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Manuscript/Mixed Material Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record

About this Item

Title

  • Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record

Names

  • Lomax, Alan (Correspondent)
  • Sagan, Carl (Author)

Created / Published

  • June 6, 1977

Headings

  • -  Sagan, Carl
  • -  Communication in science
  • -  Extraterrestrial life
  • -  Life on other planets
  • -  Outer space--Exploration
  • -  NASA
  • -  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • -  Voyager Golden Record
  • -  Voyager Project (U.S.)
  • -  Lomax, Alan
  • -  Ethnomusicology
  • -  Correspondence

Genre

  • Correspondence

Notes

  • -  Carl Sagan thanks Alan Lomax for agreeing to contribute his expertise in ethnomusicology to the help make final musical selections for the Voyager Golden Record. Voyager Golden Records are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for future humans, who may find them. In this letter, Sagan describes the Voyager mission and explains that the record has "a probable lifetime of a billion years" noting that "it is unlikely that many other artifacts of humanity will survive for so prodigious a period of time."

Medium

  • Dimensions in inches: 11 x 8 1/2

Call Number/Physical Location

  • AFC 2004/004: Folder 13.04.15 (6/6)(1/2) Voyager (NASA) correspondence, notes, research documents 1977-1992; Carl Sagan; Warner New Media, Blake Lewis

Source Collection

  • Alan Lomax Collection (AFC 2004/004)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Online Format

  • online text
  • pdf
  • image

IIIF Presentation Manifest

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Lomax, Alan, and Carl Sagan. Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record. June 6, 1977. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000113/.

APA citation style:

Lomax, A. & Sagan, C. (1977) Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record. June 6. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000113/.

MLA citation style:

Lomax, Alan, and Carl Sagan. Letter to Alan Lomax Regarding the Voyager Golden Record. June 6, 1977. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000113/>.