Now available: same record we shipped to extraterrestrials in 1977

This handout image provided by NASA shows the record that was blasted into space. (AP Photo/NASA)
Somewhere out in the great abyss of space, an alien may be jamming to Chuck Berry this very moment. Now, earthlings can buy the very same record.
The Washington Post reports that startup Ozma Records is poised to begin shipping copies of the famed Golden Record that NASA sent into space aboard the two Voyager spacecrafts in 1977.
The original records, made of copper and coated in gold to withstand the rigors of space, contain the music of Berry, Beethoven, and others, along with various greetings and animal sounds from Earth.
The company is accepting orders now at $50, and it expects to start shipping in January. A three-LP box set follows in February, notes Mixmag.
(Listen to the “Sounds of Earth” portion here.) “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,” then-President Jimmy Carter wrote in a message accompanying the records.
“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.” The aliens would need to be pretty handy, however: NASA didn’t send along a device on which to play the records.
(Ozma first conducted a successful Kickstarter campaign with the goal of making the record available to the public.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: Now Available: Same Record We Shipped to Extraterrestrials