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!

World Space Week

Our home - Earth

By Chris 

Did you know that October 4^th to 10^th is World Space Week? I didn’t. Apparently the United Nations General Assembly in 1999 declared October 4-10 annually as World Space Week. Today, the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs in Vienna provides the overall global coordination of World Space Week, under the guidance of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and with the support of World Space Week Association, a non-government organization. 

I’m impressed that so many bodies are actively promoting the education and awareness of space across the globe. Mind you, we do often take our position here on Earth for granted. In a previous posting I spoke about the Pale Blue Dot. That view of Earth taken by a Voyager probe that shows our planet as a pale blue dot against the un-inhabitable vastness of outer space. Solitude. Precarious positioning. A living planet so remote from any other living body in space. 

I am particularly interested in the pale blue dot as I once worked for a mining company and have spent more time underground than the vast majority of people on this planet. And I mean deep underground – about a mile or more. So deep that the rock temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius and rock starts to flow over short periods of time due to the intense pressure. 

We regard Earth as our home, but in fact we can only live on the very surface of it. Some creatures do live in the ocean depths – but not humans. We are effectively trapped on the surface of a small round piece of rock, surrounded by a tenuous atmosphere floating in a loosely defined orbit in the vastness of space. Whew! 

But I’m glad – of course. As so many wondrous things happen and exist on our planet, and of course among the human race. I don’t believe for one moment that we are alone; there are other life forms out there, somewhere. Hopefully, at some time in the future, mankind may establish contact with them. It’s a long shot but I hope so.      

But by celebrating space week we are actually celebrating our potential neighbours, and hopefully educating people and broadening their awareness of what is all around us. And who knows who may be receiving the SentForever messages that are transmitted? Have a happy World Space Week.

First Day at School card

First day at school

Last week I was out shopping and noticed some ‘first day at school’ greetings cards in a number of greetings cards shop windows. My immediate thought was I can’t bear another hallmark occasions being shoved down our throats. 

But then a few nights ago I was ironing the last of the name tags onto my son’s school clothes I was suddenly quite emotional about the fact that he was starting school for the first time, and that it had all come round far too quickly. It seemed like just the other day we were returning from hospital with a newborn bundle. 

It suddenly came to me that this occasion i.e. ‘starting school for the first time’ was one of those significant moments in life. 

Sure learning has been happening since the day he was born – but this is the start of a structured approach to educating him. So I went online to www.SentForever.com and sent him a wish from his Dad and me on this very special occasion of him starting school for the first time. I wanted my words to be quite profound and so I searched the internet looking for appropriate quotes on education and came across the following site http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/edquotes.html. The inspirational quote I chose was ‘The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth. – J. F. Kennedy’ and then I added my own sentiments. The end result is something that I think demonstrates the signifcance of the day plus our emotional intent for him. 

On the morning of his first day, I presented the envelope to him at breakfast, and he was delighted that something has arrived in the mail for him on his big day. He tore the envelope open and then shrieked ‘look it’s a satellite dish’ when he saw the card. I read the message to him which is on the Certificate of Transmission. I don’t think the words made the impression I wanted it to. Certainly not now (in his defence he is only 4 years old). But in years to come when he is older he can enter his unique tracking number and see the distance his personal message has travelled through the universe, and hopefully reflect on why I choose the words I did, and what it could mean for his future. 

I’d like to think this message which has been sent out into eternity is something he will look at when he starts high school and hopefully university. I hope he finds it inspiring.

SentForever’s Goonhilly earth station transmissions

Our messages into eternity may have no final destination as they travel forever, but they do have an interesting starting point – the BT Goonhilly earth station in Cornwall, UK.

Goonhilly was once the largest earth satellite station in the world, with more than 25 dishes in use and over 60 in total. Its first dish, called Arthur, was built in 1962 to link with Telstar, the world’s first active satellite. Arthur received the first ever live transatlantic television broadcasts from the United States via the Telstar satellite on July 11, 1962.

Ofcom has licensed SentForever to transmit our messages into deep space and our messages are transmitted in the Ku band in the 12 to 18 GHz wave band. At Goonhilly there is a visitor centre that explains all the activities that occur at the site. See http://www.goonhilly.bt.com for more information.

Our dish points roughly south east, and as we transmit our messages they pass 600 miles over the French Mediterranean in the blink of an eye. Within five hours the messages leave our solar system and travel at the speed of light for the rest of eternity.

All our messages are transmitted from the Goonhilly earth station, so whether you are sending a message for a newly born baby, proposing marriage in the most romantic way possible, sending a message of remembrance to honour someone’s memory, or simply expressing how much you love someone, your eternal message will commence its journey from Goonhilly.

My Top Three Message Occasions

Why would someone want to send a message into eternity? Well, here are my top three reasons for sending an eternal message:

1. Remembrance – when you feel the need to talk to someone dear to you who has passed on. When you have to write something down, it helps to clarify your thoughts. Some people talk to their dear ones through prayer, which generally isn’t just a rambling monologue but a structured and purposeful way of communicating. If you are a more spiritual person and want to send something special that will travel through the heavens for the rest of eternity and that you feel will be close to your lost one, that’s a wonderful reason.

