Voyager’s Golden Record (Hardback)
An Enduring Reflection
Jon Lomberg , Deana Weibel, Glen Swanson
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A ground-breaking exploration of Voyager's Golden Record - complete with never-before-seen content to celebrate the 50th anniversary since launch
The Golden Record is an icon of the space age, designed as a time capsule for all of life on Earth in the hope that, one day, intelligent beings will find it, and play it. The phonographs contain etchings of radio waves and the structure of DNA; photographs of maps and classrooms, crocodiles and skyscrapers; music from around the world, spoken greetings in numerous languages, and the Earth sounds of laughter and whalesong.
In 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched into space. Since they left Earth, the probes have travelled billions of miles, the only human-made objects to have entered interstellar space. And with each of them, speeding ever farther from our world, is a copy of The Golden Record.
Jon Lomberg, the design director of the Golden Records, NASA historian Glen Swanson, and space anthropologist Deana Weibel offer a record of the Golden Record: a first-hand account of its making, and humanity's enduring ambition to converse with the cosmos.
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Jon Lomberg
Jon Lomberg is an artist famous for his many collaborations with Carl Sagan, including COSMOS and CONTACT. He is the author of Murmurs of the Earth, co-authored with Sagan, as well as The Grand Cosmic Story and Voyager's Golden Record.
He was Design Director for the Voyager Golden Record. He also helped design four message artifacts on spacecraft now on Mars. Lomberg has an asteroid named after him for his many contributions to science communication. He lives in Kona Hawaii.
Deana Weibel
Deana L. Weibel, Ph.D. is a Professor of Anthropology at Grand Valley State University
(jointly appointed in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies) and Chair of the Chicago/Great 22 Lakes Chapter of The Explorers Club.
A scholar of exploration, spirituality, and symbolism, she is the author of The Ultraview Effect: What We Can Learn from Astronauts About Awe, Humility, and Exploring the Unknown, published by University of California Press in 2026.
Weibel's work bridges cultural and scientific study, exploring how acts of discovery become expressions of faith and curiosity. In Voyager's Golden Record, she examines the Golden Record as both scientific artifact and act of self-expression, a planetary statement that is as much about being human as about being heard.
Glen Swanson
Glen E. Swanson is a historian of space exploration and former Chief Historian of
NASA's Johnson Space Center, where he led the digitization of the Apollo mission transcripts
and served as a consultant to astronauts, authors, and filmmakers.
A Fellow of The Explorers Club, Swanson is the author of Inspired Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian, and the Aerospace Community Helped Launch Star Trek (Schiffer, 2025) as well as numerous essays on NASA history and the culture of spaceflight.
His research sheds light on how the Golden Record emerged from NASA's post-Apollo environment, an era of budgetary restriction and necessary innovation, and how the Voyagers' journey reshaped humanity's sense of itself.