News about Blind Willie Johnson

Unbelievable as it may seem today, the computers on the Voyager 1 spacecraft, considered state-of-the-art back in 1977 - the year Elvis left the building for the last time - have 240,000 times less memory than an iPhone. The radio antenna, protruding from the central circular dish like the antenna on a robotic insect, is equally archaic, emitting as many watts as a refrigerator lightbulb. As for the onboard tape recorder, which is constantly on, it differs little from the one in a typical 1970s car, like, say, a Ford Cortina. The reason the machine is permanently whirring, by the way, is because the small amount of heat it generates is enough to keep the nearby fuel propellant line from freezing. Today, after nearly 50 years exploring the cosmic unknown and clocking up, incredibly and against all expectations, 15 billion miles, this little tin can - the size of a small car - is still going and communicating with ground control on Earth.