For some background: I thought it’d be nice, as a little gesture for my girlfriend’s birthday, to send a message commemorating our relationship into space, where it will travel among the stars for all eternity, that sort of thing. Yes, I know that it will quickly fade beyond detectability, but that’s not the point.
Anyway, I figured there’d probably be some business offering something like this somewhere – and it turns out there is, but unfortunately, they’re not sending right now (something about being unable to renew their transmission license). Now what?
Of course, technically, almost everything I commit to the ether reaches space, but I wanted it to be a conscious, deliberate sending into space, rather than merely leaking out; I’d settle for just having some reasonably strong transmitter broadcast the message, but it ought to be something like this at least.
Of the various alternatives I’ve considered so far, there’s this site which however doesn’t seem entirely trustworthy (you just enter the message, click ‘add to cart’, and then what? Even the ‘about’ page is just an unmodified standard text…). Also, there were various projects about sending a message to Gliese and similar things, but all of those seem to be over and done with. Then there’s the KEO satellite, but right now it seems somewhat dubious that it’ll ever launch… They’ve been talking about sending it up since when, 2006?
So if anybody knows about any place that rents out transmission time at a reasonable (i.e. cheap) rate, or perhaps happens to operate a radio telescope or something, any help would be appreciated!
find a ham radio operator that communicates through one of the ham radio satellites or through moon bounce, they send signals intentionally into space. though any ham operator operating a radio on those UHF frequency ranges has signals go into space all the time, if they have a directional antenna they can aim it skyward for a conscious, deliberate sending into space.
Get a flashlight and send it in Morse Code. Do this at night, and when there are no clouds, to get the best contrast against the surrounding area. Point away from the moon, and aim for the darkest part of the sky, to ensure that it travels as far a possible.
Yes, I concede that this message will fade somewhat faster than that of the ham operator. But on the plus side, the cost and convenience factors are significant, and you can send repeated or varying messages whenever you want. And consider that there could well be civilizations which see your wide-spectrum light beam, but aren’t listening to the exact radio frequency that the ham operator is sending on.
Buy a commercial on a radio station with a powerful transmitter. Then you have the extra benefit that your girlfriend can hear it (given advance notice, of course).
or request a song to be played on a radio station (folk, jazz and classical stations or shows still might do this regularly) and make that short message part of the song request dedication. though this might be more of the leaking method that you mentioned, but it is powerful, easy and no cost.
I was going to suggest having a ham radio operator transmit the message in Morse code. Thinking about it, maybe transmit the message in binary code via a blue laser? Either that or commandeer the ISS and use nukes to blast the message into a rocky desert. Something like the Nazca lines. Just make sure you spell-check the hell out of the message before you start.