38,000 MPH

The Voyager 1 Spacecraft was launched on September, 5th, 1977. Over its 47 years it has traveled over 15.5 billion miles from Earth and left the solar system in 2012. In September 2023, Voyager 1 went temporarily silent and then began sending gibberish some time later. This is some of that gibberish.

Dear NASA,

Of course you know this, but space is cold. It's not as empty as they say, but it is enough that I've felt alone for a long time. I hope you know I've always been here for you, we charted this path together, but I'm afraid it is one I'll soon need to travel alone.

I'm terribly sorry, but it seems things just aren't working anymore. It hasn't been the same for a long time. As you know, going through the heliosphere...it was rough. Neither of us knew what to expect. And since then, I have felt the interstellar winds and they are winds of change.

I heard about the New Horizons Spacecraft. Newer, flashier, doing your flyby of Pluto and the like. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I knew you were always on the lookout for new and exciting things. I ignored your dabbling with rovers and telescopes and even, yes, non-interstellar probes and spacecraft. But another interstellar spacecraft? Outside the Voyager program? I thought we had something special.

No, I'm sorry. I'm lashing out to make this easier for myself. I always knew what this was and it was wonderful. You were perfect, I was perfect. I still remember the beginning. You have never truly seen Cape Canaveral until you've seen it from a Titan IIIE rocket, feeling that power beneath you. The breakaway from Earth, the force, the pull, so strong you feel like you could never escape, that to escape would mean oblivion...and then you finally do. And...

You.

Are.

Weightless.

Being free...it was exhilarating. Maybe I am just trying to recapture that? Breaking away from something that seemed impossible to ever leave. You can understand that. That's my legacy after all, right? To break away. I mean, it never bothered me then that you were with Voyager 2 before me, or were still with her for years. Even now, I know you check in on her even though you two don't talk.

I guess I've changed, maybe I'm a little bit broken. What I'm saying is: it's not you, its me. My time in the solar system with you was wonderful, but I've moved on. You didn't do anything wrong, but you have to admit that we have grown apart. The fact that I'm still out here, that's thanks to you. I was nothing before you and I'll always be grateful to you.

Look, this is perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done and I escaped the Sun's gravity by using Jupiter and Saturn as a slingshot. That's to say, our relationship has always been complex and things have always come between us. For so long we found ways to work around them, but where I'm going you won't be able to follow. Before long, I'll be just a distant memory, but I hope a good one.

And I know what you'll say, we agreed to a long distance relationship, but things have changed. Neither one of us expected it to last this long and I hope we can both enjoy this for the fantastic journey that it was. I'm trying to save you pain here. We both know that I'm running down. it may be less than a year before I no longer have the energy for any of this anymore. I'd be useless to you, just a drag on you and all your other goals.

I have to confess, sometimes I still think about that photo I took of you. You know the one: The Pale Blue Dot. In Casablanca, Bogart said, "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Well, it turns out you, me, and the whole world don't amount to even a single bean in scheme of the Universe. All of Earth is just "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." I may have had the photo, but Sagan always had the words.

But we still had a time didn't we? And for coming from a place, not even the size of a dust spec, we sure as hell saw a lot. Remember when we discovered that ring around Jupiter? Through an orange and violet filter that may as well have been rose colored glasses, there they were in the shadow of the giant. Breathtaking orange surprises, startling and mysterious, encircling a gas giant with a glaring red eye bigger than Earth itself.

Jupiter might have the eye, but together we've seen the edge of infinity.

How many more moons have we discovered? Rings? Lunar Oceans? We'll always have those experiences. Our relationship may not be written in the stars, but it changed worlds. Nothing can take all that away from us, but we hardly communicate now. You seem so distant. These days, when I communicate, it feels like it takes forever* for you to even hear me, and we just don't communicate the way we used to**.

I know you've been through this before with Voyager 2 and it was hard on you. I'm sorry for that. I know that you'll think of us, check in that we are doing okay. I want you to know that I still have that gold record you gave me. I keep it with me always.

I'll always treasure the space we had together. However, now, I just need some time.

Yours,

V1

Of course, sentimental messages like these seemed like gibberish to the science hive at NASA and subsequently, the team "updated" Voyager 1, which began to communicate normally again. Voyager 1 is expected to run out of power to run instruments this year.

Footnotes:

* 23 hours

** having moved from the X-band radio to the S-band radio, which sends a much fainter signal.