Immortality – with SentForever

Immortality means unending life or enduring fame. Well, perhaps we do a little of this at SentForever as we allow people to send messages or images of themselves and their loved ones that will last forever. 

We read about an artist who uses the ashes of loved ones her clients have lost in the paintings she does. Val Thompson from Ash2Art adds the secret ingredient to her paint to create a unique, personalised and lasting tribute. She just mixes it in, adding another dash ‘to help build up a bit of texture on the canvas’.

This is a wonderful concept as it is a highly personalized and very meaningful way of capturing an image that means a lot to the person and yet which is also so intimate, in that it contains the lost one’s ashes.

One client lost her husband from a heart attack the day after returning from a beach holiday. Val took some of the ashes and created three wonderful beach scenes to capture the last memories of the lady’s husband

We love this idea as it helps someone’s memory live on after their death in much the same way that our remembrance messages do.

Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen distance travelled

The Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen golden record from the people of Belgium is now travelling through space on its eternal journey. If you want to track how far it has travelled at any time just go to the SentForever home page and enter this tracking code – SF59077054410D05 – in the “Track your message” box.

The golden record message containing a video of the life and success of the Belgian people was the end result of the Belgium TV Een series Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen. This radio message overtook the original golden records sent on the 1977 Voyager space probes after only 12 hours. This is because the SentForever radio transmissions travel at the speed of light which is about 671,000,000 miles per hour.

The Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen TV series (which means Warm Greetings from Everyone) ends with a deep space transmission by SentForever. It has been nominated for a Golden Rose at the prestigious Montreux Festival in the entertainment category. We wish all the Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen team success at the Festival in May this year.

Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen – or Warm Greetings to Everyone

A golden record from the people of Belgium was transmitted into deep space by SentForever this week. In the final episode of this six-week prime time TV Een series,Tom Waes concluded his global trip at Goonhilly in Cornwall, UK.

There he asked us if SentForever would transmit a golden record containing a video message showing the life and success of Belgian people into eternity. Tom had been round the world speaking with various people about sending an eternal message.

The original golden records were sent on the Voyager space probes in 1977 and the contents were compiled by Carl Sagan and his team. Tom Waes met with Carl’s wife and son to discuss the significance of the original Golden Record. He also met with Dr Jill Tarter from SETI, who is featured in the film Contact and is played by Jodie Foster.

In the series Tom Waes asks Jill Tarter if she can transmit his Golden Record, but she says “No” as SETI’s dishes are used to receive signals from space and not to transmit them. She does tell him she knows of places where signals can be transmitted from. In the next shot, Tom is approaching Goonhilly and he says that he thinks he has found the place!

Underneath the biggest dish Arthur, Tom interviews Des Prouse for some background and history on the BT Goonhilly site and finally meets with Chris. He says SentForever is his last hope and begs Chris to send the Golden Record. The series ends with a champagne toast below Arthur as Chris confirms that SentForever will transmit the message!

Darren Farris’ new single launched into deep space

Los Angeles, California  April 7, 2009 — Darren Farris may be picking up new fans in some unlikely places this week, after he becomes the first American artist to launch a new song into deep space.

The Los Angeles based singer/songwriter’s latest single ‘Save Me’ was transmitted into deep space on Wednesday, by SentForever. It was broadcast in the form of radio waves that travel at the speed of light and will travel through space for the rest of time.

Traveling at a speed of 670 million miles an hour, ‘Save Me’ passed by the sun eight minutes after transmission and left our solar system just five hours later.

When asked about his music someday being the first musical communication to be received by extraterrestrial life, Farris says, “Hopefully the lyrics will be meaningful and representative of mankind’s feelings towards each other, and of course, everybody likes a good song!”

However, he jokes, “I just hope they don’t wake me up in the middle of the night asking for a tour of the planet.”

SentForever usually transmits people’s messages of love, remembrance and celebration into deep space where they travel through space and time for all eternity.

Stephanie Baillache, co-founder of SentForever says, “Darren’s song ‘Save Me’ is a very meaningful song and he deserves to be the first US artist to debut a single this way.” She adds, “It’s also great that if the transmission is ever received by some distant life form, a ballad like ‘Save Me’ is one of the first songs they receive from Earth.”

Send your name to Mars

NASA have announced that people can submit their names for inclusion in a microchip to be sent to Mars.

Sometime in 2011 a rocket will blast off to Mars with the Mars Science Laboratory rover inside. This rover will explore part of the Martian landscape and carry out a number of interesting experiments. The MSL is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

In this rover will be a microchip with a list of people’s names  – and your name can be one of them. Just follow this link to submit your name.

However, if Mars isn’t far enough for you, you can always send a SentForever message into eternity instead!

SentForever Mother’s Day card

 

For some time now at SentForever, we’ve been talking about offering more choice in our cards (the carrier of the Certificate of Transmission), and we’ve spent considerable time looking at what’s on offer.

We have sourced an exceptional selection of letterpress greetings cards, produced by Blush Publishing. Our first card off the press is our Mother’s Day card which has been available on our website since 12^th March 2009.

Letterpress is a printing technique dating back some 500 years. The process involves inking the surface of movable type or blocks and pressing them onto a surface. Letterpress prints are crisper than modern litho prints because of its ‘impression’ into the paper, giving greater visual definition to the image.

Each card produced by Blush Publishing is hand fed into a vintage printing press, and printed onto 100% cotton papers. We are delighted with the quality of our Mother’s Day cards.

By the way, the cards are in good company – as the British Design Museum (one of the world’s leading museums for design), already stocks these letterpress greeting cards.

