We Will Retrieve Pioneer 10
Pioneer 10 is the first interstellar spacecraft launched by mankind. It was also the fastest spacecraft launched, to the date of its departure. But it will take eighty thousand years for Pioneer 10 to reach the distance of the nearest star. Because space is so empty, it will never enter another Solar System. The little golden message aboard Pioneer 10 will be read, but only if there are interstellar voyagers able to detect and intercept Pioneer 10.
I believe that such an interception may occur, but by interstellar voyagers from the planet Earth, overtaking and heaving to this ancient space derelict – as if the Nina, with its crew jabbering in Castilian about falling off the edge of the world, were to be intercepted, somewhere off Tristan da Cunha, by the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy.
Notes:
As it has 80,000 years until it reaches the nearest star, we will overtake it, which will be like Columbus being overtaken by an aircraft carrier.
Folksonomies: space exploration astronomy
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Earth (0.912228): dbpedia | freebase
Jupiter (0.877834): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Milky Way (0.853291): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Sun (0.841780): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Voyager 1 (0.753524): dbpedia | freebase | yago
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Carl Sagan's cosmic connection