Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: S-Band Beacon on Moon
Message-ID: <1989Jul22.005353.800@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1473@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> <1989Jul17.230138.26746@utzoo.uucp> <683@aurora.AthabascaU.CA> <1989Jul20.155847.15452@utzoo.uucp> <3828@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 89 00:53:53 GMT

In article <3828@portia.Stanford.EDU> joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger) writes:
>Here's a question I've always wanted to ask: why even bother to shut the
>things off? Just ignore them, and if they're still working a few years later
>when you change your mind, so much the better. 

Unfortunately, spectrum space is not in overwhelmingly abundant supply, so
it's considered desirable to shut down transmitters that you are no longer
listening to.  (It is also considered desirable to have a way to shut the
transmitters absolutely and permanently off, so they can't reawaken due to
static in the receivers and the like.)

>If they had shut off the
>deep space network, would they have given a command to the Voyagers and
>pioneers "make no further broadcasts, accept no further instructions from
>Earth"?

Very probably.
-- 
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo.  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu