Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Experience A Message From Earth - Inspired by the Voyager Golden Record

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

It has been 40 years since Carl Sagan and others shared the best of humanity with the stars. A new online multimedia project has been created as a 21st century homage to the Golden Record.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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of you. Please make the switch now. Thanks so much. A new tribute to the Voyager golden record, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. We'll talk with Stephen Canfield and Jacinta Faria, two of the many creators of A Message from Earth, an exciting online homage to Carl Sagan's grand greeting to other beings that is now entering interstellar space on Voyagers 1 and 2. NASA's next space station has a new name. Jason Davis will tell us about it, and Bruce will soon take us to the stars for a new space trivia contest. Planetary Society senior editor Emily Lakdawalla gets us started with another visit to our emissaries on the red planet.

Emily, it is always a pleasure and very illuminating to see one of your curiosity updates following the progress of the Mars Science Laboratory on Mars and headlining this one a brand new selfie. of the Mars Science Laboratory on Mars and headlining this one, a brand new selfie. Yes, it's the first one in a long time. And personally, I was very relieved because I'd always planned to end my first book with the last selfie that Curiosity took, and then they didn't take one for more than a year. So I was really happy that they got it. It's a beautiful one, too. The rover is sitting on top of the Vera Rubin Ridge. And because the rover has a little topography under it, you can actually see down into the valley that it drove across to get there. And you can see down into the other valley

that it's going to be heading into in the future. It is a beautiful shot. And of course, the link is in the blog post that is the basis of this conversation. And we'll put a link to it on the show page for this week's show as well at planetary.org. You also, once again, explain why a selfie taken on Mars by a robot is a heck of a lot more complex than just reaching out an arm with a smartphone. Well, it's true because this particular camera is an amazing camera, but it doesn't have a very wide field of view. So you wind up having to take somewhere between 60 and 100 pictures. And then you have to puzzle piece them all together. What I think is cool this week is to leave curiosity for a second

that the Opportunity rover took its first selfie ever on Mars in the same week last week. It also used the camera on the end of its arm. It's not as good a camera. It can't focus at a distance, but it's still quite a striking image. Back to Curiosity, which had another sort of return to action, or at least it's approaching. Has drilling resumed? Well, it's interesting that we're talking now because drilling attempt has been commanded, but we're in the space where we don't know yet whether it was successful. But there was a photo late last week of the drill resting on rock. So they really are going for it. And we can hope that it was successful over the weekend.

This is another great example of making lemonade out of lemons with a robotic spacecraft, isn't it? Absolutely. They had to try a whole new drilling technique because the drill feed mechanism failed. And so they're now basically drilling in a whole new way. They're having to use the arm to press the drill into the rock instead of the mechanism that used to force the feed forward into the rock. We hope it's going to work. We'll have to see. They're also not using the percussion mechanism on the drill because that was also causing some shorts. And so it's a whole new way. And if this is successful, I think those engineers deserve a party for what they've accomplished. of what has happened in recent souls with Curiosity, you have all these terrific blog

entries. And by my count, there are more than 10 members of the mission team that contributed to the blog. Yeah, that's a change that happened going into Curiosity's second extended mission when Ashwin Vasavada became project scientist. And the blogs moved from the United States Geological Survey to JPL. They decided to share out the joy of getting to write for the public to a larger group of the team, and a lot more volunteers are now participating in the writing of the posts that chronicle what's happening with Curiosity on Mars. It's great to be hearing so many voices, including yours. And you can read Emily's newest Curiosity update. It's a February 21st entry in the blog at planetary.org. Thanks a lot, Emily.

Thank you, Matt. She is and hopefully will be for many, many years to come, our senior editor at the Planetary Society. That's Emily Lakdawalla. Very little about space development escapes Planetary Society digital editor Jason Davis. My colleague has been following the evolving story of NASA's plans to put a space station near the moon, including that facility's new name. Jason, we talked about it on this most recent special edition of the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. It has to be, my goodness, the most romantic acronym NASA has ever come up with.

Yes, yes. And of course, we're referring to the DSG and now the LOPG. So yeah, very romantic. LOPG. I'll tell you, I was thinking about this earlier today, and it sounds like a cross between a Basset Hound and a hip hop artist. I definitely didn't think of it that way, but it's- No one else will. Yeah.

