Israel and Nuclear Weapons (last updated February 11, 2004) (back to top)
Israel has long maintained that it will not introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East, but many believe that it has developed at least some weapons. According to reports by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Israel has enough nuclear material for between 98 and 172 weapons and is believed to have land-, sea- and air-based weapons.
Only five countries (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France) are supposed to have nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which forbids all other participating countries from developing or receiving nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed the NPT. The only other major countries not to have done so are India and Pakistan, which both conducted nuclear tests in 1998 and which are believed to have developed some nuclear weapons. Even North Korea and Iran have signed the treaty, though there have long been questions about those countries' compliance with the treaty's terms.
The belief that Israel has nuclear weapons helps provide Israel with security from its neighbors, with whom it has gone to several wars in the past, but it also raises the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the region. A nuclear explosion such as the one in this episode would be a provocative step that certainly would escalate tensions in the region.
Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Endowment's nonproliferation project, has written frequently about the need to have Israel abandon its nuclear programs in order to stabilize the region and the need for the United States to pressure its longtime ally to do so. "The United States does not see Israel as a threat - but other nations in the region. That is the whole point. By ignoring Israel's programs in order to protect the people of Israel, we may actually be increasing their danger," he wrote in May 2003.
Sources: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has resources on non-proliferation issues on-line here. Walter Pincus, Israel has sub-based atomic arms capability, Washington Post, June 15, 2002. Joseph Cirincione, Mr. Bush and Israel's nuclear weapons, The Globalist (May 27, 2003). The United Nations has information about the Non-Proliferation Treaty on-line here.
Iran and Nuclear Programs (last updated February 12, 2004) (back to top)
Iran has long been seen by the United States as a country actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. However, Iran began taking steps in late 2003 to disclose information about its nuclear activities, to suspend nuclear programs, and to cooperate with international inspections. On Dec. 18, Iran signed an Additional Protocol to supplement its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to give international inspectors more authority to verify compliance.
As part of its recent cooperative efforts, Iran has now acknowledged that it has been secretly producing small amounts of nuclear material that, with further processing, could be made suitable for weapons purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency noted in a November 10, 2003 report that "there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities … were related to a nuclear weapons programme. However, given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the Agecny is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes."
For years, the United States has raised concerns over Iran's efforts to develop a civilian nuclear energy program. A CIA report covering the first half of 2003 reported that the United States "remains convinced that Tehran has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program … and remain[s] concerned that Iran is developing enrichment technology to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons under the cover of legitimate fuel cycle activities." According to this report, the United States "also suspect[s] that Tehran is interested in acquiring fissile material and technology from foreign suppliers to support its overall nuclear weapons program."
Iran has one of the world's largest oil reserves and produces most of its electricity through such fossil fuels. Accordingly, the United States has questioned why Iran is seeking to develop a civilian nuclear program, raising concerns that Iran's ultimate goals are to develop infrastructure and expertise that could be diverted to weapons production and to produce the fissile material that could be used in such weapons. The United States has pressured Russia and other countries into halting efforts to help Iran develop its nuclear program, and enacted in 2000 a law imposing sanctions on those supporting such efforts.
Iran first began developing a civilian nuclear energy program in the 1970s, during the Shah's regime. The German contractor Siemens began construction of two reactors near Bushehr in 1974, but Iran stopped the project after the 1979 Islamic revolution, with the Ayatollah Khomeini calling it "anti-Islamic." The reactors were then damaged during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Despite Khomeini's earlier criticism, Iran began seeking ways in the early 1990s to complete construction of the reactors. In 1995, Russia agreed to finish the construction for about $1 billion but quickly dropped its additional plans to build a centrifuge plant that would enable Iran to enrich uranium for use as an energy source. President Boris Yeltsin made this reversal after a May 1995 summit meeting in which U.S. President Bill Clinton raised concerns that such additional infrastructure would enable Iran to develop the highly-enriched uranium necessary for an effective nuclear weapon.