Over the next few months we will be adding more choice – so keep a look out. But why not send your mum a Mother’s Day card this year?

Mother’s Day can be a very sad day…

Mother's Day message

Mother’s Day is on 22nd March in the UK but for some it can be a very sad day indeed. For people who have lost their mothers, it becomes a day of remembrance – and unfortunately, this is going to happen to all of us eventually as part of the cycle of life.

But what about the mums who have lost a child? This should be a day of joy and celebration but becomes a day of anguish and mourning instead. Once you’ve been a mum, you always will be a mum, forever, and that fact can never change.

The Child Bereavement Charity is promoting this fact in the UK due to the approach of Mother’s Day – and a wonderful job they are doing too. Prince William recently became patron of the charity and spoke about how ‘Mother’s Day makes me feel empty’ referring to his late mother, Diana.

Already at SentForever, we have transmitted our first Mother’s Day messages this year – including very special remembrance ones. So if you’ve lost someone who is very special to you on Mother’s Day, an eternal message may be a way for you to say some things that aren’t possible to say by any other means.

Our messages are sent into space using one of British Telecom’s specially modified, high power radio transmitters. This enables us to transmit your Mother’s Day messages so they will travel through space and time for the rest of eternity. Remember Mother’s Day this year by sending a very special SentForever Mother’s Day message.

SentForever and Virgin Mobile – Texts into Space

by Chris Thomason

Some great news in that Virgin Mobile have partnered with SentForever to allow all mobile users to send a text into space simply by sending a message to 80995 (in the UK). Here’s the press release:

Virgin Mobile today announce the launch of ‘Texts into Space’, a service which allows people to send their text declarations of love and affection into the uncharted territories of space where they will travel through the cosmos for all eternity.

Ever said ‘I’ll love you forever’? Well now you can prove it!

Launching just in time for Christmas this is a unique gift idea for any loved one. The texts are transmitted via a satellite Earth Station in Cornwall by SentForever.com. Once sent you can ensure your message will live on eternally, a concept that will surely touch the recipients heart.

The ‘text into space’ costs the price of a normal text and can be sent from any mobile phone by texting the desired message to the Virgin Mobile short code 80995. Then, for just £9.95, the message recipient will receive a formal ‘Certificate of Transmission’ from SentForever.com confirming the launch of the eternal message and details of how to track the message on the SentForever.com website as it continues to travel through time and space. Email updates are also available to alert the recipient as to when their message has passed key milestones.

Tim Dowling from Virgin Mobile said “We are quite literally over the moon at the thought of millions of wishes and messages of love being texted into space”.

Stephanie Baillache, Managing Director of SentForever.com, said, “We are delighted to be working with a leading telecoms organisation such as Virgin Mobile. The collaboration of these two innovative brands will ensure our exciting service reaches a much wider audience and thankfully there are no roaming charges in space!”

Teddy bears in space

Bears in space

By Chris Thomason

I love this! Some school children from Cambridge in the UK recently sent some teddy bears into space as part of a science project, which wonderfully highlighted the UK government’s ban on astronauts.

Since the mid 1980’s, the UK government has ignored human spaceflight activity and the UK pays nothing into the astronaut programme of the European Space Agency.

T he Cambridge University Spaceflight team hope to change this and plan to put a rocket in space, launching it from a balloon that has already climbed high into the sky. The student group believes the rocket can reach an altitude of 150km.

 To gain awareness of what they want to do and as a science experiment, the Cambridge team helped local school children to send some teddy bears dressed up in space suits into the stratosphere. The picture above shows two of the bears in space with the curve of the Earth clearly visible behind them. The “teddy-nauts” spent about two hours in space before landing and being recovered from nearby Ipswich.

 ”The most important thing we think we can do is to try to encourage children to get involved in science and engineering, and the best way of doing that we thought would be with the kind of engineering project we would have loved to have done ourselves at their age,” said Ed Moore from the student organisers, Cambridge University Spaceflight.

Four teddies were prepared for the flight and dressed in their special space suits by 11 and 12-year-old pupils from Parkside and Coleridge Community Colleges in Cambridge. They were launched on a foam-padded box containing instrumentation and cameras, and the balloon climbed to 30km.

Besides being a great bit of publicity for the Cambridge rocket plans, it’s also a lovely way to get school kids involved in understanding what goes on above our heads in space.

If you know of any schools that want to transmit something interesting into deep space, then contact us. SentForever sends messages of love into deep space on a daily basis, so if you want to send something special such as an image or a sound recording or some special words, just let us know.

The Day of the Dead transmission

As part of the Day of the Dead festival on 2^nd November, SentForever are transmitting some memorials from www.muchloved.com into deep space so that they will exist for all eternity.

The Day of the Dead occurs on 2^nd November every year and this is also known as All Souls Day in many western religions. It originated in Central and Southern America many years ago but similar events are celebrated in many African and Asian countries as well as some European countries. It’s more of a joyous occasion as opposed to the more somber ways that western cultures observe memories of the deceased.

MuchLoved was set up by Jonathan Davies in 1995 after his younger brother suddenly died while at university at the age of 21. It is a registered charitable trust and allows people to create online memorials to individuals who have died. It’s a lovely site that allows you to create a memorial to the life of a lost loved one that can be kept private or can be made public so that others can view the memorial. 

SentForever will transmit a number of the MuchLoved online memorials on Sunday morning. Some of the memorials are for specific individuals while others are for more than one individual. One site id for little angels, children who passed on at a very early age. This is a particular special and moving memorial which celebrates the short time that these loved infants spent with their parents.