Time has been a part of tales and stories as long as people have been passing tales from one generation to the next. Rip Van Winkle could be said to be the first time traveler, although his trip was accidental and unfortunately only in one direction. Since then, many other authors and story tellers have explored the options of moving back and forth through the passages of Time itself. Some books have been about a single person exploring the past and future, others about groups large and small making the trip across the temporal borders that separate today from yesterday and tomorrow. Entire entertainment franchises have been built around making trips through time itself and the unique perks and problems these trips involve.
Thanks in part to modern physicists like Einstein and Hawking, a tool for modern authors exists that can make time travel more feasible and technological. Approaching the speed of light would alter the flow of time one experiences in relation to those moving through the universe at a more mundane pace. As one travels at speeds approaching the speed of light, time would move more slowly for the traveler than for those at home. This takes place today. Some satellites in orbit travel at such a high rate of speed, their clocks must be periodically reset or they would go out of sync with ground control.
With this in mind, it is entirely possible for a living "time capsule" to be developed. Something like the discs loaded on the Voyager, a ship with a small crew and filled with cultural data could be set on a course to deep space and back to Earth at an extremely high rate of speed. This would allow them to share modern viewpoints with anthropologists and researchers hundreds of generations down the road. Imagine how much more we as a society might know if members of some of the lost civilizations like the Mayans, the Moai builders of Easter Island, or the residents of the temple in Angkor Wat were still around today to explain how they viewed their worlds.
I make this recording as a part of the permanent log of the spacecraft Hartnell as a part of "Operation: Van Winkle." We were about two-thirds of the way through a mission with very simple parameters. All we had to do was accelerate to a speed that approached the speed of light, coast for a few years, then return to Earth and quickly decelerate. There we would share with the population the shared knowledge, values, and societal norms of the planet we left. While just over a couple of decades would have passed for us, numerous generations would have passed for those back home. Our crew would be the first time capsule that could explain the importance of the past to those that "dug it up."
The 50 members of the crew all had experience in multiple disciplines including electronics, engineering, communications, biology, and even some linguistics. Over the first few relative of the 25 we were away from Earth, we all shared our knowledge with each other. This was done for two reasons. One was intentional, to make each one of us a backup contingency in case one or more members of the crew fell to some unexpected illness. In the beginning, it also gave us something to do to fill the endless hours as our ship accelerated through empty space. Nothing more was required of us than double checking our position and course and ensuring the environmental systems were still functioning. All of the members of the crew were selected for their patience and ability to remain focused despite numerous possible distractions.
One major advantage of our "cargo" was the nearly endless supply of entertainment in a multitude of languages and genres. Mornings would be spent performing simple maintenance on the ship and its systems. Books, movies, and music we consumed during most afternoons, depending on the preference of the individual or plans for later. Debates and discussions filled the evenings. Comparisons were made between comedic movies from Korea and Japan. The progression of science fiction in relation to actual scientific advances was a topic of many conversations. Even the definition, content, and distribution of pornography made for more than a couple nights' late night topics. In order to further clarify what we had for future generations, we recorded ourselves so that our words could be added to the library of culture that was to be shared.
The last 16 years had taught us a lot about each other and the shared history of all of humanity. There was still enough for us to learn even more over the next 9 years. Even the relative isolation from other crew members forced on us by the rapid deceleration during the last year and a half of our trip will be filled with final log entries, summaries of our explorations into our "cargo," and attempts to communicate with the current residents of Earth. As much as we could hope that records of our existence would last hundreds of years, none of us really expected that to be the case.
Time capsules have been buried for all kinds of lengths of time in all manner of containers and places. Why not one for all of humanity in space?
When you think of time travel, what is the first franchise that comes to mind? Leave a comment and let me know.
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