Wondrous encounters in space

The achievements of the twin Voyager craft are a space triumph that nearly wasn’t.

THE Voyager 1 spacecraft is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. Even if defined only by distance, the Nasa/Jet Propulsion Laboratory twin Voyagers are America’s greatest space adventure. They’ve been flying successfully for more than 36 years and are billions of kilometres from home. What isn’t widely known is that they almost never made it out there.