In her 2000 book Persian Mirrors, reporter Elaince Sciolo mentions her own visit to the Beshehr plants. "For the Iranians, the enormous steel and concrete structures represent what might have been and what might be, a symbol of their legal right to develop nuclear energy and of their potential to become a great regional power. For the Americans, they represent a means for Iran to gain the expertise that could be used in a nuclear weapons program," she wrote.
"I visited the site in 1995 and it struck me quite differently: as an Iranian Chernobyl in the making."
Sources: The International Atomic Energy Agency has information on Iran here. The CIA's January-June 2003 report to Congress on the acquisition of technology relating to weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional munitions is on-line here. The Federation of American Scientists has a page on the Bushehr plants here. A subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held an October 5, 2000 hearing on "Iranian Weapons Programs: The Russian Connection." Greg J. Gerardi and Maryam Aharinejad, An Assessment of Iran's Nuclear Facilities, The Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1995. Michael R. Gordon, Russia to offer deal to end Iran nuclear aid, New York Times, March 17, 1999. Elaine Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran (The Free Press, 2000).
North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) (last updated October 15, 2003) (back to top)
North Korea, perhaps the most isolated country in the world today, has raised tensions around the world by developing a nuclear program that could be used to build nuclear weapons. In October 2003, a North Korean official said that the country is making nuclear bombs from plutonium it has reprocessed from spent fuel rods, though he also said that the country will not export the bombs or the bomb-making technology.
Recent Claims
The United States has said that it could not verify North Korea's latest statement. "This is the third time they have told us they'd just finished reprocessing the rods. We have no evidence to confirm that," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an Oct. 3 press conference. "The North Koreans go out of their way to make these statements from time to time. And we will continue to pursue diplomacy and not react to each and every one of their statements."
Still, there might be some truth to North Korea's claims. The New York Times reported on Oct. 14 that the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that North Korea probably has enough plutonium for two new nuclear weapons. CIA reports have stated that North Korea probably had enough plutonium as of the late 1990s for one or two nuclear weapons.
The United States has participated in several talks with North Korea and other Asian countries in an effort to defuse the situation, with the most recent talks being held in late August in Beijing. Bush administration officials have said the United States has no intention of invading North Korea, despite concerns that the justifications Bush used to invade Iraq would apply in even greater force to North Korea.
Background on Nuclear Issues
The possibility that North Korea was using its nuclear program to develop weapons has long been a concern for South Korea, Japan, and for the United States. President George W. Bush even condemned the country in early 2002 as one of several states constituting an "axis of evil" for its development of weapons of mass destruction (see text here).
North Korea then acknowledged in October 2002 that it had developed a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, an act widely seen as a violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework that seemed to resolve the first major crisis over North Korea's potential development of nuclear weapons. North Korea then expelled international nuclear inspectors on December 31, 2002 and announced on January 9, 2003 that it would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
A decade ago, North Korea provoked an earlier round of multilateral talks in 1993 by threatening to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States and North Korea than had several rounds of talks over the next year and a half, culminating in October 1994 with an Agreed Framework under which North Korea agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program, and both sides agree to cooperate to replace North Korea's graphite-moderated reactors for facilities with light-water power plants which would be safer and would produce less plutonium which could be used in atomic weapons. Both sides also agreed to move towards full normalization of political and economic relations.
The United States maintained nuclear weapons in South Korea in 1957 to 1991, when President George H.W. Bush removed the last remaining weapons from South Korea.
Background on North Korea
Arguably the most Communist and most isolated country in the world today, North Korea is led by Kim Jong-Il, who took over in 1994 after the death of his father, Kim Il-Song, who ruled the country as a one-man dictatorship since its formation until his death. The country's socialist economy is under tight state control, consists mostly of basic industrial production and agriculture, and is relatively weak, especially compared to neighboring South Korea; North Korea's GDP per capita is about 16 times smaller than South Korea's.
Although the economy is ostensibly based on the principle of "juche," or self-reliance, North Korea has suffered food problems since 1995 due to natural disasters, a 30 percent contraction with its domestic economy, and the lack of agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, according to the UN's World Food Programme, and the country has accepted foreign aid.
