Singatures Disk, About Cassini DVD Options

[dilo]

Far from today's news...
Do you recall that a DVD disk was placed onboard the Cassini spacecraft, containing the signatures from 616,420 people around the world?
DVD with signatures on way to Saturn
I sent my signature, and I bet that I'm not the only one in this Forum...
Now, do someone knows if there is an online viewable copy of DVD? I would like very much to check my name (probably not easy to find...!)
Marco.

[djellison]

I sent mine in but I think it was probably too late to get onboard. I only found out about it a month before the deadline.

Doug

[CosmicRocker]

I missed the Cassini guest book also, and don't know how to check it online. But, there is a sign-up page for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and it allows you to check for registered names.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ecard/sendName_ecard_content.html

Whether this is the last chance, as they say, to sign up for the 'first mission to the last planet' seems a bit debatable at the moment.

Interestingly, the language in their participation certifications is quite prescient during the current debates about planets. See the quote below.

"Thank you for joining the first mission to the last planet! A compact disc bearing your name will be included on the New Horizons spacecraft, set for the first voyage to a new class of planets on the solar system's farthest frontier.

Come with us as we complete the reconnaissance of the solar system and unlock the secrets of Pluto, its moon, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt."

...a reconnaissance it surely is. That is what the exploration of the Universe will always be. Keep in mind that that this is simply the edge of our local neighborhood.

...To boldly go where no man has gone before...

[dilo]

Done...
Thanks, CosmicRocker!

[elakdawalla]

Far from today's news...
Do you recall that a DVD disk was placed onboard the Cassini spacecraft, containing the signatures from 616,420 people around the world?
I sent my signature, and I bet that I'm not the only one in this Forum...
Now, do someone knows if there is an online viewable copy of DVD? I would like very much to check my name (probably not easy to find...!)
Marco.

Unlike the various "Send Your Name To [PLACE]" efforts since the Cassini DVD, this was kind of an analog, not digital effort. The actual signatures were scanned in and included on the DVD as image files (by diligent Planetary Society volunteers), so I'm pretty sure there's no searchable list of names.

However, copies of the disk do exist. At the "Titan: From Discovery to Encounter" meeting in Noordwijk on 13-17 April 2004, Jean-Pierre Lebreton was handing out CD-ROM copies of the Cassini-Huygens DVD. I seem to have lost my copy. Does anyone know if there's a version on the Web anywhere?

[dilo]

However, copies of the disk do exist. ...  I seem to have lost my copy.

...are you sure?!? pls, look better!

[um3k]

This is extremely off topic, but here it goes: Welcome to the Unmanned Spaceflight forum, Ms. Lakdawalla!

[elakdawalla]

I finally found my copy of the disk. It contains 27,000 separate TIFF files. An example taken at random from the U.K. folder:



(I blacked out the addresses on the postcards.)

So...I do have access to a complete copy of all the signatures. However, searching it for specific ones would be very tedious. The TIFF files are sorted by country, and, within the US, by state, but other than that there's no identifying information connected with each file. Sorry to disappoint. I'd be happy to place a copy of the contents of the disk online, but I'm a little worried about posting all the addresses on the postcards. They are 8 years old, but...

If anyone knows someone who wants to pull and catalog hundreds of thousands of signatures from among 27,000 individual tiff files, send them to me!

Emily

[mchan]

So...I do have access to a complete copy of all the signatures.  However, searching it for specific ones would be very tedious.  The TIFF files are sorted by country, and, within the US, by state, but other than that there's no identifying information connected with each file.  Sorry to disappoint.  I'd be happy to place a copy of the contents of the disk online, but I'm a little worried about posting all the addresses on the postcards.  They are 8 years old, but...

I had sent my signature in and would like to check if it made it on to the disk. So I would like a copy of the disk to search.

However, when you got the copy of the disk at the conference, was there any accomanying document describing its use? E.g., you may not reproduce, exhibit, etc. You may want to check with Legal before putting it online.

