Bots are everywhere, except today two bots are now so far beyond Pluto their signal takes a year to reach Earth.
These were the amazing Voyager spacecraft; remember when these machines (sorry i meant bots) were made Humans could barely reach Mars, never the less these bots had to launch some 12 years after the idea to do this thing had occurred.
Simply it was 175 years ago "the planets were in alignment", I have always WANTED to write that; and 'mean' it :)
The early 1960's saw a young astronomy student trying to finish his doctorate. But things were different in the 1960's and this young man was having a hard time fitting in all his required coursework. One his supervisors said, "be gone from my sight oh knave and plot the charting of the other planets locations", or something like that...
This young student went; they are keeping me away from important work with this time wasting task. Knowing he had to graduate if he ever wanted to even start earning a strange thing called "steem" (sorry I meant 'money', my Bad) He started collecting all this meaningless data.
As he churned over mountains of materials he thought 'let us visualise' all this stuff so he drew a very accurate orbit map for Jupiter, checked his calculations and did the same for Saturn. Given cosmology and time scales he simply could not believe that in the depths of space Jupiter and Saturn were almost next to each other. What was even cooler was Saturn was 'behind' Jupiter.
Next he did the same for Uranus and thought well "its in the same area, but not close", then when he did Neptune he found Neptune aligned and slightly behind Uranus; similarly as the two other planets.
Off he raced, someone said let us visit these planets (the two inner ones) they were told they could not get anywhere reliably past Mars, someone said we do not care; this is to good an opportunity to miss. You have ten years; "make it happen"...
The Pioneers were sent to test bots technology and sniff a way though the asteroid belt, Voyager one would be slingshotted around the Sun to gain tremendous speed to meet first Jupiter then 18 months later Saturn. It was simply an all or nothing; if the bots could not launch in 1977, they would have to await another 175 for their next chance.
Since it was an all or nothing mission Voyager two was sent as a back up and to swing past the other two planets Uranus and Neptune while Voyager one focused on Jupiter and Saturn. Every month something new was discovered that would have destroyed the bots if it had not been found and planned into the bots or mission profile.
Eventually; "ready or not" construction had to start work and these wondrous little 'bots' that could were built, meanwhile deep space relay communications and tracking stations and all the other materials were assembled. This was no real time for bureaucracy; they were on a mission ;)
Both bots arrived on station and found so much information it literally took years to relay it back to Earth. Both bots survived to point their little cameras back and photograph Saturn and Earth looking from the outside inwards...
Since these little bots visited a few moon for each planet and discovered dozens and dozens more, many more missions have followed; each one bigger and bolder than the last. Today Jupiter and Saturn are almost as well studied as Mars and Venus, but much farther away.
All because two little bots, did what no one really believed they could achieve. The Bots carry messages on a gold disk from Earth to whatever intelligent life they meet on their never ending journey...
Live Long and Prosper little Bots...
hugz/