Pioneer plaque [SEP] material used
Pioneer plaque
The Pioneer plaques are a pair of gold-anodized aluminium plaques that were placed on board the 1972 "Pioneer 10" and 1973 "Pioneer 11" spacecraft, featuring a pictorial message, in case either "Pioneer 10" or "11" is intercepted by extraterrestrial life. The plaques show the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft.
The "Pioneer 10" and "11" spacecraft were the first human
X" by Japanese developer Monolith Soft, the plaque is seen in the opening cut scene, damaged and floating in midspace, before one of the alien ships that later approaches Earth. In this instance, the genitalia and nipples on the male and female depictions respectively are absent, most probably due to Japan's strict censorship of explicit material.
- Edwin Morgan's poem, "Translunar Space March 1972", refers to Pioneer 10, and passes critical commentary on the images on the plaque: "A deodorized American man