Outward bound at 38,160 MPH, this relic of the seventies is still making history. Currently located ~11 billion miles from our star and based on the data, seems to be exiting the heliosheath and the protection of the solar winds. We learned much of the outer planets from V-I and V-II but the story does not stop there. Even hampered by lengthy communications gap with the probe which currently take 33.23 hours round trip (no video as we lost that ~20 years ago) and will only increase. We are about to experience the full effects of interstellar space for the first time ever on a manmade vehicle. But don’t expect miracles or ET, at this stupendous speed it will take another 40 thousand years before they approach the nearest star to earth, just one of over 100 billion stars in our own mediocre galaxy alone.  We are going to have to learn how to ‘bend’ something I think or humanity will just expire of old age. Well, we have another 13 years before the plutonium fuel cell runs dry when it will become a memorial hurtling through the 'emptiness' of space. No matter what foolishness we do on this planet, we will have left a couple of markers to let whomsoever becomes interested that there was once a species they called humanity. I thought the analogy with the sink was great too.

NASA: Voyager 1  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Q-sA1pBe8