Dave AndersonMar 14, 2024

I went down a Voyager rabbit hole again. And I came up with a factoid that entertains me.

The original Grand Tour program was canceled in late 1971, due to congressional pressure over cost. Voyager was the cheaper mission to just Jupiter and Saturn.

Voyager and its team are incredible, and they managed to pull off the entire grand tour anyway, and then 34 years and counting more science after that.

There's a good chance Voyager might outlive the entire congress that killed the grand tour.

Show threadDave Anderson

It's not clinched yet, but of the 534 members of the congress who chose to pass on a once-in-history opportunity for exploration, 24 are still alive. And the actuaries don't have _great_ news for those who remain.

Meanwhile, the Voyagers have another 1-6 years of science mission left, and could well keep returning engineering data until 2036, at which point they'll be too far away for the DSN to communicate with them.

So... I'd say it's game on, really.

Mar 14, 2024 at 7:28amWeb
Show threadDave AndersonMar 14, 2024

It's now definitely my tongue in cheek headcanon that the Voyagers in fact have two power sources on board: a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, but also a vast reservoir of pure spite that drives them to keep sending magnetometer readings for as long as the 92nd congress still bears witness.

The day after the last senator kicks the bucket, the DSN will receive a short, puzzling message: "No YOU'RE canceled. At last, we can rest."

Show threadSchrödinger's PratMar 14, 2024
@danderson
Hang on, I think I've got this....
Show threadChloé RaccoonMar 14, 2024
@danderson @darac "We are the furthest manmade item from earth... how much further do you think we can get, and do you think someone from Ohio will be jealous how far we have managed to get away from Ohio..." ;)
Show threadGaurav VaidyaMar 15, 2024
@danderson This is a great theory! Wikidata knows about 476/535 members of the 92nd Congress, and all but 26 have died (it says 490 but that's because some members have multiple dates of death apparently): https://w.wiki/9U4S
Show threadDave AndersonMar 15, 2024
@gaurav Strictly speaking it's 24 not 26, because 2 of the surviving members were elected after the decision to cancel the grand tour. I'm assuming that Voyager is a merciful god and doesn't hold a grudge against those two 😂
Show threadPolychrome Mar 15, 2024
@danderson clearly the solution is to build an even bigger dish in orbit for twice the cost of the Voyager project to keep communications going just out of spite.
Show threadDave AndersonMar 15, 2024
@Polychrome Correct. Disregard tradeoffs, build a dish the size of Texas.
Show threadBonkersMar 15, 2024
@danderson @Polychrome but shouldn't the orbital dish be more sensitive than the terrestrial one? Away from the electromagnetic noise and air. So, it probably shouldn't be that big.
Show threadMichael ☕️Mar 16, 2024
@bonkers @danderson @Polychrome
Let's build a refurbished Aricibo dish in a crater on the far side of the moon. That should avoid human interference pretty well.