Just anything with the op or lop or plop, it's just not a great sound when you're talking about advanced technology and deep space exploration. So what are we talking about here? Yeah. So this is the miniature space station that NASA wants to put out near the moon in cislunar orbit. This was proposed already under the Obama administration. It was called the Deep Space Gateway back then. And essentially, this space station would serve as a proving ground for us to work and learn to live in space where a safe return to Earth is not an option.

So you're on the ISS, something really goes bad, you can hop in the Soyuz in your home in a couple hours. Of course, the moon, that's not the case. You're a few days away from help. So it really starts encouraging NASA to think in this different mindset and plan out for things a lot differently than they do on the International Space Station. Now, I didn't think Deep Space Gateway was a bad name for this at all. Why the change? The official answer that I got from NASA headquarters was that they did not think it was descriptive enough. And they came up with Lunar Orbital Platform hyphen gateway.

I mean, the hyphen just also throws me. I'm like, unnecessary punctuation. I'm sure we have many wonderful, unpretentious listeners with hyphens in their name. You just lost all the hyphenated names right there. Yeah. So the official reason NASA gave for this was, yeah, they didn't think it was descriptive enough. Now, in the story I wrote about this, I posit a different explanation. Look back to when the Obama administration canceled Constellation, Orion and the Ares V rocket went away. And then after a year and a half of fighting, we essentially got Orion back, but then they called it the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle. And we essentially got Ares V back, but they changed the name to the Space Launch System. And so there was a lot of theory at the

time that, hey, this is really just call it something different for the new administration to kind of make everyone happy about this new program change. I would argue that maybe some of that happened here as well. Of course, that's just speculation on my part, but I just don't buy the explanation that LOPG is any more descriptive than DSG in this case. Well, let's get to the meat of LOPG. What's the first piece of it, and when might it be up there near the moon? Yeah, so the first piece is the power and propulsion element, the PPE, another acronym here. It's a solar electric powered module with these big solar arrays on it. And for listeners that are familiar with the Dawn spacecraft, for instance, that uses the

solar electric propulsion, this is an order of magnitude more powerful than something like that. And the theory is that if we're going to send a lot of cargo to Mars for human exploration one day, you want these big SEP systems that can kind of slowly push stuff out there, push a lot of cargo out there. And it takes a little while, but ultimately can deliver more cargo to crazy orbits more efficiently over time. This PPE element would go out there around 2020 and serve as kind of the first piece of the station. NASA was going to launch this on the space launch system with Orion, kind of this double two-in-one launch. And now they're going to use a commercial

partner to launch it. And that's probably because the PPE can essentially get into its correct orbit on its own. It is the power and propulsion element, so it has everything it needs to get to its final orbit. But does it include someplace for astronauts to live, to hang out? Yeah. So the PPE does not. It's just the power bus essentially. So next they would launch a habitation module. After that, they would put on an airlock of some kind and a logistics element. It would be a small space station, essentially just have two and a half modules, plus the visiting Orion spacecraft. The habitation module, there's no launch date set for it. NASA wants to award the contract for it possibly next fiscal year. This thing's slowly coming

together piece by piece, and it is officially in the budget now. So it would take congressional intervention to stop it at this point. So it looks like it's going forward piece by piece. Does NASA hope for international involvement in this new mini space station near the moon? Yeah, that's something that everyone keeps wondering because we have this partnership with the International Space Station. So everybody's wondering, well, what comes next and will international partners be involved? Well, what comes next and will international partners be involved? In the budget, there's one line that says that NASA will build the HAB module on their own unless an international partner is willing to contribute. So this could be a way for a group like ESA, the European Space Agency, or the Russian Space Agency to contribute.

So it sounds like NASA is kind of testing the water, seeing if anybody wants to get in on this next step and take it from there. All right, Jason, you can read more about LOP-G in his blog entry that he posted to planetary.org on February 26th. It's called Some Snark and Details About NASA's Proposed Lunar Space Station. Thank you for sharing both with us here on the show. Thanks, Matt. Always fun to be here. That's Jason Davis, digital editor for the Planetary Society and our embedded reporter with LightSail, which things are heating up there again. The light that generated the sounds you are hearing traveled 550 light-years to reach our world.

