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KF5JRV > TODAY    20.08.18 12:25l 82 Lines 3436 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 19058_KF5JRV
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Subj: Today in History - Aug 20
Path: IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<F1OYP<AB0AF<KF5JRV
Sent: 180820/1123Z 19058@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16


On this day in 1911, a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the 

world via commercial service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration (NASA) sends a different kind of message–a phonograph record containing information 

about Earth for extraterrestrial beings–shooting into space aboard the unmanned spacecraft Voyager 

II.

The Times decided to send its 1911 telegram in order to determine how fast a commercial message 

could be sent around the world by telegraph cable. The message, reading simply “This message sent 

around the world,ö left the dispatch room on the 17th floor of the Times building in New York at 7 

p.m. on August 20. After it traveled more than 28,000 miles, being relayed by 16 different 

operators, through San Francisco, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Bombay, Malta, 

Lisbon and the Azores–among other locations–the reply was received by the same operator 16.5 

minutes later. It was the fastest time achieved by a commercial cablegram since the opening of the 

Pacific cable in 1900 by the Commercial Cable Company.

On August 20, 1977, a NASA rocket launched Voyager II, an unmanned 1,820-pound spacecraft, from 

Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was the first of two such crafts to be launched that year on a “Grand 

Tourö of the outer planets, organized to coincide with a rare alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus 

and Neptune. Aboard Voyager II was a 12-inch copper phonograph record called “Sounds of Earth.ö 

Intended as a kind of introductory time capsule, the record included greetings in 60 languages and 

scientific information about Earth and the human race, along with classical, jazz and rock ‘n’ 

roll music, nature sounds like thunder and surf, and recorded messages from President Jimmy Carter 

and other world leaders.

The brainchild of astronomer Carl Sagan, the record was sent with Voyager II and its twin craft, 

Voyager I–launched just two weeks later–in the faint hope that it might one day be discovered by 

extraterrestrial creatures. The record was sealed in an aluminum jacket that would keep it intact 

for 1 billion years, along with instructions on how to play the record, with a cartridge and 

needle provided.

More importantly, the two Voyager crafts were designed to explore the outer solar system and send 

information and photographs of the distant planets to Earth. Over the next 12 years, the mission 

proved a smashing success. After both crafts flew by Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager I went flying off 

towards the solar system’s edge while Voyager II visited Uranus, Neptune and finally Pluto in 1990 

before sailing off to join its twin in the outer solar system.

Thanks to the Voyager program, NASA scientists gained a wealth of information about the outer 

planets, including close-up photographs of Saturn’s seven rings; evidence of active geysers and 

volcanoes exploding on some of the four planets’ 22 moons; winds of more than 1,500 mph on 

Neptune; and measurements of the magnetic fields on Uranus and Neptune. The two crafts are 

expected to continue sending data until 2020, or until their plutonium-based power sources run 

out. After that, they will continue to sail on through the galaxy for millions of years to come, 

barring some unexpected collision.

73 de Scott KF5JRV

Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA 
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM


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