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From: @S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:mcgeer%ucbkim@Berkeley
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Voyager on to Uranus.
Message-ID: <3007@mordor.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 13:36:32 EDT
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Posted: Fri Aug  9 13:36:32 1985
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From: mcgeer%ucbkim@Berkeley (Rick McGeer)

>I have a question .....
>	If something the size of a voyager, presumably not radiating
>much radio energy, were to enter our solar system from an alien
>culture, is the possibility of us detecting it more than miniscule ?
>
>I just wonder it would burn up in the sun unnoticed. If this happens,
>it would make all Carl Sagan's artistic work of a man and a woman
>rather pointless, and just a waste of NASA's budget.
>
>			Ken Cochran    vax135!hr1ar!ken
>
>

If it burned up in the sun, it would have to be on an awfully screwy orbit.
More likely, it would simply pass through the system; if it was in the plane of
the ecliptic, it *might* be captured, but that too is very unlikely.

So, yes, the artwork was a waste of NASA's budget, at least as far as making
contact with aliens goes.

					Rick