Jimmy Carter’s note placed on the Voyager spacecraft from 1977 and the relevant discussion from Reddit. It is pure gold

The Voyager spacecraft is a message in a bottle from the entire planet. The intent of the quote is that the power of potential should be overwhelming to even the most macho man.

A newborn child is full of potential for greatness or destruction, it is impossible to say.

The death of a loved one means the end of someone’s potential. There is no next hug, or future conversation anymore.

The most likely outcome is that Voyager will continue to fly away from us until long after we all cease to be, even after our planet and our sun are dead, it will still be chugging along slowly offering an olive branch to a people that probably never existed.

But there is the potential that Voyager is our first contact and that it is a message of peace. Even in our trying times of Mutually Assured Destruction, we were able to put together a little note of our entire history, knowledge, and experience. We looked at ourselves with outside eyes and we asked ourselves what makes us us? Then we shot it to outer space with one of our strongest rockets then available.

The best hope of Voyager ever being found is that of future space-faring humans. What will they think of their ancestors when they see it? Will they remember it from their education, or will it be an artifact of a forgotten civilization?

The profundity of its smallness and slowness, being yet one of our most sophisticated pieces of technology, and bringing a message of optimism that will almost certainly never be heard is pretty damned charming.

What if these same words in an alien language translated to a declaration of war? They’ll probably read it as: “Hey stupid aliens…we’re 200 billion strong and we’re comin’ to getcha! Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!!! I dare you to attack the President of the United States of America and the White House on June 16 with 1977 of your most powerful spacecraft! ”