Despite its economic problems, North Korea still spends about a quarter to a third of its GNP on military. South Korea, on the other hand, spends a much smaller percentage of its GNP on the military but more than three times as much in absolute dollars ($12 billion, about 3 percent of GNP). According to the U.S. Secretary of Defense's 2000 report to Congress on the military situation in Korea, South Korea has quantitatively inferior but qualitatively superior military forces to North Korea. North Korea has the world's third largest army with 1 million active duty soldiers, an air force of more than 1,600 aircraft, and a navy of more than 800 ships. South Korea has an army of about 560,000 troops, an air force of more than 780 aircraft, and a navy of about 200 vessels.
Relations between North and South Korea took some steps forward in recent years, especially with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" in the late 1990s, which President Kim's successor, Roh Moo-hyun, has promised to continue. The first summit meeting between Korean leaders took place in June 2000 in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, and the two countries have allowed family reunions, a reconnection of national railroads, and some forms of economic cooperation.
North Korea has been officially designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Department, but it is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since 1987, when Korean Airlines Flight 858 was bombed in flight. Two North Korean agents planted the bomb and tried to commit suicide when arrested, but one, Kim Hyon Hui, a 25-year-old agent on her first mission, survived and was taken into custody. She later confessed and was sentenced to death, but was then given a presidential pardon on the grounds that she was brainwashed by North Korean leaders. As for previous instances, the most successful occurred in 1968, when North Korea sent a 31-man commando team to assassinate the president, got within a thousand yards of the Blue House before being repelled.
Sources: David E. Sanger, Intelligence puzzle: North Korean bombs, New York Times, October 14, 2003. James Brooke, Korean claim leaves U.S. concerned, but skeptical, New York Times, October 3, 2003. Secretary of State Colin Powell's September 3, 2003 comments are on-line here. Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Addison-Wesley, 1997). Bruce Cummings, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (W.W. Norton, 1997). The State Department has background notes on North Korea here and on South Korea here. The CIA's World Factbook has entries on North Korea here and South Korea here. The International Atomic Energy Agency is on-line here. The CIA's January 2002 report on the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is on-line here. The Federation of American Scientists has information on North Korea's nuclear weapons program here. The U.S. Secretary of Defense's 2000 report to Congress on the military situation on the Korean peninsula is on-line here, and the Defense Department's Responsibility Sharing Report for 2001, which contains information on troops stationed in South Korea as of 2000, is on-line here. The World Food Program is on-line here.
The Enola Gay Controversy (last updated January 27, 2002) (back to top)
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, the Enola Gay dropped the world's first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima; about 200,000 people died. Two days later, the United States dropped the world's first plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki. On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.
Whether the use of the atomic bomb was necessary to prevent the massive loss of American lives, and how many American lives were thus saved, are perhaps still the most controversial issues of World War II.
These debates drove most of the controversy surrounding the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's plans to display the Enola Gay on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The exhibit had been planned since the late 1980s and would have placed the Enola Gay into the context of World War II and of the nuclear arms race it effectively began, but was cancelled after vehement protest by veterans and many members of Congress.
Veterans, particularly in the American Legion and the Air Force Association, opposed the Smithsonian's planned exhibit, charging that the exhibit would demonize the United States' action as racist and would ignore how the bombing of Hiroshima both served as proper punishment for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and saved American lives by ending the war without a costly invasion.
How many lives is a subject of much speculation. Estimates have ranged from 30,000 (an estimate made for invading Kyushu, Japan's southernmost island) to more than a million (an estimate made by Secretary of War Henry Stimson in a 1947 article in Harper's magazine). Historian Barton Bernstein has argued that Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy estimated at a June 18, 1945 meeting that casualties would be no more than 63,000. Another difficulty in sorting out this issue is that casualties generally includes fatal and non-fatal injuries, so the actual cost in life is probably even lower than any estimates.
In any case, historians also dispute whether the bomb was necessary at all in forcing a surrender. Strategic bombing and an effective naval blockade had already weakened Japan, Soviet forces had gathered on the Manchurian border and were about to enter the war on a new front, and U.S. codebreakers had determined that Japan was interested in negotiating peace as long as it could retain its emperor.