Mike

[ljk4-1]

When and if the disc is ever recovered from Cassini, does anyone honestly think a future civilization will be able to read a DVD, even an advanced technical one that could pluck a spacecraft from around Saturn? And what will a bunch of names and addresses mean centuries hence - to say nothing if it is found by an ETI.

[elakdawalla]

When and if the disc is ever recovered from Cassini, does anyone honestly think a future civilization will be able to read a DVD, even an advanced technical one that could pluck a spacecraft from around Saturn?  And what will a bunch of names and addresses mean centuries hence - to say nothing if it is found by an ETI.

I think that most people who put their signature on a spacecraft aren't imagining their signature being read by E. T. Instead, I think it gives people a sense that somehow a little piece of themselves is riding along with the mission as it goes out into space. It sounds corny, but people really love it, especially kids, and also especially young people from less-developed countries who know that they have no realistic hope of actually becoming an astronaut or even a lowly space scientist or engineer, but feel that they participate at least emotionally in space exploration by putting their name on a spacecraft.

When the rovers were on their way to Mars, I often received messages from youths from Africa or India or South America or elsewhere asking for information. Their messages would open, "I am so-and-so and my name is on the disk on the Mars Rover," as though that was their point of greatest pride. I also once spoke with an educator from a NASA center who told me a story about a distraught mother who contacted her after some tornado or flood and said "our house is gone, we've lost everything, and the thing my kids are most upset about losing is the certificates that said their names were on the rovers. Can we get those back?" (The answer is yes, by the way.)

It's a tiny way to participate in space exploration, but the more of the public who feel a sense of ownership about a space mission, the more they will support future missions, and we support that!

Emily

[elakdawalla]

I had sent my signature in and would like to check if it made it on to the disk.  So I would like a copy of the disk to search.

I should clarify -- I actually have two disks, one that was being handed out at the conference, which contains messages that were apparently submitted to ESA via the Web, and one of unknown origin that actually contains the signatures that were scanned by the Society volunteers. The example I posted was from the latter. For privacy reasons I don't think it would be appropriate for me to post the contents on the Web unless someone goes through and blanks out all the address information first, which is not likely to happen, unfortunately. And I don't think I should distribute copies of the disk, for the same reason. But if you are ever in Pasadena, contact me and I'll let you search through it!

Emily

[mchan]

When and if the disc is ever recovered from Cassini, does anyone honestly think a future civilization will be able to read a DVD, even an advanced technical one that could pluck a spacecraft from around Saturn?  And what will a bunch of names and addresses mean centuries hence - to say nothing if it is found by an ETI.

It is not so much a meams of sending information to a future civilization as it is an expression of support and participation from people today who were not directly working on the project. For myself, it also expresses a thought of having another something I did be around long after I am gone. I.e., if Cassini stays in Saturn orbit for centuries and is recovered and put into a museum. The meaning centuies hence might be akin to the meaning of undeciphered hieroglyphics on an antiquity of today.

Mike

[ljk4-1]

It is not so much a meams of sending information to a future civilization as it is an expression of support and participation from people today who were not directly working on the project.  For myself, it also expresses a thought of having another something I did be around long after I am gone.  I.e., if Cassini stays in Saturn orbit for centuries and is recovered and put into a museum.  The meaning centuies hence might be akin to the meaning of undeciphered hieroglyphics on an antiquity of today.

Mike

I actually hope that Cassini and other such spacecraft are left in space, where they will be much better preserved than stuck in some glass case on a planet's surface. If a civilization has the means to reach these probes to do such a thing, they can also study them thorougly in space and then let them be for someone or something else to find to learn something about us.

[Bob Shaw]

I actually hope that Cassini and other such spacecraft are left in space, where they will be much better preserved than stuck in some glass case on a planet's surface.  If a civilization has the means to reach these probes to do such a thing, they can also study them thorougly in space and then let them be for someone or something else to find to learn something about us.

Cassini, and the rest of them, *should* all end up safely in museums, but *should* also be left in place. How? You build the museum around the antique spacecraft! Thus we have on-site interpretation, preservation, and education...

...of course, it'll take a while for the museums to be built - consider the CDs to be the foundation stones!