Gamma Cassiopeia is a variable binary star, variable because its brightness varies. The tones represent that variability. This recording is one small element of a work I want to share with you. I never miss an opportunity to revisit the rich intersection of space science and human culture. No surprise, therefore, that I was intrigued when I learned about A Message from Earth. As you'll hear, I was captivated and fascinated from the first moments to the last chapter of this wonderful tribute. It is no less than an homage to the Voyager Golden

Record, that assembly of greetings, wisdom, music, and images that Carl Sagan and his team, including Ann Druyan, cast toward interstellar space on Voyagers 1 and 2. That was 1977. Forty years later, this new work arrived from what may seem like an unlikely source. WeTransfer is an online service that enables users to send and receive files across our world. The company has done well, and it uses its success to do good. Stephen Canfield is its vice president of marketing. He recently joined me for an online conversation about A Message from Earth. We also welcome Jacinta Faria, executive producer for Stink Studios.

She was at the center of a worldwide team that produced or contributed to the project. We'll meet them in a moment. First, though, here is the preface to A Message from Earth that speaks of the golden record. It was a gift sent from our world into deep space for whatever might find it. Dazzled by that audacity, we present new ideas from 40 cultural luminaries inspired by the original. Together, these amazing minds offer a collage of the contemporary human experience. We hope it inspires selfless acts of cultural diplomacy in the years ahead. Stephen and Jacinta, thank you very much for joining us on Planetary Radio,

but especially I want to thank you and the many, many colleagues with whom you worked on Message from Earth. Just this morning, I went through, I followed this lovely pathway that all of you have created for at least the fourth time. And I just want to recommend to everybody who listens to this show, check this out. You won't be sorry. It is great fun. Thank you so much. That really means a lot. And we're happy to be here. Yeah, thanks, Matt. My pleasure entirely. Stephen, my understanding is that you are, I was going to say the brains behind this, but at least the instigator of this and certainly part of the collective brain.

I've rarely been accused of being the brains of anything. It's really been a team effort. And I think we're really humbled at the people that we were able to work with through this. And I mean, ultimately, I think humbled to be able to celebrate the Golden Record and just be a part of that story and its continuation. The process really started with a lot of conversations with people leading up to the 40th year anniversary. There's a lot of people that were fascinated by the story of the Golden Record. We found that in multiple conversations we were having with musicians or photographers or artists, which is something we at WeTransfer do all the time.

It's the people that use our platform. It kept coming up, and it kept coming up with the same sort of wonder, either in terms of someone who knew what it was and was fascinated by it or inspired by it or even created things based on it, or someone who had never heard about it. And then you sort of tell that two minute story about what it is. And then you hear from them a day later to find out that they fell into the hole we all did and kept researching it. So what we try to do with this is

ultimately just create a place where all of those people could coexist. What fascinated us with celebrations of the Golden Record that have happened in the past is they sort of fall into two categories generally, I think, and they're both brilliant. I think one is people that really look to reinforce the original and what it was or celebrate that. So I think about the Osmo Record guys and what they've done with the vinyl reissue. It's just a great recreation and something that, you know, feels tactile and at home, you know, and then there's other people that have tried to re-curate it or re-imagine it and said, you know, here's what it might look like if it was curated today. What we realized is maybe we weren't capable of doing either of those things as

brilliantly as some others had. And so we just wanted to create a place where other people could re-imagine it. And a lot of people could do that. And we're just really happy to see what everybody's come up with. We share your wonder with the Golden Record regarding the Golden Record. And that's something that the Planetary Society has been fascinated with for many years. And Annie Druyan, who's a good friend of the Society, it has been such a wonder, such a pleasure to be able to interact with her about the Golden Record. Have you had reaction from her to A Message from Earth? You know, we haven't spoken with her directly, but we made sure to speak to all of the people that contributed to the original, you know, to get it to them beforehand so they could sort of

see what it was and at least hear about it. What we always tried to say in those conversations was that it wasn't an attempt to recreate because it's something that was done so well to begin with. It was really an homage and meant to be a celebration. There was a collection of a lot of people that wanted to celebrate it. Well, I think they should be very proud of having generated this homage. Jacinta, when did you first hear about the Golden Record? I first heard about the Golden Record some time ago and in passing when I was a youngster and didn't really dig into its true history until we started this project. What was really interesting about working with WeTransfer and Stephen in particular is, as you said, Stephen was the instigator and he is the instigator for this project

