The Voyager Golden Record

I don't normally buy record sets but I got this one for a present. My wife knows that I am an avid reader of space literature. My love of space travel is limited to reading about it, so you wouldn't catch me sitting on top a rocket filled with enough fuel to explode with the power of a small nuclear bomb.However, I can still dream. One day thousands or millions of years from now extraterrestrials might find, in interstellar space, either one of the Voyager 1 or Voyager 2 space probes. Both probes were equipped with gold plated copper LP records designed to last for millions or even billions of years.The original records are meant to be played at 16 2/3 rpm. The audio content contains greetings messages from Jimmy Carter, who was President of the USA in 1977, and from Kurt Waldheim who was Secretary General of the UN. Both probes were launched in 1977 to reconnoitre the outer planets of the solar system and their moons. Both probes are now in interstellar space or near it. Voyager 1 is about 21 billion kilometres from earth or about 16 light hours away. In 40,000 years time it will approach within 1.6 light years of a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis. The chances of it being found are probably infinitesimally small.Coming back down to earth what do you get for your £100 or so:three translucent gold LPs,a full colour 96 page book showing all the images that were encoded on the golden record,A gold-foil print of the Voyager Golden Record cover plaque,A turntable slip-mat in gold ink on black felta plastic download card.All of the contents are well presented and packaged and they arrived undamaged in good order.The gold-foil print and slip-mat are a bit of a gimmick but the records and the book are not. The recordings feature the greetings from Jimmy Carter and Kurt Waldheim along with Whale songs, Hello Messages in 55 different languages and the Sounds of The Earth. There are 26 tracks of music from all over the earth ranging from Johan Sebastien Bach, Beethoven, Chuck Berry to Navajo Indian Night chants.The book provides full descriptions of the music and the languages used in the greetings etc.The music selections were decided by a committee chaired by the late Carl Sagan, a cosmologist and philosopher, and who is one of my heroes.The quality of the records is exceptionally good considering that they are made on 145 gm coloured vinyl. There is a hardly a click or tick to be heard and I cannot hear any surface noise at the volume that I choose to play at.For perfect clarity I downloaded the 24bit/44.1Khz Flac recording. Most of the time I shall play this to save wearing out the LP records.I love seeing the golden LPs go round, however. My imagination runs wild. I can see an extraterrestrial in my mind's eye scanning the record and trying to make sense of it. This Being might not have an auditory sense and will therefore have no appreciation of music. But if the Being can hear what will it make of Chuck Berry and the Navajo Indians Night chants? The listener might quickly pick up on the mathematical aspects of Bach and Beethoven.All of the music on the record sounds fantastic and I can see no reason to criticise the selection. £100 plus is a lot of money to pay for three LPs, a download and a book. For me it is worth it as it is a reminder of a wonderful scientific and cultural achievement. Carl Sagan probably surmised that his work of art will never be found whilst the Voyagers 1 and 2 orbit the Milky Way once in every 200 million years. He wanted to send a message to his fellow man. Be optimistic for the future and do your best to preserve life on our precious planet. If the Voyager golden records are found thousands or millions of years from now the extra-terrestrial will be seeing Human Beings whose successors will have evolved into another species.Buy these records, if you love listening to good music whilst contemplating space travel and research, and then let your imagination take you to another time and place.

This is lovely but must be an updated edition without the pin. Pretty disappointed. Also the box is a bit damaged but did come from America to the uk so kind of understandable. Really expensive item to not be perfect though 😞

Amazing box set. Shame the discs couldn't be gold like the originals. My quest still continues.. ..

I hope aliens enjoy this, and dispatch something similar of their own.

Considering how far into space (or, now, out of it) this has travelled, I was rather surprised to find it for sale. Discs were not copper as previously thought, but made of vinyl. Interesting compositions; sounds a lot like Earth, to be honest.

Presentation and contents make it an attractive and interesting item to own. The cost was to high and difficult to justify.