35 years of the Voyager space probe

Almost 35 years after it launched the space probe Voyager I is once more in the news. The craft that was built at NASA's JPL(jet propulsion lab) in California has now reached the edge of our solar system and pardon the Star Trek Reference is about to go where no man-made craft has before. The craft will keep going into interstellar space for another 13 years but it will stop transmitting back to Earth long before that time. For those of us that were around back in the 1970's we recall space exploration was all the talk of the day. The moon landings were still fresh in our minds, Skylab had our attention, the mariner probe had just been launched and we were eager to know more about what is out there. Soon that need for more exploration was answered when Voyager came on the scene in 1977 that would tell us more about the planets, comets and what ever else was out there in our solar system. The news was filled with talk of its nuclear propulsion system that would keep it going for decades, the advanced communication and video capabilities that would send back some of the most spectacular picture of our planets and the gold record that carried messages of welcome in several languages. On September 5th of 1977 came the big day that we long awaited when Voyager I would take off on its mission. After that day we eagerly await for its first pictures of Jupiter, the first planet on it mission of exploration, and in January of 1979 we were finally rewarded with some spectacular pictures of the gas giant that we knew very little. We found out more about the planet, its several moons and that just like Saturn there are rings around Jupiter. The next stop in its mission was Saturn where once again it sent us back some spectacular pictures of the ringed planet and its largest moon Titan. The close fly-by with the moon Titan though caused Voyager off of its original trajectory bringing any further exploration of Saturn to an end but not its overall mission. In 1979 anyone that saw the movie 'Star Trek:the motion picture' will remember that the movie was made around speculation of what might have happened to Voyager after it went into interstellar space. The space probe has picked up some alien technology and is returning to Earth leaving a line of destruction in its wake. The Enterprise is sent to stop it where they find out that it was the Voyager probe. Where they stopped it by letting the probe merge with one of their crew.