to be kicked off at WeTransfer in the first place. But he really trusted us or entrusted us to sort of configure what's the wrapper to contain all of these amazing contributors. And we came up with this line that this online exhibition is going to represent a collage of the contemporary human condition. So he allowed us to create this really beautiful through line that we were able to write the copy around. And when we wrote briefs for the individual collaborators to sort of rally around, that through line was there. And it really made sense to us that we weren't recreating this or reimagining this. We were just actually paying homage. just actually paying homage. Yeah, it's been a really beautiful process and very organic, as they say, because there's been so much trust between the two parties. But yeah, I didn't really get into the meat of the history until we started the project sometime last year, I guess in October, we started it. Yeah. And I think it was a funny process of how it started because we had this idea and we had all these people that ultimately were lined up wanting to be involved. Then we realized we needed a place to put it. For a certain period

of time, we thought about maybe this thing should be an event. And then what we realized is from an event standpoint, you know, we just didn't think it'd be able to be as diverse as it might be if we can make it bigger and put it online. And that was the idea of the sort of online exhibition of it. And that diversity was so important to us. It was something that we were really driven by and making sure we represented that. And so we talked to a couple different companies and a couple different people that we thought had that vision and could bring it to life. And I remember the first meeting we had with Jacinta and team, I think we literally just talked about how cool the golden record was for about four minutes. And that was kind of it. It

was like, all right, well, this makes sense. That became pretty logical, because it was clear that that wonder, as you said, Matt, was there, which I think to do entry in terms of like their exposure to the story, some a little deeper than others. And I mean, we called it the dream project in-house in our creative studio. You don't get to say that very often. Your group, Jacinta, Stink Studios, that's pretty understandable why you folks would be excited about a project like this. But Stephen, file transfer companies aren't generally known for creating interactive art projects on the net. You guys seem to be a step apart. Oh, thank you.

I mean, yeah, for anyone that's not familiar with what we do, I mean, we're basically an easy way to get things from point A to point B. That's why we transfer exists. What we really get inspired by, and I think why we all come to work every day, is this idea of the transfer of ideas. That's what ultimately gets sent in a file. It's not about zeros and ones. It's really about the fact that in many cases, that's a work of music, or that's someone's photography, or their wedding

photos, or something they're starting for the first time. And what we realized was if we ever wanted to build something that represented what it is to transfer ideas, the golden record encapsulated all of it, right? It was something that was this ultimate showcase of emotion and optimism and humanity and goodwill, which, you know, I think on the internet's best days, that's what it represents. I think there's a lot of days it doesn't. Honestly, it's a bit of an opportunity just to selfishly work with some people whose work we love. It was a place to put it. That's what really means a lot when you work in this type of business. It seems to me kind of a selfless expression, a gift to the rest of us on this planet. Let's go through it a little bit. And my only regret,

as we talk about the project itself, is that we can't really demonstrate the degree of interactivity that it encompasses. I said there's a pathway to follow, and you really do follow a pathway through this with many stops along the way and you can set your own pace. Jacinta, was that the concept from the start? It was. I mean, how best to coordinate such differing pieces of content? You know, you really have to sort of create this like overarching look and feel that is truly immersive, that allows you to go through at a quick and pace if you want, but also not. If you choose to stop and explore further, there's a lot of content for you to explore.

The idea with us coming in was that we added this extra layer of interactivity so that folks would stay longer in each individual section and dig in if they wanted. And, you know, that's, that was the whole idea with the interactive modules as well, as you'll see in some of the sections that allow you to play. I mean, I think everyone really wanted to create a bit of a playful experience. So it wasn't so passive. I think we achieved that too. Yeah, I certainly agree. And it didn't occur to me until this morning, what fun this would be for kids. I certainly agree. And it didn't occur to me until this morning what fun this would be for kids. Yes, definitely. All ages.

I should have told you that I read your preface message as part of my introduction to our conversation. And it goes from there into greetings, which, of course, the Golden Record is full of greetings from people around the world, including children. You feature a greeting from a fascinating woman. Tell us about Wanda Diaz-Merced. Yeah. Wanda is, man, she's one of the most inspiring people I've spoken to. So she has a TED Talk that's amazing. It's all about the idea of hearing stars. So she is a blind astronomer that uses sonification to translate light waves into sound so that she can study them and understand the night sky better. What we thought about with Wanda was we just wanted to talk to her and see, understand better, you know, how she saw the

world and how she saw space and what she thought of this project. She's based in South Africa now. And the first time that I spoke with her, she just sort of started speaking about the stars. And ultimately what you're hearing when you go through the greeting section is what she told me that day. You know, I actually started to write it down because I thought it was so brilliant. And she had this idea that when you are listening to a star, it's as if you're listening to a greeting. It's the sort of conversation between the sky and yourself. And she feels a pressure to respond on behalf of humanity because she realizes that her reaction when she hears that star is representative of all of us.

