The next section describes work he did for a solid diamond marker medallion that was to fly with NASA's Cassini mission to explore Saturn and put a probe on the largest moon, Titan. This section is somewhat silly, and includes a lot of gossip and innuendo about other scientists and the NASA bureacracy. The whole plan falls apart at the last minute, and naturally, the author of _this_ account is not the bad guy. Common sense tells us that casting a 28 mm diameter diamond disk into the methane sea of Titan probably is not the best use of taxpayer dollars.
The last third of the book is largely envrio-paranoia babble from a scientist who should know better. Benford claims we should try to cryogenically preserve thousands or even millions of species so they can be studied in the future. His rationale is they might become extinct before scientists can catalog them. So how do you preserve something that you don't even know about yet? Simple - you go out to the edge of the rain forest (or wherever) and scoop up buckets of junk and - you guessed it - freeze it! Yes, that is the proposal: buckets of mud, sticks, and poop in liquid nitrogen dewars. Never mind the fact that earlier in the book, he comments how our present state of technology and stable civil institutions might be temporary, and we can expect major disruptions in the near future. What happens if some day all of these freezers are "unplugged"?
He redeems himself in the final chapter by admitting that the Human species is at a point where we will soon be able to take charge of our evolution, and that it may be possible to alter global climate through the application of technology and fix problems like excess CO2 production. The afterword is so beautifully written, it makes you pause and wonder, what happened with the rest of the book?
All told, this book presents some valuable ideas and insight into a subject that few people have considered.
Human civilization has evolved to the point at which we have begun consciously sending messages into the far future. How should we communicate who we are, what we know, to asyet-unmet intelligent beings elsewhere in both time and space? Will they be able to decipher what we say? And what information will we leave to Earth's occupants a million years hence? How can we address an unknown destiny in which human culture itself may no longer exist?
Combining the logical rigor of a scientist with the lyrical beauty of a novelist, Gregory Benford explores these and other fascinating questions in a provocative analysis of humanity's attempts to make its culture immortal, to cross the immense gulf that such deep-time messages must span in order to be understood. In clear, crisp language, he confronts our growing influence on events hundreds of thousands of years into the future, and explores the possible "messages" we may transmit to our distant descendants in the language of the planet itself -- from nuclear waste to global warming to the extinction of species.
We are already sending messages into nearby space; in the coming ages we will be able to launch probes accurately to other stars. Our indelible legacy to future generations, or to the next occupants of this planet, is already being constructed. As we begin our incredible journey down the path of eternity, Gregory Benford masterfully calls forth some of the intriguing, astounding, undreamed -- of futures which may await us in deep time.