# Soviet messages to the Stars?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-messages-to-the-stars/831292>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 18, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-messages-to-the-stars/831292 "2019-03-18T01:53:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-messages-to-the-stars/831292/1 "2019-03-18T01:53:54Z")

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The Arecibo Radio Antenna Sent a coded message to a Globular Cluster, Pioneer 10 and 11 had plaques, and Voyagers 1 and 2 had Golden Records…all using the Universal Language of Mathematics and Science to let some possible extraterrestrial intelligence far in the future understand who we were.

Did the Soviets do something similar?

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**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-messages-to-the-stars/831292/2 "2019-03-18T02:32:35Z")

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Dunno about radio transmissions, but only the US has launched probes that would (eventually) be leaving our solar system.

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**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soviet-messages-to-the-stars/831292/3 "2019-03-18T06:42:41Z")

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> [@Santos\_L\_Halper](#):
>
> Dunno about radio transmissions, but only the US has launched probes that would (eventually) be leaving our solar system.

Alexandr Zaitzev is one of the leading proponents of METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence).

> **[Alexander Zaitsev (astronomer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Leonidovich_Zaitsev)**
>
> Aleksandr Leonidovich Zaitsev (Russian: Александр Леонидович Зайцев; 19 May 1945 – 29 November 2021) was a Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer from Fryazino. He worked on radar astronomy devices, near-Earth asteroid radar research, and SETI.
> Zaitsev received his M.Sc. degree in radio engineering from the Moscow Mining University in 1967 and his Ph.D. (1981) and his postdoctoral lecture qualification (1997) in radar astronomy from the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics...

> [@](#):
>
> Zaitsev supervised the transmission of the 1999 and 2003 Cosmic Calls [11] from Yevpatoria Planetary Radar[12] (EPR).[13][14][15] Under his leadership, a youth group in Moscow composed and broadcast a ‘Teen Age Message to ETI’.

I’ve had a few chats with him on the Interwebs (or maybe someone who was pretending to be him); he is quite convinced that sending messages of this kind is both safe and a good idea. I am less convinced.