And she wants to sort of display the best of us. I want to offer the potential of life, not only on Earth, but also out there. I want to communicate the human factor, the expressions, the feelings, the sentiment, the emotion on one's face when she or he listens to the stars. We realized pretty quickly that that conversation was exactly what should represent greetings because that's what it is to be human. You know, it is that fascination when you look up, but it's also that listening. And it's also that sort of connectedness to everything. We really wanted her to be kind of the face of this because she just felt like she represented all that the Golden Record is.

Jacinta, you paired Wanda with a visual artist. Sophie Hollington? Yes. So Sophie actually sort of starts off the experience. So she was more linked to the preface section. And Wanda was truly the part of the greeting section. Sorry, my confusion there. I ran them together. Yeah, Sophie actually ended up being a part of all the sections as she sort of created

interpretations of the bio pictures for all of the contributors. So she's sort of ever present. But what we did do for Wanda's section is create a star listening platform. So creating, you know, our interpretation of the stars that Wanda's favorite stars and the sounds that they would make and offering the ability to sort of tweak the nuance of the sound and record your own versions and, you know, share them out as you will, which was a really fun and inspiring process knowing, you know, share them out as, as you will, which was a really fun and inspiring process knowing, you know, sort of where the impetus of us even knowing about those stars came from in the first place. This is one of those interactive sections that you're talking about,

where you actually can draw on the screen and sort of create your own star music. Correct. Yeah. And I think that, you know, what this speaks to is that idea of sort of different people's interpretation of some of the original project. We tried to borrow from the original chapters, if you will, from the Voyager Golden record. You know, so Greetings was actually a big part of it, as you mentioned, Matt. But I think what was fascinating is what always came back from these creatives that we were working with, be it Wanda or be it Giles Peterson in the music section or be it Survive in the sound section, is it was never sort of, I want to do it the same way.

It was always, well, Greetings to me is listening, right? And I think that was what was fascinating and what speaks to just the diversity of the people that we were able to get involved in the project. They've also got the music of solar flares in a message from Earth. We'll talk more about the project with Stephen Canfield and Jacinta Faria when Planetary Radio continues. Hi, this is Casey Dreyer, the Director of Space Policy here at the Planetary Society. And I wanted to let you know that right now Congress is debating the future of NASA's budget. The House has proposed to increase NASA's budget and also increase planetary science in

2018. The Senate, however, has proposed to cut both. You can make your voice heard right now. We've made it easy to learn more if you go to planetary.org slash petition 2017. Thank you. You can share your passion for space exploration by giving someone a gift membership to the Planetary Society this holiday season or any time of year. Your friend or loved one would join us as we nurture new and exciting science, advocate for space, and educate the world. The gift of space starts at planetary.org forward slash give space. That's planetary.org forward slash give space. Because come on, it's space. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. A Message from Earth is the new online multimedia homage to the Voyager Golden Record

that was launched to the stars back in the mid-1970s on the two Voyager spacecraft. Jacinta Faria and her team at Stink Studios pulled all the elements together from around our planet. Stephen Canfield of WeTransfer got the ball rolling with lots of support along the way from his company. How did this band, synth band, survive? How do they fit into the project? You know, most people probably know Survive at this point as they're the backing band for Stranger Things. So they do the score for the Netflix show, which has quickly become the soundtrack of kids on bikes everywhere. Myself included, I got a bike after Stranger Things. I ride it more awkwardly and less interestingly than that show. I think Survive is

an example of, there's the type of people that are fascinated by this thing the same way so much of us are. What we wanted to do with them was just sort of give them a platform, again, to reinterpret something. Their sound and their just general, I think, vibe is so representative of that show and just so representative of who they are as a band. You could just kind of feel it. What we wanted to create with them is an opportunity where they could sort of hand that over to the user. So basically, they came up with this idea of offering up a bunch of sounds that the team at Stink Studios brilliantly crafted into a sort of instrument where people could create their own unique soundscapes. And I think what that resulted in is a way for someone to make a completely unique sound collage that was specific to them.

Jacinto, what was Survive's reaction to the project? Did they get a kick out of being involved? They really were fun to collaborate with from the onset. We kind of developed these briefs for each of the chapters and guided the content creation along with this pretty wide range of artists and contributors. But Survive from the start, you really didn't have to fill in the gaps too much for them. They got it right away. They knew they were giving us a bunch of sounds that we would inevitably create the soundbox interactive modules from, you know, and much like Star Chat, which was the Wanda Diaz section and Greetings, which was the interactive module in that section.