2. Birth – when a child is born, our natural association may be that it is a new child for its parents. However, if you think about it differently, a child being born is actually a much bigger miracle, as it is the moment when a new soul (or spirit) enters the Universe. Maybe this new child will do something really amazing in its lifetime that will benefit the whole of mankind. Who knows? But a SentForever birth message welcoming this new baby into our Earth, into our lives, and into the Universe as a whole is a very special way to celebrate this occasion.

3. Marriage – as our vows often refer to the relationship lasting forever. Why not transmit your wedding vows into eternity to celebrate this special day? It’s a fact that a large percentage of marriages do fail. But by thinking back to the magic and special feelings that existed on the wedding day, and also to the fact that those wedding vows that were said are travelling through the Universe for all eternity (and that they can never be recalled), would this help the couple to remember the feelings when they got married in the first place?

What are your top reasons for sending a message? Let me know and we may be able to make it happen for you.

Everyday and once in a lifetime

I was thinking about things that we only intend to do once in our lifetime. Going to an interesting distant country that we like means we often go back there again. So it’s not about distance or places. With people, we tend to meet them regularly. So I started thinking about events and occasions.

Children – no we often have more than one. Death, well yes, that only happens once – but generally it isn’t in our best interest to die. Marriage – now that could be one of the few things that we imagine we will only do once (well at the time anyway).

If a marriage is such a special once-in-a-lifetime event then I was thinking how that occasion or special moment could be made to last forever. After all, in a Christian wedding, there is much ceremony around the “for ever and ever” aspect of getting married.

I made a list of the highlights of getting married and thought that this would make a wonderful service for SentForever to offer. Here are the things I thought of:

- making a proposal of marriage. What did you say to propose and what was the first photo you took of yourselves when you were “officially engaged” as a couple?

- what were your wedding vows that you exchanged at your wedding?

- a copy of your marriage certificate

- a significant part or reading of your marriage ceremony

- a photograph of you and your guests on the big day

- your special song

I think that soon after the wedding, if SentForever were to transmit all these items into eternity for you, it would be something that could never be recalled or cancelled. And hopefully that’s just what your marriage should be – something that will last forever.

SentForever would love to hear from you if you are getting married soon as we’d like to offer a limited number of these complimentary transmissions. All we’d ask is that you let us know what you thought of the service as part of our market research. Just contact us through our website if you are interested.

Graduating into Eternity- a special SentForever message

I’m sure you have heard the saying “Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.” It’s true of course, but for most of us tomorrow tends to be pretty much like today which seems pretty much like yesterday which seems remarkably similar to the day before…. You get the pattern here?

However, if something changes quite significantly for you, then that can actually change tomorrow and also have a permanent effect on the rest of your life too. Graduating is one such event.

For many of us, graduating signaled the end of formal education and the start of a new life in paid employment. It’s curious that this stage of our lives seems to go on interminably and yet it only lasts some 40-odd years. But in those 40-odd years a lot happens.

Love, marriage, children, families and homes will all be formed. An individual may well make some significant achievement in their work that benefits mankind in some way. So upon graduation, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Maybe that’s the time to wish somebody well for the future – that graduation marks an important transition point in life. To show how important that point is with SentForever, you can send a message of congratulations and celebration on the success of graduation, but also to send an eternal message to express all the hopes for success in every way in the future.

Because just as one day leads into the next, one person’s successes can be the starting point for another person to build on. What you do today can enable somebody else to do something better and different tomorrow – which then allows somebody else to do the same the next day. And so on into infinity. Just like a SentForever message.

Send somebody who is graduating a special SentForever eternal message, because what they are about to start doing from graduation day plus one will in some small way influence the future of mankind.

Eternalise your Dad

It’s Father’s Day on Sunday in a good chunk or the world. Make that everywhere – except for Australia and New Zealand where it’s in mid-September. And answering the question as to why that is will probably make an interesting blog post somewhere I’m sure.

We’re actually running a SentForever “Send a Message for Father’s Day” promotion with a number of newspapers around the world, where readers can send a message to “Eternalise your Dad on Father’s Day”.

I’m sure dads will find the technical aspects of the SentForever service more interesting than mum’s so here’s a bit for them.

SentForever use a specially dedicated transmitter at BT’s Goonhilly earth station in Cornwall, UK for all our message into space transmissions. Using powerful radio waves which travel at the speed of light in space, the SentForever messages travel at about 671 million miles per hour.

Upon transmission, in the blink of an eye, the eternal messages are passing 450 miles above the French Mediterranean coast. They leave our solar system around 5 hours later, and if transmitted in the direction of Alpha Centauri (the nearest star other than our own sun), they will arrive in just over 4.2 years. And all the messages that we send continue to travel for the rest of eternity too.

So, the newspaper readers will be sending their dads a rather unique Father’s Day gift this year – I hope they’ve been good!

If you’d like SentForever to transmit an unusual Father’s Day gift or message for your dad this year let us know. If we find it interesting and we are able to do it, then we will arrange a special free transmission for you as a thank you for your suggestion.

By Chris Thomason