[HN Gopher] NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's...
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NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
Author : rbanffy
Score : 54 points
Date : 2024-03-08 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jpl.nasa.gov)
| hersko wrote:
| Cool idea, but the Poem[1] is extremely underwhelming.
|
| [1] https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-
| laur...
| cdelsolar wrote:
| Seemed like a decent poem to me. Are you a literary critic?
| ourmandave wrote:
| Maybe they're a Vogon.
| xandrius wrote:
| So one needs to be an authority to present a personal
| statement?
|
| I also found it pretty lacking in emotion (although it seems
| that was what they were going for) and prolix.
| jfengel wrote:
| I am. (Or at least, adjacent to one, a Shakespeare scholar.)
|
| In my opinion, it's OK, but not her best work. Which I
| suppose is inevitable, since she's writing it on spec rather
| than from her heart. Compare it to "Sharks in the Rivers",
| which I like better:
|
| https://poets.org/poem/sharks-rivers
|
| Calling out "the whale song, the songbird singing" feels
| facile to me. These are easy, accessible "mysteries",
| cliches.
|
| But of course she's been asked for something generic about
| how great it is to explore stuff, so you're gonna get
| cliches. Her concluding stanza does it better: "We, too, are
| made of wonders, of great/and ordinary loves, of small
| invisible worlds,/of a need to call out through the dark."
| Again, it's mostly stuff we've heard a thousand times before,
| but it's got a bit more panache. "Call out through the dark"
| is more viscerally relevant to the mission, and emotionally
| engaging.
|
| I also like her references to water. I dunno if that was just
| what was handed to her as part of the spec, but it's
| concretely about this specific mission. "O second moon, we,
| too, are made/of water, of vast and beckoning seas." That's
| the best line in the poem, the one that really says why we're
| doing what we're doing. (I wouldn't have used "second moon",
| at least not without some kind of payoff about the evocative
| word "second", but maybe it'll feel stronger if I sit with it
| for a bit.)
|
| It's stronger read aloud than silently. Though to my mind,
| since this is conspicuously an inscription, I'd have wanted
| to rely on that less.
|
| These are, of course, just my opinions, which are worth the
| paper they're written on.
| trip9 wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time to write out a few of your
| criticisms. I think that I agree with most of them despite
| being unable to come up with them on my own. I've always
| wanted to get better at reading poetry critically.
| rdtsc wrote:
| >> [cdelsolar] Are you a literary critic?
|
| > [jfengel] I am. (Or at least, adjacent to one, a
| Shakespeare scholar.)
|
| I love this about HN. It gave me "Are you John Nagle, or was
| that a quote?" classic vibes
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947
| wildbill wrote:
| Love NASA, but didn't they see 2010?
|
| "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS - EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING
| THERE."
| nsxwolf wrote:
| ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA.
|
| ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
|
| USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.
| hermitdev wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing, but need to invert the messaging
| since we're sending it _to_ Europa.
| swasheck wrote:
| maybe i'm misunderstanding but this seems to be the exact
| scenario warned against in 2010. "attempt no landing there"
| ... attempts landing there
| throwanem wrote:
| Flybys only, no lander. This mission is monolith-compliant.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If we're being real, the message being sent to Europa is really
| meant for people on Earth. It's PR.
| mongol wrote:
| Yeah, I thought "art" first, but perhaps PR is a better word.
| ourmandave wrote:
| I think the Klingons will appreciate the chance for target
| practice.
| tempodox wrote:
| But that's not dangerous enough to make for a truly honorable
| pastime. Shooting at lifeless metal when you could go targ
| hunting!
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| It for sure has some aspect as a PR piece to drive interest in
| the upcoming Europa Clipper mission, but it also has strong
| significance to members of the scientific community.
|
| These are people who have dedicated their entire lives to the
| pursuit of science and discovery for the pure love of
| curiosity. These missions aren't capitalistic ventures, we do
| it to feed our curious human nature and to scientifically and
| philosophically learn more about ourselves and our place in the
| universe.
|
| Missions like this make a lot of these scientists emotional, so
| I appreciate that they're able to put a little bit of ourselves
| as humans on these missions, however symbolic it is.
| mannyv wrote:
| Alternative messages:
|
| "Help I'm trapped in a spaceship factory!"
|
| "Turn over for important message." (on both sides)
|
| "Duck"
|
| "For a good time call 1-800-elon-sux"
|
| And of course,
|
| "New tablet who dis?"
| pryelluw wrote:
| You forgot:
|
| "This way to Uranus."
| imglorp wrote:
| > At center is a symbol representing the American Sign Language
| sign for "water."
|
| ASL sign for water looks like three fingers tapped on the chin.
| I'm not seeing the resemblance to that polar grid shape.
| bgirard wrote:
| Could those waveform drawing recreate the sound? Looks like some
| are squished and certainly couldn't recreate the original. I'm
| not sure about the others?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Very nice. Why did this mission include a Voyager-style message
| while others don't (or do they?)?
|
| Anyone besides earthlings who can read the message would come
| from outside our solar system, so why put the message on Europa
| instead of the many other possibilities? Why would the
| interstellar travelers head for Europa? If they master
| interstellar travel, they could find Earth.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm fairly certain NASA will dispose of Europa Clipper in order
| to prevent any chance of forward contamination, just like what
| was done with Cassini.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| They probably just needed some sort of counter-mass or some
| other similar element and figured they'd turn it into a PR
| thing. Similar to how New Horizons ended up carrying some
| remains of the person who discovered Pluto, or IIRC parts with
| names on Perseverance of people who worked on the rover.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > a massive metal vault designed to protect them from Jupiter's
| punishing radiation. The commemorative plate will seal an opening
| in the vault.
|
| Which makes me wonder, why not cover the massive metal vault's
| surface with more engravings?
| tigerlily wrote:
| Like the Utwig Bomb:
|
| > On it is written a very recognizable Precursor inscription,
| repeated over and over all over its surface; though it has not
| been completely translated, it seems obvious that the message
| is a warning. [1]
|
| [1] - https://wiki.starcontrol.com/index.php?title=Utwig_Bomb
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