Hello world beyond

On equipment from the Carter era, computer programming, and NASA's small but big triumph

NASA shares the good news that they have managed to re-establish a data link with Voyager 1. A computer chip on the probe went bad in November, and it's taken until now to implement a solution.

■ Voyager is a fascinating project, having been launched in 1977 and now officially in interstellar space. That the equipment is working at all after more than 40 years of motion and cosmic radiation is pretty amazing.

■ But it should really command some admiration that people on the Voyager team at NASA committed the effort to figure out a way around the hardware problem and re-program the chip from 15 billion miles away.

■ It says something good about the natural curiosity of our species that we want to know what's out there, so far away, and that we're willing to try some pretty challenging things to figure it out. Someday those signals will probably be lost for good, but for now, Voyager lives to transmit for another day (whatever that means once you're beyond the reach of your home star).