version!
I think this is the best one to send into space as that's what it's all about. If the "space men" like it, they'll probably ask for more.