Stars & Stripes Leaving Solar System

Here's an appropriate report for the 4th of July regarding NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft and the flag it carries.

The spaceflying American flag is a not a huge version of Old Glory, but will be the only one flying more than 10.5 billion miles (16.9 billion km) from Earth this Fourth of July. It is riding on Voyager 1, a 33-year-old space probe on the outskirts of our solar system.

Another far-flung American flag is flying on Voyager 2, which is about 8.6 billion miles (13.8 billion km) from Earth. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are on trajectories to leave the solar system behind after passing through a magnetic bubble-like region called the heliosphere.

A NASA photo of the Voyager 2 American flag shows it to be a small U.S. standard packed alongside other mementos from Earth, like the iconic golden record that were also launched the spacecraft and contain messages from Earth for any extraterrestrials that may find them.

"We were extraordinarily proud of what we were doing as a laboratory, as a part of NASA and as a country and we felt it was important to make a statement to that effect," said Jet Propulsion laboratory scientist John Casani, NASA's Voyager project manager at the time it was launched, in a statement provided to SPACE.com this week.

"I'm gratified that Voyager is still sailing out there, bearing America's colors. What it represents to us is an affirmation of the pride we had at that time."

Yep, it's about the pride we, as Americans, used to have. Depressing, eh?