NASA’s Rob Manning & John Casani Meet Georgian Startupers
Back in 1977, famous American scientist Carl Sagan decided to send the Georgian polyphonic song ‘Chakrulo’ on a gold disc into space alongside 26 other musical masterpieces from around the world, with NASA’s Voyager spacecraft mission.
John Casani, Voyager’s Project Manager, and Rob Manning, Chief Engineer of the Mars program at NASA, met with Georgian Startupers at Techno Park Tbilisi this week as part of their trip to Georgia for the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Voyager spacecraft which sent Chakrulo into outer space.
“We see a lot of great symbols of the partnership between US and Georgia,” said Ian Kelly, US Ambassador to Georgia. “One of the real symbols for me is this idea that Carl Sagan chose this treasure of Georgian culture, this polyphonic song Chakrulo, and it speaks so much about what unites us, unites Georgia and the United States and unites us all as human beings.” He then thanked Casani and Manning for representing “everything that is great about the United States’ science community and for “contributing to our efforts to help Georgia to become a resilient 21st century economy”.
“We’re very excited to be here,” said Manning. “Georgia is making an environment where creative people work together to invent new ways of thinking, new products, new ways of doing work, and that’s exactly where innovation takes place. It really takes someone with vision to enable this kind of environment that allows people to do what they think is the right thing to do. You don’t tell them how to make their product; you just set up the right environment where they can invent,” he added.
“He put together a small team of people to produce a record including the music and the photographs showing life on earth as it exists all over the world, and one of the things that was important for him was music,” Casani said, telling the story from 40 years ago, when Carl Sagan famously decided to send masterpieces of humankind into outer space with the Voyager mission.
“There are a couple of different stories about how this particular song got chosen. The one that I know, it may not be exactly correct, but Russia wanted very much to have a Russian song put on that record, and people who were reviewing the music didn’t like the Russian song very much and so they went to the folk song consultant in the United States who said that if you want music from this part of the world, the best you can get is from Georgia,” he recalled.
“For me, it all started when we launched the Alexander Kartveli Association, (the Georgian-American aircraft designer); that’s how the idea was born [to celebrate the 40th anniversary in Georgia]. This is a symbol of the great friendship between the US and Georgia,” said Ramaz Bluashvili, Film director, producer and researcher. It is on his initiative that the famous NASA scientists came to Georgia to celebrate Chakrulo Week in Tbilisi for the 40th anniversary of the Voyager mission. See our EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with him here.
“You’re just like the most innovative NASA people we’ve worked with throughout our careers,” Manning noted as he addressed the audience of startupers gathered at Techno Park Tbilisi.
“Any technology organization needs a constant influx of new people and new, fresh, ideas,” Casani added.
In the Q&A session that followed, the Georgian startupers, among them members of the TBC Bank’s startuper program, asked Casani and Manning about NASA’s mission to Mars, the challenges encountered while preparing missions, the Voyager budget back in 1977, how NASA recruits its employees, asteroids, and the “existence of extraterrestrial life”.
Chakrulo Week, supported by TBC Bank, was on from September 25 to September 28, seeing numerous activities to celebrate, including a documentary screening on the history of the Voyager mission made by Emmy-nominated director Emer Raynolds, a meeting with John Casani, Rob Manning’s presentation on the Mars program research and findings and a concert from the Erisioni ensemble.
Nino Gugunishvili