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Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

scienceclock.com

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Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#191

Post by kakacik »

danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

That plate with info about us, where to find us... not smart, naive. I get that 70s were probably way more enthusiastic and open minded re space space exploration compared to rather bleak times now when greed often takes prime and Star Trek TOS probably had its effect too, but next time we should do better.

Dark forest theory sounds more rational conclusion on long enough timescale than Star trekkish utopias. Although, in next million years, if intercepted it should be trivial to pinpoint where it came from just from trajectory.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#192

Post by kristianc »

itake wrote: post #166
danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

The feat, from the perspective you describe, isn't that remarkable. Humanity has tons of projects that meet these exact standards throughout our history: > We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it would never see the end of the story. > We pointed a metal box into the dark with the assumption that the future would exist and might care. > It’s proof that humans will build absurd…

The challenges to even get close seem insurmountable. At that speed, microscopic grains of dust hit like bullets. It's not like the nearest is much of a prize - we know that the Centauri system is likely inhospitable and that Tau Ceti has an enormous debris field.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#193

Post by ck2 »

moon ping time 2.6 seconds

voyager ping time 172,800 seconds

1000+ years from now a ship will take off from earth or orbit and pass Voyager in a few hours (assuming the planet is not turned into one huge radioactive, forever-checmical ocean before then)

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#194

Post by averageRoyalty »

jacksondc wrote: post #187
danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

This is a strange comment. The author claims to be a human—"what we've done", " we built something", " we pointed a metal box into the dark"—but nearly every sentence sounds distinctly AI-writen. (Examples: "I keep coming back to this:", "Voyager isn't ... It's ...", "the assumption that the future would exist and might care", "on our doorstep", "see the end of the story", "depends less on ... and more on ...", etc.)

Or it's just their writing style. There's nothing distinctly AI that I can see in there, and many of the common AI tropes come from commonalities in human writing.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#195

Post by [deleted] »

jonhohle wrote: post #189
ricardo81 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Voyager is probably considered by many to be one of our greatest achievements. It makes me wonder when we'll have anything set foot in another star system. I would guess realistically after 2100, but then we went from the Wright brothers to landing on the moon in under 70 years... so I may be proven wrong.

Space is so ridiculously big that I don't think it will ever happen. Back of the envelope math - 4.2 light years to the nearest star that's not the sun, current vehicles traveling about 10x the speed of voyager (e.g. 1 light day in 5 years). If something was launched today it would get to the nearest star system in about 7,660 years (assuming that star system also a radius of 1 light day). 100x faster than current (1…

[deleted]

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#196

Post by switchbak »

jacksondc wrote: post #187
danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

This is a strange comment. The author claims to be a human—"what we've done", " we built something", " we pointed a metal box into the dark"—but nearly every sentence sounds distinctly AI-writen. (Examples: "I keep coming back to this:", "Voyager isn't ... It's ...", "the assumption that the future would exist and might care", "on our doorstep", "see the end of the story", "depends less on ... and more on ...", etc.)

I don't think so. I wouldn't expect an AI to say " It’s proof that humans will build absurdly long-horizon projects anyway, even when the ROI is almost entirely knowledge and perspective"

"the ROI is almost entirely knowledge and perspective" - this isn't a way I've ever heard an AI talk.

And at a meta-level, accusing someone of being an AI is getting very boring and repetitive (admittedly, I've done it once), and I expect we'll have to get used to that too.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#197

Post by brandon272 »

jacksondc wrote: post #187
danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

This is a strange comment. The author claims to be a human—"what we've done", " we built something", " we pointed a metal box into the dark"—but nearly every sentence sounds distinctly AI-writen. (Examples: "I keep coming back to this:", "Voyager isn't ... It's ...", "the assumption that the future would exist and might care", "on our doorstep", "see the end of the story", "depends less on ... and more on ...", etc.)

The account's comment history today is all the same style. Almost certainly AI.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#198

Post by gjm11 »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #194
jacksondc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comment. The author claims to be a human—"what we've done", " we built something", " we pointed a metal box into the dark"—but nearly every sentence sounds distinctly AI-writen. (Examples: "I keep coming back to this:", "Voyager isn't ... It's ...", "the assumption that the future would exist and might care", "on our doorstep", "see the end of the story", "depends less on ... and more on ...", etc.)

Or it's just their writing style. There's nothing distinctly AI that I can see in there, and many of the common AI tropes come from commonalities in human writing.

Nah, look at their posting history. In the last hour they've posted a whole slew of comments with the same sort of tone and the same AI-ish stylistic quirks, all in quite surprisingly quick succession if the author is actually reading the things they're commenting on and thinking about them before posting. (And their comments before this posting spree are quite different in style.) I won't say it's impossible for this to be human work, but it sure doesn't look like it.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#199

Post by brandon272 »

switchbak wrote: post #196
jacksondc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comment. The author claims to be a human—"what we've done", " we built something", " we pointed a metal box into the dark"—but nearly every sentence sounds distinctly AI-writen. (Examples: "I keep coming back to this:", "Voyager isn't ... It's ...", "the assumption that the future would exist and might care", "on our doorstep", "see the end of the story", "depends less on ... and more on ...", etc.)

I don't think so. I wouldn't expect an AI to say " It’s proof that humans will build absurdly long-horizon projects anyway, even when the ROI is almost entirely knowledge and perspective" "the ROI is almost entirely knowledge and perspective" - this isn't a way I've ever heard an AI talk. And at a meta-level, accusing someone of being an AI is getting very boring and repetitive (admittedly, I've done it once), and I…

I think we should be vigilant against AI generated content. And I find it does read similar to the output of some locally hosted LLMs.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#200

Post by neilfrndes »

jjk166 wrote: post #180
danishSuri1994 wrote: post #159

It’s wild how Voyager forces two truths to sit together: Technically, what we’ve done is almost boringly modest. ~17 km/s ~1 light-day in ~50 years No realistic way to steer it anywhere meaningful now On cosmic scales it’s… basically still on our doorstep. Psychologically, it’s still one of the most ambitious things we’ve ever done. We built something meant to work for decades, knowing the people who launched it woul…

This is not an example of nor even an attempt at long horizon thinking. Voyager wasn't built with the intention that it would last for decades. It was a rush job to take advantage of a very rare planetary alignment and it's primary mission was completed 12 years after it started. It is a testament to the ingenuity of the engineers who have worked and are still working on the project that they've managed to keep it to…

I loved watching "It's quieter in the twilight", a documentary about how a dedicated team of engineers (mostly retired) are fighting to keep the Voyager mission alive.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt17658964/

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