To learn to play the record you've gotta play the record?
That thing is such a D/K pop-sci manifestation.
The writers of the Star Trek movie understood that Sagan's extra-solar artifact is merely a time capsule; humanity talking to its future self.
Some great grandchild of a millennial vinyl nerd, who lives and loves on the engineering deck of some Hyatt Regency in space, will have kept a perfectly maintained Technics, handed down across the generations, leading to a future crowd in ""Ten Forward"" being regaled by Sagan's Cosmos on a similarly well-maintained Magnavox 32-inch tube TV and VHS. "Billions of fucks were given for V'Ger to come back to us..." The meetup will be hosted by a curiously bald supermodel, a hunky but demure mensch, and an AI Carl Sagan.