The Smithsonian Controversy
The Smithsonian had been planning to display the Enola Gay in some fashion since the late 1980s, and began developing in the early 1990s an exhibition and script spotlighting the Enola Gay in an overall discussion of nuclear weapons. The controversy became public in March 1994, when the Air Force Association issued a "special report" criticizing an early and confidential version of the exhibition's proposed script.
One line in particular raised the ire of many: "For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism." According to museum director Martin Harwit in his book "An Exhibit Denied," the line was meant simply to explain why Japan would not surrender unless guarantees were made that the emperor could be retained, but had been already been taken out prior to the controversy as being "clumsy and easily misunderstood."
Some people contesting the exhibit said it violated federal law, specifically a provision under 20 USC 80a, which required that "the valor and sacrificial service of the men and women of the Armed Forces shall be portrayed as an inspiration to the present and future generations of America." Whether or not this statute actually could be read to ban the Enola Gay exhibit as planned, it simply did not apply to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum but to an armed forces museum that was authorized in 1961 and never funded or built.
(Under federal law, 20 USC 77a, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum "shall memorialize the national development of aviation and space flight; collect, preserve, and display aeronautical and space flight equipment of historical interest and significance; serve as a repository for scientific equipment and data pertaining to the development of aviation and space flight; and provide educational material for the historical study of aviation and space flight.")
Martin Harwit, director of the National Air and Space Museum, met with veteran's groups in the fall of 1994 to work out an acceptable script for the exhibit. The changes here - especially with the then upset many historians, scientists and activists.
At the same time, political pressure built up against the exhibit. As Republicans took control of the House and Senate in the fall of 1994, Congressional representation on the Smithsonian's board also changed hands, with Republicans taking control. In September 1994, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution expressing concern about the Enola Gay exhibition, and on January 24, 1995, 81 members of the House called for Harwit's resignation and for congressional hearings on the exhibit.
Finally, on January 30, 1995, Smithsonian Institution Secretary I. Michael Heyman canceled the exhibition and said the Enola Gay would be displayed without any historical context. He subsequently, as requested by the American Legion and Congressman Sam Johnson, stopped publication of the catalogue that would have accompanied the exhibition and cancelled all related materials.
The Enola Gay was displayed at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with a simple plaque for about 10 months in 1995. It was then restored for display at the Air and Space Museum's additional facility at Dulles National Airport and is now open for public viewing.
NOTE: Though the bombing of Hiroshima has been much debated since 1945, the bombing of Nagasaki has not been defended by many. Historical evidence shows that Truman ordered on July 25 that bombs be used "as soon as made ready" and that he did not retain control over each attack, so that Nagasaki was bombed simply because a second bomb was ready three days after Hiroshima was bombed. After learning of the bombing of Nagasaki, Truman ordered that no further bombs be dropped without his express permission and thus regained control of the bombs.
Sources: Martin Harwit, An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the history of Enola Gay (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1996). Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: Fifty years of denial (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995). Barton J. Bernstein, The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered, Foreign Affairs (Volume 74, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1995). Henry L. Stimson, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Harper's Magazine (February 1947). Timothy McNulty, War of Words: What the museum couldn't say, New York Times, February 5, 1995 (includes the March 1994 plan for the exhibit). The Smithsonian has information on the current Enola Gay display on-line here.
NASA and Space Exploration (last updated February 12, 2004) (back to top)
Josh discusses many topics concerning NASA in this episode. Here are a few points worth elaboration, especially in light of President George W. Bush's plans announced on January 14, 2004 to strengthen the United States' space program by completing the International Space Station by 2010, returning the space shuttle to duty, developing a new spacecraft by 2008 and conducting its first manned mission by 2014, and returning to the moon by 2020.
| > | NASA has an annual budget of about $14-15 billion, about 0.6-0.7 percent of the discretionary portion of the federal budget; funding has been more or less flat in the past 10 years and has seen its share of the budget drop considerably since the 1960s. Bush plans to increase NASA's FY 2004 budget of $15.4 billion by an average of 5 percent per year for the next three years.
