In 1977, Carl Sagan and Frank Drake sat in a Cornell office arguing over what to put on the Voyager Golden Record, and among the greetings in 55 languages, the whale song, and the Bach they included t
The article recounts the historical creation of the Voyager Golden Record, specifically focusing on Ann Druyan's brainwave recording included on the spacecraft. It details the collaborative effort between Carl Sagan and his team to curate a message for extraterrestrial life.
Why it matters
It preserves the cultural and scientific significance of one of humanity's most ambitious attempts to communicate with the cosmos.
In 1977, Ann Druyan recorded an hour of her brainwaves at Bellevue Hospital days after agreeing to marry Carl Sagan. A compressed minute of that recording now rides both Voyager spacecraft into interstellar space.
By Mission Notes · Edited by Justin Brown
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