It was the same sort of like two way conversation that that you you know you could have by creating this sort of like otherworldly soundscape you're creating the soundscape using all their their sounds that they've given us and you're sending them out into the world you're either sharing them to friends so that they they can listen to the mix that you've made or you're saving them uh onto your device because the whole experience uh worked, on desktop as well as mobile. So if you were experiencing this in mobile, you could save your sounds to your device. Let's move on to the next chapter, which is devoted to music, which you found unique musicians from throughout our planet, and you include mixes of their work. And it's all held together by

the work of another contributor. Tell us about this. Yeah. So Giles Peterson, for anyone that's not familiar, is a scholar. So he's a guy that's been involved with a countless number of artists' careers over the years. He's probably best known for his work on radio with BBC, where he has an amazing program there that's broken a ton of amazing artists from all over the world. He's just a scholar of music from all over the world. So I think what we realized is he was the right person to encapsulate this section and to invite a lot of different types of people that represented music for all sorts of places. And he had this amazing concept, which was, it started with thinking about the city where he lives, London, and the diversity within it. And he was speaking about how every continent, every city is represented within that

city. You have hundreds of languages spoken, and so much of that actually makes the music of London, which is really just a collection of the music of a bunch of different places. So what he did to represent the section and to represent music was not necessarily a curation of music like the original, but it was conversations with different people from all over the world about what makes the music in their cities. And then paired that with mixes from other cities. And I think what you find in all of them is that there's so much bleed over. That's what music is today. It's this sort of singular thing, but it's representative of every

different place. And you can't necessarily go to any city anywhere and not hear the influence of another city across the world, just based on the way that communication and music is sent and the way ideas go back and forth. What I found most fascinating about it, and again, most humbling, was just seeing music that is representing a country like Australia and how there were so many ties with, you know, countries in Africa or cities in Africa and the same with the US in New Orleans, as an example. Jacinta, I never like to make people pick favorites among their children, but if you can pick out one particular artist from the music section that we might be able to hear a few seconds of, I mean, who would you suggest? I actually did love the Australia section the most.

I think that was the most played playlist as well for us in the studio. They are all of the individual mixes themselves that accompany the sections are, they're brilliant and they are very, The sections are, they're brilliant and they are very, they're very different. And you don't necessarily feel that one is drastically different than the other. They're just all really good. And for like a studio full of music lovers, I often heard folks who hadn't worked on the project asking what we were listening to because they were so into how perfect the mixes were. I agree. While each one of them is distinctive and unique, you definitely feel that thread running amongst them all. And it's funny because I don't think there's that many places where you can specifically hear music and mixes from different people in different cities all alongside one another. I think it happens every day when we're in Spotify or whatever it is, and you go through a playlist. And the reality

is what you're listening to is music from all over the world. But I think sometimes we take it for granted because it all feels at home in the same place, even though it's incredibly diverse. Next chapter, what you do for music in A Message from Earth, you pretty well duplicate with global images. This was an interesting section too. So what we try to do here is similarly take people from five different cities to tell a story about the place that they called home. And in this case, we gave them probably the most direct brief we gave anybody within the whole project. Our feeling was that the beauty of the original project was this representation of hope determination and goodwill as it encapsulates humankind right so we basically spoke to people

and said you know brilliant photographers you know you know exactly what you're doing you know you know what you want to shoot but we'd love it if you'd go out and shoot images of hope determination and goodwill where you call home. And I think what spoke to through this section is where music, you get that diversity and you get uniqueness in all the different cities, but you feel that bleed over. You feel the same emotion, I think, in all of the images, but it's amazing how different they are just in terms of the landscapes, in terms of the people represented, but all really in one cohesive package that really is the planet. Jacinta?

Yes. That kind of, an emphatic yes. They're gorgeous. They're absolutely gorgeous images. And just for lack of time, let's move on to the next section, which you call brainwaves. Some of the most fascinating thinkers on this world, on this planet. A lot of your contributors are among my favorite planetary radio guests, where Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute was just on the show a couple of weeks ago. But you gave them a format that they needed to fit into.

There were some directions. And this was ultimately a representation of brainwaves on the original disc, which is part of the sound section. But we basically just said, we'd love it if you'd write 500 words about whenever this thing is received. And this one was incredible just in terms of the diversity of what came back.

