Cool idea, but the Poem[1] is extremely underwhelming. [1] https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...
Seemed like a decent poem to me. Are you a literary critic?
Maybe they're a Vogon.
NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
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Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#12If we're being real, the message being sent to Europa is really meant for people on Earth. It's PR.
I think the Klingons will appreciate the chance for target practice.
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#13If we're being real, the message being sent to Europa is really meant for people on Earth. It's PR.
It for sure has some aspect as a PR piece to drive interest in the upcoming Europa Clipper mission, but it also has strong significance to members of the scientific community.
These are people who have dedicated their entire lives to the pursuit of science and discovery for the pure love of curiosity. These missions aren't capitalistic ventures, we do it to feed our curious human nature and to scientifically and philosophically learn more about ourselves and our place in the universe.
Missions like this make a lot of these scientists emotional, so I appreciate that they're able to put a little bit of ourselves as humans on these missions, however symbolic it is.
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#14ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.
I was thinking the same thing, but need to invert the messaging since we're sending it _to_ Europa.
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#15ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.
I was thinking the same thing, but need to invert the messaging since we're sending it _to_ Europa.
maybe i'm misunderstanding but this seems to be the exact scenario warned against in 2010.
"attempt no landing there"
... attempts landing there
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#16Could those waveform drawing recreate the sound? Looks like some are squished and certainly couldn't recreate the original. I'm not sure about the others?
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#17Cool idea, but the Poem[1] is extremely underwhelming. [1] https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...
Seemed like a decent poem to me. Are you a literary critic?
So one needs to be an authority to present a personal statement?
I also found it pretty lacking in emotion (although it seems that was what they were going for) and prolix.
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#18Cool idea, but the Poem[1] is extremely underwhelming. [1] https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...
Seemed like a decent poem to me. Are you a literary critic?
I am. (Or at least, adjacent to one, a Shakespeare scholar.)
In my opinion, it's OK, but not her best work. Which I suppose is inevitable, since she's writing it on spec rather than from her heart. Compare it to "Sharks in the Rivers", which I like better:
https://poets.org/poem/sharks-rivers
Calling out "the whale song, the songbird singing" feels facile to me. These are easy, accessible "mysteries", cliches.
But of course she's been asked for something generic about how great it is to explore stuff, so you're gonna get cliches. Her concluding stanza does it better: "We, too, are made of wonders, of great/and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,/of a need to call out through the dark." Again, it's mostly stuff we've heard a thousand times before, but it's got a bit more panache. "Call out through the dark" is more viscerally relevant to the mission, and emotionally engaging.
I also like her references to water. I dunno if that was just what was handed to her as part of the spec, but it's concretely about this specific mission. "O second moon, we, too, are made/of water, of vast and beckoning seas." That's the best line in the poem, the one that really says why we're doing what we're doing. (I wouldn't have used "second moon", at least not without some kind of payoff about the evocative word "second", but maybe it'll feel stronger if I sit with it for a bit.)
It's stronger read aloud than silently. Though to my mind, since this is conspicuously an inscription, I'd have wanted to rely on that less.
These are, of course, just my opinions, which are worth the paper they're written on.
Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#19> At center is a symbol representing the American Sign Language sign for “water.” ASL sign for water looks like three fingers tapped on the chin. I'm not seeing the resemblance to that polar grid shape.
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Re: NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
#20If we're being real, the message being sent to Europa is really meant for people on Earth. It's PR.
I think the Klingons will appreciate the chance for target practice.
But that's not dangerous enough to make for a truly honorable pastime. Shooting at lifeless metal when you could go targ hunting!