Twenty years ago, I began my senior year by learning how not to give a party.

The start of the school year was around Aug. 25, and this was the night that Voyager 2 was to fly by the planet Neptune. The first (and only) visit to the eighth planet of the solar system was to be televised live on a PBS program lively entitled “Neptune All Night.”

Despite having a single room, a television and a fridge full of caffeine, all my friends had something better to do that night. I had fun and probably would have respected them less if they had shown. Kicking back one Mountain Dew after another, I watched the signals coming in “live” (there was an eight-hour delay for the signal to cross the gulf of space between Neptune and Earth) as eager NASA scientists and bleary-eyed reporters stared at the monitors and commented on an unprecedented view of the last stop for the Voyager program. The journey had started 12 years before on Aug.20, 1977, and it illustrates the need to use one’s chances as well as to have good luck to complete a task — something that echoes how we should approach the start of the new school year.

In the late 1960s, back in a day when television stations would brag about their shows being in color, a Jet Propulsion Lab employee named Gary Flandro realized an unusual alignment of the planets was about to happen. For the first time since Thomas Jefferson was president (that would be around 1804), the outer planets were positioning themselves such that a single spacecraft could visit all four of them. Furthermore, each planet could be used to give a gravitational assist, a cosmic “push”, such that the spacecraft would speed up after each planetary visit.

With the distances between each successive planet growing larger as one moves outward in the solar system, the increased velocity would allow a craft to more quickly cross it. If all went well, a probe could make it from Earth to Neptune in only 12 years. Without these gravitational assists, it would take more than 30 years. At the time the plan was being considered, NASA itself had not been in existence for 12 years, let alone 30. If it launched three space probes, then maybe at least one would make it.

Somehow, the program was a complete success. Through the course of development the name was changed, budget cuts forced the trio to the outer planets to be pared down to a duo, and this made the flight plans change to reflect a more traditional NASA planetary mission of the time: an heir and a spare. The launch of Voyager 1 would be time so the craft would arrive at Jupiter and Saturn to cover all the plum areas of interest. Voyager 2 would fill in the holes and — provided Voyager 1 was able to fulfill its duties at its two planned stops — then Voyager 2 would be steered so it could go on to Uranus and Neptune. As in the Miss America pageant, if anything went wrong with Voyager 1, Voyager 2 would “accept the crown” and be re-targeted to cover for Voyager 1 but lose the option to continue to its hoped for last two visits.

Ironically, and here is where luck was needed, Voyager 2 was launched about two weeks earlier than Voyager 1. Voyager 1 would quickly overtake its twin as it followed a more direct path. Both were launched on what were supposed to be identical Titan Centaur rockets. It was critical that Voyager 2’s rocket perform exactly how it was suppose to. If it was an underachiever in the slightest, Voyager 2 would not have the necessary speed to be able to swing by Jupiter and Saturn and continue to Uranus and Neptune.

Voyager 2’s launch was flawless. Voyager 1’s wasn’t. The rocket’s engines cut off early. Because Voyager 1 only needed enough “ummph” to get it to Jupiter and Saturn, the loss was not significant. Had the two rockets been switched, I wouldn’t have had to worry about watching “Neptune All Night” 12 years later.

I never got to finish “Neptune All Night” — I threw in the towel at 2:28 a.m., but I had learned a lot. As a whole, the scientific community learned more about Neptune in those few hours than they had in all the years before from ground-based telescopes (there was no Hubble Space Telescope in 1989). I also saw that when in doubt, keep your mouth shut, especially when the microphone is live. I also would later find out that Super Bowl parties net a lot more friends than Astronomy parties.

In two decades of hindsight, I still am getting more out of that program. First, I am glad I took advantage of it as the chance to watch a first-time planetary fly-by seems to be lost forever with Pluto’s demotion. And second, as I missed the last hours of the program, I do have a second chance to view it. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a DVD of it can be bought on eBay. So, either for this Christmas or for my birthday, I have stressed to my family (especially my wife) that I really would like to watch it. I think she will come through. After all, if I don’t get it for those two events, then she will be getting it for our anniversary as a small part of her overall gift that she might find useful in her classroom … after I view it, of course.

What else is out there

The four outer planets have drifted far apart since the launch dates of the Voyagers. Here’s where you can find them.

• Jupiter is bright in the east and is up all night in Capricornus.
• Saturn cannot be seen as it is on the opposite side of the solar system and is behind the sun as seen from earth
• Uranus is hanging out between Aquarius and Pisces.
• Neptune, always requiring a telescope to be seen, is in the constellation Aquarius.