TL:DR Mat is supposed to be packing for a festival but floated off into an existential space journey of no return.

Packing up for Rave Oddessy part 4 and I saw a post about Voyager 1, which will be one light day away from Earth soon.

I've always had a weird affinity and affection for this space probe, quite possibly because it has a gold record onboard and I am obsessed with vinyl records. More than that though, the fact NASA sent an object out, into the void, never to return, with messages from Earth in the unlikely event that other beings might one day discover and decipher it, feels hopeful and a little naive. It feels like that spirit of adventure and hope has been lost, replaced by the monetisation of space and the inevitable littering that always follows capitalism around.

I often think about this probe being lonely, stoically travelling away from home, and sending messages back, like postcards from a permanent holiday (I have similar anthropomorphic feelings about Curiosity Rover on Mars, but that might be down to me watching Wall-E with the kids so many times).

Being a little maudlin, it feels like we jettisoned our hope and dreams, which are ever moving farther away from home, sending messages back to a place that has changed in ways it will never know.

Maybe that's it. Maybe the reason I love Voyager is because it represents oblivious hope, ever distanced from here, not witnessing what I see around me.

So, anyway, back to Earth and my Rave Oddessy. Hopefully, for a while at least, I can get a light day away from Earth for a bit and keep hope inside me for a while.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/voyager-golden-record-overview/