SENT FOREVER... At 8:07 PM, California time yesterday (4:07 AM London time today), a large satellite dish in Cornwall, United Kingdom began transmitting into deep space a signal containing a text message I submitted on Monday morning. The signal was transmitted courtesy of a website known as SentForever.com...which specializes in gathering messages by people and sending them not only up into outer space, but to their loved ones via a mailed "Certificate of Transmission". This is pretty much the cosmic version of sending holiday greeting cards to folks you know.
Unlike the signal that was sent on behalf of the Hello From Earth campaign more than a month ago [this signal has traveled 643 billion miles across space, on its way to exoplanet Gliese581d (which is 20.3 light-years from Earth), since August 27], the Sent Forever transmission has no specific destination it will reach. As stated about a jillion times on the website, the message will travel through the heavens for all of eternity...hence the obvious name, Sent Forever. This bodes well for my Hello From Earth message. The Sent Forever site states that "radio waves will get weaker over time, but be assured that (my) message will travel for an eternity" in space. The radio waves are sent from Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in the UK. Goonhilly is the site of over 60 communications dishes...making it the largest satellite tracking station in the world before satellite operations ceased there in 2008. The largest dish at Goonhilly is 32 meters (about 105 feet) in diameter, while the NASA Deep Space Network antenna that was used to transmit the Hello From Earth signal from Australia is 70 meters (or 230 feet) in diameter. If a radio signal sent from the much-smaller Goonhilly antenna can travel through the cosmos forever, then the transmission sent by NASA’s dish can also, um...last a very long time.
The difference between Sent Forever and Hello From Earth is that with Sent Forever, you have to PAY to have your message transmitted into the sky. This is because Sent Forever is an actual business that’s been around in the UK since 2007. And since Sent Forever actually has a satellite dish at Goonhilly that is primarily/supposedly modified for the company’s needs, then Sent Forever needs to charge dinero to keep the dish up and running. Also, Sent Forever needs to pay for printing as it mails out certificates to the people who sent messages...which is ironic...considering that I do believe that the point of Sent Forever was to reduce the waste caused by using greeting cards and other paper products, and letting a loved one (God, I hate using that term) know you care about ‘em through a more permanent (and environmentally friendly) method. That’s where a deep space radio signal comes from.
If you want your name and message radioed up into space over and over and over, just keep dishing out—no pun intended--$15.00 (US currency) to Sent Forever. That’s £9.95 if you’re a Brit. Which I’m not. So I’ll just say $15.00. I’ll probably submit another message a few months from now...this time devoted to either Lauren Conrad or Megan Fox. Probably Lauren Conrad. Only kidding. That’s what happens when you don’t have a girlfriend—err, loved one. That is all.
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