The Incredible Golden Record

Golden Record

The Voyager Golden Record, an incredible invention by NASA, has the ability to potentially communicate with extraterrestrial beings and is what I believe to be one of the greatest creations we could’ve sent to space. Launched in 1977, the Golden Record contains over 100 photographs entailing human life and our accomplishments. I have an ample amount of interest in this specific creation because I admire space and the speculation of galactic specimens extremely. I believe that there is no way that we are the only life forms to exist within space. With its many galaxies, it is just impossible that there’s nothing else out there. So in all reality, the Golden Record is helpful in the sense that this may be one of our only chances to really discover other forms of life. Unfortunately, due to the fact that space is so extremely vast, in this lifetime, we will not be able to find out whether or not the record reached its destination. Due to this, my imagination can run wild with all the possible “What if’s?” and hypotheses about how the “aliens” would react to this record.

Benefits and Concerns about the Golden Record

The Golden Record seems like it could never go wrong… right? Hmm… however, I feel like if we decided to modernize the Golden Record and kind of “start over”, we would change things about it. We would rethink what photographs to include and what photographs we may have to remove. The following describes what I believe to be the benefits and concerns of the Golden Record:

Benefits

• Extraterrestrials are potentially given insight about human life on Earth

• A time capsule for us

• The ability to possibly communicate with other beings and expand our knowledge about life on other planets

Concerns

• Lack of information about the bad things of Earth

• What if the extraterrestrials don’t understand anything?

• What if the Golden Record never reaches them?

Overall, I believe that once the Golden Record has reached a destination, it will have served its purpose. However, I do wonder why certain photographs weren’t included, such as diversified people or the grim reality of planet Earth. Perhaps astronomers didn’t want to scare the extraterrestrials, but this is truly how we live. Regardless of the fact, I am confident that one fateful day… the amazing Golden Record will reach extraterrestrials. But until then… I thoroughly enjoy hearing others’ thoughts and questions about the creation. How would others modernize the Golden Record? Should we really have done this? Was this a good decision? All in all, the lack of knowledge concerning space invites our imaginations to endlessly wander. To never know the true answer is frustrating yet so thought provoking at the same time, and this is why creations such as the Golden Record peak my interest so much.