Faces from Earth

A Faces from Earth campaign to introduce the concept of possible extraterrestrial life, interstellar messages and the importance of the Voyager missions to school students.

"Faces from Earth is paying tribute to the Voyager missions and the grand concepts embodied by them and all those who made it possible.  For in a very real sense the space probes became reality by a collective effort of our civilization, both directly and indirectly.  The Voyagers gave us our first real taste, both through their journeys past immense and amazing alien worlds as never witnessed before and the messages and information they carry in those small golden discs on their sides, of what the Cosmos is really like and how we in turn appear in relation to all that vastness of space and time.

Faces from Earth is keeping alive those representation and messages for the current and future generations of humanity, for we are even now becoming Citizens of the Galaxy, no longer confined to the savannahs or villages or even this single planet.  While we are still very much the biological creatures of our distant ancestors, we now have an awareness and abilities they never dreamed of.  We must mature into the species we are moving towards, one which embodies and embraces new worlds and new ways of life scarcely imaged in the past or even now.  Faces from Earth will work together with all those who share the dream of being part of a humanity achieving its full potential among the stars."

- from: The Enduring Legacy of the Voyagers – by Larry Klaes, our Lead Journalist

The campaign shall introduce the following questions to students: 

• what if there is extraterrestrial life out there?
• what would we say to a hypothetical E.T.?
• what would you have included in the Voyager Golden Record?
  

This is the second campaign of the series and it will run as a tribute to Voyager missions on their 33rd launch anniversary – Voyager 1 - 5 September 1977 and Voyager 2 - 20 August 1977. The campaign will focus on our past space probe messages – the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golden Record -, radio transmissions (Arecibo Message, Cosmic Calls, Teen Age Message, ...).  The same time we introduce our project Faces from Earth.

We are preparing our next E.T. are You out there? campaign, slated for the period 5 Sep - 26 Sep 2010, this time celebrating and paying tribute to the Voyager missions. Our Lead Journalist Larry Klaes introduces You to the fascinating story of these already legendary spacecraft. Remember, they are already on duty since 33 years,  and still counting.

"Faces from Earth is paying tribute to the Voyager missions and the grand concepts embodied by them and all those who made it possible. For in a very real sense the space probes became reality by a collective effort of our civilization, both directly and indirectly. The Voyagers gave us our first real taste, both through their journeys past immense and amazing alien worlds as never witnessed before and the messages and information they carry in those small golden discs on their sides, of what the Cosmos is really like and how we in turn appear in relation to all that vastness of space and time."

E.T are you out there? is a campaign of "Faces from Earth" project to introduce the concept of possible extraterrestrial life and interstellar messages to school students. The campaign introduced the questions to students: "what if there is extraterrestrial life out there?, what would we say to a hypothetical E.T.?". Thinking about these questions leads naturally to consider topics like sensitive communication, self-reflection, responsible preparation and handling of encounters by adults and students.

It was participated by school student groups in five countries; Hungary, Germany, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Ukraine during May 2010. Each of the groups started with an introduction to past space probe messages – the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golden Record -, radio transmissions (Arecibo Message, Cosmic Calls, Teen Age Message, ...). At the end of the activity, each student/group created a “constructed message” for E.T. Some of the groups released completed messages with helium balloons as a message in a bottle.

A project of peregrinus interstellar.

Our Mission in the framework of Faces from Earth is to

• provide information on Messages from Earth - history, rationale, possible effects on humanity
• organize events to educate the public about space and astronomy and to promote deep space missions
• compile next messages to put on board for future deep space missions - including a holographic library of photographic faces of people and Mosaic Earth

The importance of being in essence respectful citizens of the galaxy and giving some kind of valuable legacy to our children is a driving force in the creation of Faces From Earth. It is designed to bring together people from multiple fields and disciplines across human culture to more fully represent the beings and items of our world to the Universe on all future deep space missions. We invite you and those who you think may be interested in such a project to join Faces From Earth to participate in our historic emergence into the Cosmos.

Faces from Earth - Prelude