In 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to
the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copped
phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial
civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space
and time. Each record contained 118 photographs of our planet; almost 90
minutes of the world's greatest music; an evolutionary audio essay on
The Sounds of Earth; and greetings in almost sixty human languages (and
one whale language). This book is an account, written by those chiefly
responsible for the contents of the Voyager Record, of why they did it,
how they selected the repertoire, and precisely what the record
contains.
Introductory music from the original score for COSMOS: A SpaceTime
Odyssey composed by Alan Silvestri, used with permission from Cosmos
Studios, Inc. and Chappers Music. All rights reserved. Special thanks to
Fuzzy Planets, Inc.