In 1977, NASA approved the idea of sending a "Golden Record" into the cosmos with the Voyager spacecraft. Astronomers Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, author Ann Druyan, artist Jon Lomberg and Timothy Ferris, a science writer who was a friend of Sagan's and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone, chose 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music to serve as an introduction to any alien species Voyager might meet.