It sounds like to me that the Beatles were omitted from the Voyager golden record simply because of the random whims of deciding music by committee. Carl Sagan was a pre-rock-n-roll guy who graduated from high school in 1951 and was already a Ph.D. in physics before the Beatles became famous in America. read more
How the Voyager Golden Record happened (and no, The Beatles actually weren't on the wishlist) By David Pescovitz Today marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2, the first of the two spacecraft that carried the Golden Record on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. read more