NASA is having a hard time talking to the Voyager 2 probe. It started in late April and has only gotten worse, with the latest transmission being quite garbled. Now, I can understand a bit of fun, tounge-in-cheek speculation, but this “Aliens have hijacked Voyager 2!” thing has gotten way out of hand. It’s as though someone has been subliminally beaming the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture into everyone’s minds…
…and for the unwashed, the movie centers around a mysterious cloud of energy headed for Earth destroying everything in its path. It is revealed in the final act of the film that the cloud is actually the probe Voyager 6, which according to future history was lost, and Kirk and crew learn that it was hijacked, reprogrammed, and empowered by aliens before being sent back. Sound familiar?
No one (or should I say, nothing?) has “done” anything to the blasted spacecraft, people. It’s getting old. How many other 30-year-old computers do you know of that are still running perfectly?
Yes, Hartwig Hausdorf (who first made the alien hijacking crack) is allowed his opinion. Is it realistic? Nope. Let’s just hope this probe can be recovered… It’d be a pity to lose one of only two “eyes” we have moving out of the solar system for the first time.
Sheesh, I just wish real science got this much press.
Chronicles of an Atomic Astrowright 