One of my favorites is Musa Okwonga. He actually writes it as if it were another civilization receiving this as if it were someone trying to get a record deal. you know, someone like Seth and what he wrote, which come from such different points of views, but I think they speak to, you know, again, just sort of the sense of not knowing where this thing will go. You know, I love the idea that I think multiple people write about the fact that, you know, whoever might eventually find this thing, we'll just discard it with the other hundreds that are just like it, that they received that week. But it was great to see what people came up with. Jacinta, say something about the graphic that I assume you created at Stink Studios. That's sort of the table of contents for this section. Yeah, the idea, I mean, how do you connect all of these brilliant pieces in a cohesive manner that allows folks to, you know, want to dig in and read?

Luckily enough, we're working with, you know, a small amount of text. So essentially what we did is we created something that was, you know, not so dissimilar to the navigation for the entire site itself, but the idea of scrolling names of the contributors, of the writers. And once you, you know, clicked into their name, you, you know, you receive the text. And as you scroll down, you sort of receive a bar that would create like a rectangle around or a square or whatever sort of shape you have your browser affixed to that would give you a sense of completion. So that as you're reading, you know how far down you still have to go. It's a very small tactic, but like a lovely way of creating an interactive experience as you're reading.

Yeah, once again, I agree. Finally, last chapter, giving. And Stephen, before you tell us what you're up to here, let me read the little bit of text that introduces this chapter. The free and generous transfer of possession from one to another, that's giving. We do so to support, champion, and embolden. A message from earth is a gift to any who find it. But on top of that, there are some organizations that you're looking to benefit. Yeah, that's right. There are a lot of cerebral conversations around the building of this project in general. And I think that one always came back to, what is it to be human? which is ultimately what the golden record is, is communicating. It's this time capsule of humanity in a given moment of time as imagined by some of the most brilliant people of that era. And what we always came back to is generosity.

And there's a certain generosity in the original project, just sending something, you know, out into otherness and not necessarily wanting anything in return for it. So what we wanted to do is make sure this project first and foremost encapsulated that, you know, it was really about this being a gift and ultimately we hope being a source of inspiration for people as the original was for us. You know, we did that to support a few organizations that we ended up just speaking to as we were building the project out. So SETI being one of them, the Carl Sagan Institute being another, Astronomers Without Borders being another one, many of which that were just mentioned or recommended by people that we were working with as part of the project.

So we submitted grants to these three organizations just sort of in honor of the golden record in this project. And then also I put together a print zine that encapsulates the whole thing that for anyone that donates over $15 to these organizations, we'll send them. And that's actually created by Lawrence Azarod, who is the brilliant designer behind the Osmo Records 3LP box set that came out earlier this year. I think what's happened in the process as well as we've met other amazing organizations. came out earlier this year. I think what's happened in the process as well as we've met other amazing organizations. And one thing we're always thinking about with WeTransfer is we're in a really lucky place as a company. And we always try to embolden people who do amazing things with the resources that we have as a business that's been lucky enough to do well throughout the years. So we've met other people throughout this process that we look to support

as well. And I'm looking forward to getting my copy of the print scene. I think something that Stephen said earlier is so true about this project, you know, we were really able to work with some of the most epic artists, scientists, thinkers, musicians in a really seamless way. And so we feel really lucky. I mean, just that last section and giving, there's also a film embedded into that section, that is, you that is a little bit of an homage to The Pale Blue Dot, set to really beautiful soundscape by one of Trix Point Never, who's an amazing electronic artist. Being able to just do that one piece of this entire site was beyond epic for us. And the whole site was just experiences like that. Beautiful things came out of the 70s.

Stephen and I were born and. It is a, a lovely close to a lovely work of art that anyone can experience on the net. We just can't thank you enough. We, I love the show personally. And again, I mean, humbled to be able to be involved in this project and to work with the people we did, but also just humbled to talk about it a little bit with you. Yeah, definitely.

Thank you, Stephen. And thank you, Jacinta. It has been a pleasure. I'm sure I will follow that pathway more. And again, I recommend to everybody in the audience to take a look. And they can find it at, do I have this right? A message from dot earth. That's right.

That's correct. We've been talking with Stephen Canfield. He's the marketing VP at WeTransfer, but has a degree in music business and management from Berklee College of Music. And he got all of this started, A Message from Earth, and found Jacinta Faria, executive producer at Stink Studios, which was kind of the center of this project that involved so many artists and great minds all over our pale blue dot. And it was a team effort. I don't know if it was just started by me. I think there are a lot of brilliant people behind it, but thank you, Matt. It is time for What's Up on Planetary Radio.

