Messaging as a historical phenomenon emerged in both parts of the world polarised by the Cold War and bisected by the East/West geographical axis; hence it was also politically charged as a territory-marking process that logically extended to newly discovered places. The curious history of messaging starts in the immediate context of the Cold War. The first ever message transmitted to outer space was a simple radar signal sent in 1962 from the former USSR.25 Now known as the Morse message, the simple broadcast was composed of three Russian words: MIR (Russian
24More information available from the La Société Française d’Exobiologie website (French):
http://www.exobiologie.fr/index.php/actualites/evenements/cosmic-connection-sur-arte-2/. Accessed 19 February 2013.
25 Authors: Vladimir F. Morozov, Oleg N. Rghiga, and Vladimir M. Dubrovin (Institute of Radio
Engineering and Electronics). According to the calculation made in 2002 the message is heading towards the Lyra constellation.
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word for peace and world), CCCP (USSR), and Lenin. The political charge of the message is clear, although from the scientific perspective the message was intended to test the new radio telescope (also referred to as ‘planetary radar’). The message was transmitted from Evpatoria, now the Center for Deep Space Communications based in Ukraine.26 Noam Chomsky has noticed that success in the conquest of space has led to a militarisation of outer space and has increased authority, power, and global control (Chomsky 2004).
In the development of scientific messaging we can observe also a politicisation of outer space. President Carter’s greeting to the universe sent on both Voyagers’ interstellar probes in 1977 was addressed to the “community of galactic civilizations”, signifying the first move in interstellar diplomacy.27
Yet, despite the universalistic introduction and the spoken greetings from earth in 50 languages, the Voyager message also included the American flag.28
Below I argue that any message sent to outer space carries not only contents but also a charge, be it cultural, political, or latterly commercial.
As I described in my MA thesis (Capova 2008:72), the idea to install informative plaques or messages on US spacecrafts became a standard of the NASA space exploration programme. David Samuels, in his contribution to the “E.T. Culture” edition “Alien Tongues”, mentioned that NASA asked Sagan to arrange the informative plaque for the LAGEOS I Satellite (Laser Geodynamic Satellite) in 1976 (Samuels 2005). The attached image depicts the
26 Retrieved from http://www.cplire.ru/html/ra&sr/irm/MIR-LENIN-SSSR.html. Accessed 13 August
2012.
27
The full text of the Statement is available from
http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS07/cs07p02.htm. Accessed 13 August 2012.
28 This seems to continue in a tradition expressed also in famous JFK’s speech: “For the eyes of the
world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace.” John F. Kennedy during his Moon Speech at Rice Stadium, September 12, 1962. This historic speech is known as the proposal for American space program, especially NASA’s Apollo Program.
Figure 17. The LAGEOS plaque (1976). Image Credit: NASA.
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LAGEOS Message (Figure 17), a simple plaque that was attached to the satellite launched to orbit around earth.29 The content had been compiled by Carl Sagan, the Sagan who later led the scientific team that created the Voyager Message. The diagram that presents the position of continents in the distant past, present and remote future was drawn by American “space artist” Jon Lomberg, who also later provided illustrations for the Voyager Message.30 Rather than a means to communicate with extraterrestrials, the LAGEOS inscription was intended for future generations of humans. LAGEOS is a mark left behind, a legacy of culture of science.
Another example is possibly the most famous one: the ‘bootprint’ that was made by the boot of Neil Armstrong, the first human who stepped out of the Apollo 11 lunar lander onto the moon’s surface in 1969. Above all, the bootprint also signifies the ultimate victory of the USA in the Space Race by reaching the moon’s surface first. The iconic bootprint photograph, a key symbol of the Space Age, is frequently used to illustrate the success of the US space exploration programme or the general progress of humankind. The legacy of the bootprint is something permanent, as NASA commented:
The footprints left by the astronauts in the Sea of Tranquillity are more permanent than most solid structures on Earth. Barring a chance meteorite impact, these impressions in the lunar soil will probably last for millions of years.
Each of the US spacecrafts carries its own informative plate that is conveying information about its country of origin: Made in USA. For example, the Apollo 11 lunar message was again intended as a message for future humankind, left on the moon to commemorate the lunar landing in 1969 rather than to greet extraterrestrials.31 The Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages from 73 countries were written on a small silicon disk and left on the moon. Like the Nazca lines in Peru, the
29NASA LAGEOS satellite information available from
http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/satellite_missions/list_of_satellites/lag1_general.html. Accessed 13 August 2012. SETI Archive available from http://seti.sentry.net/archive/public/1999/4-99/00000151.htm. Accessed 13 August 2012.
30Image retrieved from http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS07/cs07p02.htm. Cosmic Search:
Issue 7 (Volume 2 Number 3; Summer (July, Aug., Sept.) 1980) – Putting Our Best Signal Forward.
31The text on the plaque says: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July
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Egyptian pyramids, or the Australian Aboriginal rock painting of a handprint, Armstrong’s bootprint will continue in existence longer than the civilisation that created it – just as the messages that we have sent to outer space to discover and conquer the new worlds are to become something permanent that was intended to speak for us all and perhaps provoke interest and curiosity as an unresolved mystery one day in the distant future.
I mention two messages that exemplify the connection of messaging to governmental expectations of scientific research, these are the Message to Venus (USSR, 1962) and the Voyager message (USA, 1977); each demonstrate an aspect of science that has interested social scientists (e.g. Rossiter 1985, Dennis 2006). The curious case of the two messages sent to extraterrestrial arenas proved that space, once perceived as an uncontested area, now provided an opportunity to promote a political system. Fundamental in this respect was the context of the Cold War in which the Space Race took place. Using Fabian’s description of space (and time) as an “ideologically constructed instrument of power” (Fabian 1983:144), I extend this definition also to interstellar places.