Bounced from the Moon
Wow! I am really happy right now because of a great experience I had an hour or so ago. While setting up all the kit for the Moon Bounce Poem tomorrow and testing it, I got my voice bounced from the Moon and back to Earth. When I say my voice, it wasn't via sound waves. My voice was turned into radio waves and transmitted at the Moon. Some of those radio waves were reflected back towards Earth and picked up by the giant Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory where they were converted back into an audio signal. The round trip took about 2 and a half seconds.
I actually didn't know I was going to be able to say anything so I didn't have anything planned for such an amazing occasion. On the spot, I had to come up with something short. So what great insightful thing did I say? Why, "Hello Earth" of course. A second or so later the faint echo came back through the PA system. It was fantastic to think that my voice, if not me, had gone to the Moon and back. That is probably the closest I'll get to going there. I'm still buzzing.
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