Reminds me of an old sci-fi story, I think it was by A. E. Van Vogt, in which the first human interstellar voyage to Alpha Centauri arrives to find that human progress caught-up and passed them during their long hibernation enroute. They find an established human civilization that treats them as relics from the past. I wonder if we will catch-up to the Voyager probes one day, and return them to the Smithsonian, or it's far-future equivalent? Certainly we'll be bringing back lots of lunar and Mars hardware from historic missions, although I'd like to see the Apollo 11 site cordoned-off and preserved. The only way those bootprints can be erased is by tourist tracks over them, or a meteorite impact. Otherwise they will endure for millions of years, only slowly succumbing to micro-meteorite abrasion. The Apollo 11 landing stirred the collective souls of humanity like no other accomplishment I can think of. I feel a bit sorry for those too young to remember it, I have never since felt so proud to be a human being. It was a BIG DEAL, still is. On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Joe Bauman via Utah-Astronomy < utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
I can barely wait.
On Friday, September 19, 2014 12:40 AM, Wiggins Patrick < paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:
Kind of a slow night in the observatory and with my main project finished for the night and bad weather approaching I got a quick short of Voyager 1's next "destination" before shutting down.