| | > | NASA's Plans for Mars . Mars exploration efforts were rejuvenated in the late 1990s by an arguably premature report that a meteorite containing carbonate particles did seem to show evidence for primitive life on Mars about 3.6 billion years ago. NASA landed its first rover on another planet on Mars on July 4, 1997 and landed two more rovers on Mars in January 2003; the latest rovers are designed to explore their respective landing areas for signs of water or past life. The plans announced by Bush in January 2004 call for human precursor missions to Mars beginning in 2011 but do not call for human missions to Mars until after extended lunar expeditions are done sometime between 2015 and 2020. For more on Mars, go here.
| | > | Voyager. The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched in 1977 and, more than 25 years later, are now leaving the solar system. On November 5, 2003, Voyager 1 reached 90 astronomical units (AU), or about 8.4 billion miles, from the Sun and is believed to be entering or to be soon entering a region where the Sun's influence wanes, known as the heliopause. The Voyagers have enough fuel to operate until 2020 but will continue to drift afterwards, possibly forever. NASA has more information on Voyager here. For more on Voyager's progress, go here.
As Josh mentions, the Voyagers each carry a phonograph record that contains 115 images encoded in analog form, spoken greetings in 55 languages, and a 90-minute selection of music. NASA has information on the "Golden Record" here. For more on the record, go here.
| | > | Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope orbits 375 miles above the Earth and uses telescopes to provide views that cannot be made using ground-based telescopes or other satellites. However, it has been plagued with problems since its launch in 1990; a spherical aberration was discovered in Hubble's primary mirror just two months after the launch and was not fixed until the first servicing mission in 1993. There have been three other visits to Hubble since then, and a fifth visit was planned for 2006. However, Hubble's long-term existence is now in doubt; NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe decided on Jan. 16 to terminate all future servicing missions based on the risk to astronauts, but agreed weeks later to review this decision. NASA has more on Hubble here.
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Sources: Details on President George W. Bush's plans for NASA can be found via the White House here and NASA's FY 2005 budget request here.
Voyager: Leaving the Solar System (last updated February 15, 2004) (back to top)
The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched in 1977, passed the outer planets in the 1970s and 1980s, and are, as of late 2003, beginning to leave the solar system. On November 5, 2003, Voyager 1 reached 90 astronomical units (AU), or about 8.4 billion miles, from the Sun.
Voyager 1 may have passed through the termination shock, an area where the solar wind (a thin stream of electrically-charged gas blown from the Sun) slows dramatically in speed because of pressure from interstellar gases. Some scientists argued in 2003 that Voyager 1 had already crossed this area, but others have disagreed. The debate could be decided if Voyager 1 could measure the speed of the solar wind, but that equipment no longer functions.
In any event, once Voyager 1 passes through the termination shock, it will be in the heliosheath, a region where the Sun's influence wanes and the large changes in plasma flow direction and magnetic field orientation are expected to occur. Voyager 1 will then spend years crossing through the heliosheath and eventually will cross the heliopause, which marks the end of the Sun's magnetic field and the outward flow of its winds.
The following image was created by a NASA artist and depicts the Voyager spacecraft's expected journey.
Once Voyager 1 crosses the heliopause, it will truly be conducting interstellar exploration. The Voyagers have enough fuel to operate until 2020 but will continue to drift afterwards, possibly forever.
Sources: NASA has more information on Voyager here. A November 15, 2003 press release about Voyager's progress is on-line here and contained the graphic used above.
Voyager: The Golden Record (last updated February 15, 2004) (back to top)
The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which are now beginning to leave the solar system, each carry with them a golden record bearing images, sounds, and music which an alien civilization may use someday to get a better understanding of humanity.
Carl Sagan, who helped pick the contents of the record, wrote that it was important to send musical selections in order to tell something about how humans felt. "Our emotional life is more difficult to communicate [than humans' intellectual life], particularly to beings of a very different biological make-up. Music, it seemed to me, was at least a credible attempt to convey human emotions," he wrote.
