“The Farthest” recounts the remarkable story of NASA’s Voyager mission to the outer planets of our solar system and beyond. After more than 40 years of travels, the Voyager spacecraft are still in contact with Earth and returning data. Launched in 1977, the two Voyagers – each with less onboard computing power than a cell phone – used slingshot trajectories to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 left our solar system for interstellar space in 2012 and Voyager 2 left it in November, 2018. Each spacecraft carries a golden record with greetings, images and music from Earth for any civilization that might one day find them. The documentary tells about the new data and striking images the Voyager’s returned in their swing through the outer solar system. But it also tells the human stories of the scientists and engineers who devised the bold mission and lived with it throughout their professional careers. Judge David Baron, author and former health and science editor for Public Radio International’s “The World,” said of the film: “It is inspirational both in its construction and its content, which goes far beyond the science of the Voyager missions to the human drive to explore and understand where we fit in the universe.” Speaking for the production team, Emer Reynolds , the Dublin-based writer and director, said: “We are delighted and deeply honored to receive this prestigious award, not only on behalf of our whole wonderful, committed team, but especially on behalf of the engineers and scientists who designed, built and flew the extraordinary, and era-defining, Voyager spacecraft.”
