NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter's Moon Europa
jpl.nasa.gov
jpl.nasa.gov
[1] https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laur...
I also found it pretty lacking in emotion (although it seems that was what they were going for) and prolix.
In my opinion, it's OK, but not her best work. Which I suppose is inevitable, since she's writing it on spec rather than from her heart. Compare it to "Sharks in the Rivers", which I like better:
https://poets.org/poem/sharks-rivers
Calling out "the whale song, the songbird singing" feels facile to me. These are easy, accessible "mysteries", cliches.
But of course she's been asked for something generic about how great it is to explore stuff, so you're gonna get cliches. Her concluding stanza does it better: "We, too, are made of wonders, of great/and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,/of a need to call out through the dark." Again, it's mostly stuff we've heard a thousand times before, but it's got a bit more panache. "Call out through the dark" is more viscerally relevant to the mission, and emotionally engaging.
I also like her references to water. I dunno if that was just what was handed to her as part of the spec, but it's concretely about this specific mission. "O second moon, we, too, are made/of water, of vast and beckoning seas." That's the best line in the poem, the one that really says why we're doing what we're doing. (I wouldn't have used "second moon", at least not without some kind of payoff about the evocative word "second", but maybe it'll feel stronger if I sit with it for a bit.)
It's stronger read aloud than silently. Though to my mind, since this is conspicuously an inscription, I'd have wanted to rely on that less.
These are, of course, just my opinions, which are worth the paper they're written on.
> [jfengel] I am. (Or at least, adjacent to one, a Shakespeare scholar.)
I love this about HN. It gave me "Are you John Nagle, or was that a quote?" classic vibes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9048947
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.
"Help I'm trapped in a spaceship factory!"
"Turn over for important message." (on both sides)
"Duck"
"For a good time call 1-800-elon-sux"
And of course,
"New tablet who dis?"
“This way to Uranus.”
"Listen carefully."
"Message ahead."
"Try finger, but hole."
ASL sign for water looks like three fingers tapped on the chin. I'm not seeing the resemblance to that polar grid shape.
Anyone besides earthlings who can read the message would come from outside our solar system, so why put the message on Europa instead of the many other possibilities? Why would the interstellar travelers head for Europa? If they master interstellar travel, they could find Earth.
Which makes me wonder, why not cover the massive metal vault's surface with more engravings?
> On it is written a very recognizable Precursor inscription, repeated over and over all over its surface; though it has not been completely translated, it seems obvious that the message is a warning. [1]
[1] - https://wiki.starcontrol.com/index.php?title=Utwig_Bomb
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS – EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
These are people who have dedicated their entire lives to the pursuit of science and discovery for the pure love of curiosity. These missions aren't capitalistic ventures, we do it to feed our curious human nature and to scientifically and philosophically learn more about ourselves and our place in the universe.
Missions like this make a lot of these scientists emotional, so I appreciate that they're able to put a little bit of ourselves as humans on these missions, however symbolic it is.