According to Matt Peckham of Time, the Mona Lisa is now over the moon — literally. NASA managed to beam her image nearly 240,000 miles directly to a satellite orbiting the lunar body using a laser from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to shoot the image to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter.
That’s a LONG sentence.
I could quote all the technical jargon involved, but suffice it to say that the process was difficult, detailed, time-consuming, and expensive. So why did NASA do this?
“In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide.”
Haven’t these people watched War of the Worlds or Independence Day? Now that the aliens think we are a race of chubby women with indigestion and no means of defending ourselves, what is to stop them from attacking immediately? If we are going to send images into space, let’s send Dirty Harry, Chuck Norris, or Bruce Willis. “Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya? Go ahead. Make my day.”
I’m going to my reinforced concrete bunker now to await the invasion. If you are here within a day, you can join me. Otherwise, it’s every girl for herself.
That is a long sentence but Jane supposedly has a longer one. I do agree that if we’re going to beam images into space we need to be more strategic in our thinking. Along with Chuck and Bruce, I’m thinking Godzilla and King Kong. Ahhhnold as the Terminator–the very bad one–and a couple of Transformers in action as well.
We could add Superman, The Fantastic Four, and the X Men to that list. Let’s let them see we are BAD. Don’t mess with us.
Let’s beam pictures of Henry Cavill in his Superman suit. On second thought, maybe not. Although he might frighten the males away, female aliens would be inclined to check him out in person.
We must keep all images of Henry Cavill, Colin Firth, Rupert Penry-Jones, Hugh Jackman, Richard Armitage, Liam Hemsley (and his brother), and Channing Tatum from being shot into space. Female aliens would head straight for our world in droves. We’ll also sequester Nacho for Lucy. ; )
LOL!!!! I’m with you on this one though- the Mona Lisa? Really?
Yep. Of all the images we could shoot into space, they chose the Mona Lisa. I just wonder at their line of reasoning.