Still Voyaging

I still have National Geographics and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings I collected when Voyagers 1 and 2 made their encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. Long before Hubble began dazzling us, the Voyagers were sending back images to fire the imagination. I suspect the return on investment for those two missions will far exceed anything else NASA ever does.

Next time you're marveling at the fact that Spirit and Opportunity have been roving Mars for over six years now, ponder this: the two Voyager spacecraft have been hurtling through our solar system for nearly 33 years. Today, Voyager 1 hits a mission milestone of operating continuously for 12,000 days. The spacecraft launched on September 5, 1977, while Jimmy Carter was president, and has now traveled 14 billion miles.

Long-life nuclear batteries are expected to power Voyager 1 until at least 2020, when it will be more than 13 billion miles from Earth.

Note: because of the probes' paths past the planets, they've traveled a farther distance than they currently are in a straight line from Earth. Why can't all our engineering be so long-lived!?

"The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the expanse above proclaims His handiwork." Psalm 19:1