Bruce Betts is the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society. And he is ready once again to bring us the night sky, to bring us space trivia, a random space fact, and so much more. Welcome. Thank you, Matt. Welcome to you. What's going on up there? We got the planet party. You can prove to yourself that the solar system planets orbit roughly in the same plane because you can look for three planets that are roughly in one line because of that. If you're looking in the pre-dawn, you can find Jupiter high in the same plane because you can look for three planets that are roughly in one line because of that. If you're looking in the pre-dawn, you can find Jupiter high in the south looking super bright and then go to its lower left and you'll find Mars. And to the lower left of that, you will find

Saturn. Ah, we live in a planet plane, roughly. And then in the evening sky, I keep mentioning it, it's tricky. Still Venus coming up low in the west. Shortly after sunset, it's going to get super easy to see and super spectacular in the super near future. Super, super. Well, that's super. We move on to this week in space history, it was 2004 that the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta mission, which after a 10-year flight time encountered a comet and flew along with it and got all sorts of great data and images.

That was a long wait, but well worth it as it turns out. Turns out well worth the wait. Wow, that kind of snuck up on us and stranger things. And now a word from the upside down. So speaking of upside down, you think of polar caps on Mars. The north polar cap is bigger in aerial extent but less deep. And the southern cap is smaller in aerial extent and deeper, thicker. Turns out they have about the same volume. It works out that way.

They both have about 1.6 million cubic kilometers of water ice, and they're two to three kilometers thick, hundreds of kilometers wide. A bonus random space fact, the total volume of ice in each polar cap is about 6% of the water ice volume of Earth's Antarctic ice sheet. That number is rising fast, sadly. On Mars? Yes, on Mars. The percentage of the Antarctic is sadly rising very quickly. It's rising significantly.

I wouldn't say it's changing drastically. It's a topic for a different podcast. Okay. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. changing drastically. It's a topic for a different podcast. Okay. All right, we move on to the trivia contest. And I asked you, what was the last wheeled vehicle launch of a successful wheeled vehicle into space where success here is defined as driving on another world? So the Tesla did not count since it is not driving on another world. At least not yet.

Does the term Jade Rabbit mean anything to you? Yes, it does. Well, we got from Christopher Beck. The answer is the Chinese U-2 rover launched on the 1st of December 2013. It is also known as Jade Rabbit. December 2013. It is also known as Jade Rabbit. And Christopher was chosen by Random.org among all those who got the answer right this time. We got a few people who were a little bit off base, but most of you managed to figure this out. Congratulations go to Christopher, who's going to be getting a Planetary Society t-shirt from Chop Shop. That's where the Planetary Society store is at chopshopstore.com.

And a 200-point itelescope.net account. But we're going to have something else very special for the winner of the new contest. From our poet laureate, Dave Fairchild in Shawnee, Kansas. China sent a rover to the moon five years ago. It traveled for a day or two, but then began to slow. Like many cars, the warranty first blinked and then fell through. I had a car like that one time. We're sorry for you, too. A new contest. We know that Sirius is the brightest star in the

nighttime sky. Whatius is the brightest star in the nighttime sky. What is the second brightest star in the nighttime sky as seen from either hemisphere? But nighttime skies are no answering the sun. Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. You've got until Wednesday, March 7 at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us the answer. Now, are you ready? We have a.m. Pacific time to get us the answer. Now, are you ready? We have a spectacular prize. In my conversation just finished with Stephen Canfield and Jacinta Faria about the message from Earth, you heard Stephen talking about the three LP set from Osma Records, where they basically bring you all the material on the Voyager Golden Record.

That is going to go to the winner of the contest. We have just begun with this new question from Bruce, along with a 200-point itelescope.net account. You want to get your entry in for this latest contest. You might win that three LP set. Pretty cool. I want one. Cool.

It is. Our appreciation, our gratitude goes to WeTransfer, to Stephen Canfield, and to Osmer Records. We are done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky, and think about what a cloud would taste like. Thank you, and good night. Why, they taste like marmalade, of course. And extra points for anybody who gets the reference.

He's Bruce Betts. He's the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, who joins us every week for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California and is made possible by its highly cultured members. Mary Liz Bender is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Matt Kaplan. Clear skies.