Hello from Earth

Hello from SentForever to Hello from Earth. It’s great to see another opportunity for people to send mesages into space with the Hello from Earth site sending their message on 24th August 2009. 

They are transmitting a message towards a planet that orbits around the star Gliese 581 which will arrive there around December 2029. Even though deep space messages travel at the speed of light, their radio signal will need to cross 20.3 light-years (or 192 trillion kms) of interstellar space before reaching the planet.

It sounds like a long way, but Gliese is one of the 100 closest stars to Earth, making it a top target for sending and hopefully receiving a message within our lifetimes. Any response will need to travel the same way back, so unless Gliesans have improved communication technologies, the soonest we could hope to receive an answer would be in 42 years around 2051.

The message was created by Cosmos magazine to celebrate National Science Week in Australia which is an annual event now in its 12th year. It’s also supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Innovation. Industry, Science and Research. Good to see a government being on board with a project like this.

You may remember that in April 2009 SentForever transmitted a message from the people of Belgium called Hartelijke Groeten aan Iedereen (Warm Greetings to Everyone) which was the message created by a Belgian television show. We’ve sent a Hello from Earth message naturallyand we certainly wish them well with their transmission!

Asha Puthli’s Space Talk to Apollo 11 Space Walk: Puthli’s Jazz Funk Classic Sent Into Deep Space

In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon – and as a tribute to NASA and the pioneering spirit of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, the first space walkers to land on the moon – “Space Talk,” Asha Puthli’s classic track has been transmitted into deep space. Last year The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” was successfully transmitted by NASA.

“Space Talk” is travelling across the Universe at the speed of light, that’s 186,000 miles every second. Travelling at the speed of light the transmission the song could complete 1,401 return journeys between the Earth and the moon in an hour.

In a strange twist of fate, 40 years ago the spectacular image of the Moon landing graced the front cover of Life Magazine (Dec. 12, 1969 issue). The back cover is a double page fold out ad featuring Asha Puthli’s first modeling assignment after she landed in the U.S. From Space Walk to Space Talk.

In recent years, the underground 1970’s classic from the album The Devil is Loose has become a heavily sampled popular hip-hop break record. Asha Puthli has co-writer credits with Jay-Z, P.Diddy, Big Moe, Jermaine Dupri, SWV and The Notorious B.I.G. on the track “The World is Filled” from the multi-platinum album, Life After Death.

Recognized in critical circles as a fusion pioneer, Asha’s distinctive, unusual recordings predate fusion of East and West celebrated today in styles like hip-hop, worldbeat, and electronica by almost 20 years. Acclaimed for her vocals on the “Science Fiction” album by jazz iconoclast Ornette Coleman, Asha shared the Downbeat Critics’ Poll award for “Best Female Jazz Vocalist” alongside Ella Fitzgerald and Dee Dee Bridgewater.

“Space Talk” was hailed as an instant classic by the New York Times and Thom Jurek of allmusic.com praises the record as “a masterpiece of snakey, spaced-out soul and pre-mainstream disco. More information on “Space Talk” and Asha Puthli can be found at www.AshaPuthli.com.

Free space message

By Chris Thomason

I was 10 when I watched Neil Armstrong take that famous first step onto the moon’s surface. Even at that age I knew I was part of an incredibly emotional moment in history.  

Unfortunately, there aren’t many emotional moments in space any more for the average person. There are the occasional tragic moments but they are fortunately very rare.  

When Stephanie and I set up SentForever.com we wanted to allow our customers to be able to create their own emotional experience in a way that was truly new and unique – and very special too.  

At SentForever, we allow people to send messages into space and some of the messages sent (especially regarding lost loved ones) are so charged with personal emotion that we know we are helping people in a number of different ways. People also send many fun and happy love messages and messages of their hopes and dreams too.  

To celebrate the 40^th anniversary of man landing on the moon SentForever.com are launching a service to allow people to send free messages into space. To send your own free message into space and into eternity just click here.  

You can now send someone special a message that will last forever! A celebration of the most emotional moment that NASA and space travel has ever given mankind!

Moon Message

It’s almost 40 years since man landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.  Apparently he was supposed to say “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” but the “a” was missed out. 

Initially, Armstrong confirmed that he did say “a man” but the technology of the day failed to pick it up. But a digital audio analysis conducted by Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say “a man”, but the “a” was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time. Armstrong has since said that he prefers the version that is now generally accepted.

Buzz Aldrin who was the second man on the moon said “Magnificent desolation” as his first words after stepping onto the moon’s surface.

What I find interesting to think about is just what might have been said if somebody were landing on the moon for the first time today. How would the issues that affect us right now have influenced what was said?

If major corporate sponsors had been involved, would the astronaut’s space suits have looked more like a Formula One racing driver’s outfit covered in branded patches? Would we have got more of a pithy sound bite rather than a dramatic statement? Who knows!

However, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Armstrong’s famous message from the moon, SentForever will shortly be allowing people to send free messages into space. Maybe your words for your loved one will mean just as much to them as Armstrong’s did to mankind forty years ago.

What do you think man’s first words from the moon might be if we landed there today?

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!

A Pale Blue Dot SentForever

Back in 1977, NASA launched two space probes to explore the farthest reaches of our solar system called Voyager 1 and 2. In 1990 NASA instructed Voyager 1 to look back at where it had come from and to take some images. One of them contained a picture of Earth taken from 4 billion miles away. It became known as the Pale Blue Dot picture, because that was all our Earth looked like in the vast expanse of space.

The astronomer and author Carl Sagan gave a talk that year where he said. “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”.

Now, this is where I get blown away because the point at which Voyager took that picture is reached by SentForever’s messages in just under 6 hours after transmission.

Voyager 1 has been traveling for almost 31 years and yet a message transmitted by SentForever will overtake that probe in just 15 hours. That’s because SentForever radio wave transmissions travel at the speed of light.

For me, this really puts our delicate existence in the universe into context. When you consider the miracle that is what we call “our everyday life” is us just floating in a vast cosmos of nothingness – why on earth would we waste our time arguing and fighting when we should be appreciating all the amazing things that we have?

What are your thoughts on this?