https://news.yahoo.com/nasa-starting-sh ... 22555.html
It's basically a summary of this earlier article
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ower-down/
After reading about how far away these spacecraft are -as BHA* Carl Sagan would say, "billions and billions of miles"- and that they've been through the ravages of space for forty four years, the authors dropped this gem.
My mind goes back to romantic nights in the fastback GTO, with the soundtrack provided by the then ubiquitous 8 track player DIY'd under the dashboard.SciAm article wrote:All the data collected by the spacecraft instruments would be stored on eight-track tape recorders
And the shoebox filled with alternate 8 track tapes.
Then even more incredulously,
NASA and JPL have been using an 8 track tape as the Voyagers primary memory and sensors recording media since 1977?!?
Makes one give pause to all the bad press that format and media has been given all these years. Bill Lear -inventor of the 8track tape and player along with his famous jet- would be proud.
Today there's news that one of the mars rovers is -or will soon be- giving up the ghost less than a decade after launch.
Maybe they shoulda used 8 track tape too?
*https://www.engadget.com/2014-02-26-whe ... twice.html
https://www.cracked.com/article_31076_c ... -head.html
