Message in a Bottle

by Jason Fry of the Wall Street Journal

Sending Messages Into Outer Space Has Changed Since Voyager's Day

January 23, 2006

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print...2447848689.html

To quote:

"In all likelihood, space probes will be the only things of ours that endure after our species is gone and our planet utterly changed -- a few inert, pitted machines will be the sole clues that we ever existed, and the ancient messages they carry our only chance to explain who we were. It's vanishingly unlikely that any being will ever find the Pioneers, Voyagers or the New Horizons probe in the billion-odd years during which their messages will remain readable. But though imagining such a discovery borders on an act of faith, it's not impossible. And since it isn't, shouldn't the only trace of ourselves be something more substantive than an unbelievably ancient PR campaign? Don't we owe ourselves a final testament that's something more than space spam?"