The musical-selection process involved long debates and much consultation with experts. The two criteria were that a wide range of cultures should be included, and that every selection should "touch the heart as well as the mind," according to participant Timothy Ferris. Copyright issues also played a part. Sagan wrote that the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" would have been included but for some murkiness about the legal status of the piece; the Beatles gave their approval but did not own the copyright to the song.
Of the 27 pieces selected, comprising a total of about 88 minutes, seven are by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky, 16 are native music from around the world (including a Navajo Indian night chant), one is a piece of Renaissance music, and three are pieces by 20th-century American musicians: Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry and Blind Willie Johnson.
Of the three American musicians represented, Armstrong and Berry are probably familiar to most audiences. Blind Willie Johnson, whom Josh Lyman described in an episode of the West Wing, was a blues musician who was born around the beginning of the 20th century, was blinded by his stepmother at the age of 7, and was a master of slide guitar playing. Johnson died of pneumonia in 1947, after being turned away from a hospital that refused to treat him because he was blind.
His song, "Dark was the Night," was an old hymn that he recorded on December 3, 1927; its full title is "Dark was the Night and Cold Was the Ground on Which Our Lord was Laid." Timothy Ferris, who helped select the song for inclusion on Voyager's record, wrote that Johnson's recording is "one of the most fundamentally moving pieces of music ever recorded."
The following is a list of all musical pieces included on the record:
- Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, First Movement, performed by the Munich Bach Orchestra with Karl Richter, conductor.
- Java, court gamelan, "Kinds of Flowers."
- Senegal, percussion.
- Zaire, Pygmy girls' initiation song.
- Australia, Aborigine songs, "Morning Star" and "Devil Bird," recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes.
- Mexico, "El Cascabel," performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi Mexico.
- Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode."
- New Guinea, men's house song.
- Japan, shakuhachi, "Cranes in the Nest," performed by Coro Yamaguchi.
- Bach, "Gavotte en rondeaux" from the Partita No. 3 in E major for violin, performed by Arthur Grumiaux.
- Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria no. 14, performed by Edda Moser and the Bavarian State Opera with Wolfgang Saivallish, conductor.
- Georgian S.S.R., chorus, "Tchakrulo."
- Peru, panpipes and drum.
- Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven, "Melancholy Blues."
- Azerbaijian S.S.R., bagpipes.
- Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, performed by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra with Igor Stravinsky, conductor.
- Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No. 1, performed by Glenn Gould on piano.
- Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra with Otto Klemperer, conductor.
- Bulgaria, "Izlel je Delyo Hagdutin," sung by Valya Balkanska.
- Navajo Indians, Night Chant.
- Holborne, Paueans, Galliards, Almains and Other Short Aeirs, "The Faerie Round," performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London.
- Solomon Islands, panpipes.
- Peru, wedding song.
- China, ch'in, "Flowing Streams," performed by Kuan P'ing-hu.
- India, raga, "Jaat Kahan Ho," sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar.
- Blind Willie Johnson, "Dark Was the Night."
- Beethoven, String Quarter No. 13 in B flat, Opus 130, Cavatina, performed by the Budapest String Quarter.
Altogether, the record contains the following:
- 118 pictures, depicting such things as the solar system, the structure of DNA, human anatomy and development, Boston, the Taj Mahal, the United Nations, a page from the Isaac Newton's System of the World, a sunset, and the score of quarter and violin for the Cavatina from Beethoven's String Quarter No. 13;
- The first two bars of the Cavatina from Beethoven's String Quarter No. 13, as depicted in the picture preceding it in sequence;
- Greetings from President Jimmy Carter ("This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.");
- A list of Congressmen involved with NASA operations;
- Greetings from United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim;
- Greetings in 54 different languages;
- Greetings from members of the United Nations;
- Whale greetings;
- Sounds of the Earth, such as human footsteps and laughter, volcanoes, crickets, an infant's cries, and a message in Morse Code, "Ad astra per aspera" ("To the stars by hard ways," which is Kansas's state motto); and
- 27 pieces of music from around the world.
Sources: Carl Sagan et. al, Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record (Random House, 1978). NASA also has information on the "Golden Record" here.
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