Virgin's SMS service - boldly going where no text has gone before

According to the tagline of Alien - or Jaws in Space, as it was pitched to studio executives – in space no-one can hear you scream. The vacuum will see to that. But with the launch of a new service from Virgin Mobile, it seems that there will be other ways to make yourself heard.

To tie in with the Christmas market, Virgin Mobile’s Texts into Space enables the network’s customers to send an SMS which will travel not just to a selected handset but across the universe for all eternity. The message is propelled into orbit via the Earth Station in Cornwall and a payment of £9.95 plus the price of the text gets you a certificate and updates on how far along to Alpha Centauri the message has travelled.

According to Virgin’s press release: “Once sent you can ensure your message will live on eternally, a concept that will surely touch the recipients’ heart.”

Alas, for all the squelchy, emetic Hallmark sentimentality that there is to object to here, this isn’t what’s concerning me about Virgin’s service. For one thing, sending a love message that sets in stone your words for eternity seems to me like a massive and potentially very foolhardy commitment. You might declare your love and then get the heave-ho from your paramour the very next day. So surely, signing up is sillier even than getting their name tattooed about your person? At least you can get tatts removed.

More troubling, though, is the prospect of what aliens might think of us were they to read some of the messages. In the 1960s, satellites contained charming illustrations of our solar system and humans, so that extraterrestrials could get up to speed with our civilisation easily. But what would the intelligences that HG Wells’ War of the Worlds described as “cold and vast and unsympathetic” make of the ignorant Txt SPk romantic epistles that will be sent?

Mark my words, the likes of “I Luv U. U R GR8” and “OMG. You R BUF!” won’t just be indicative of the decline of the English language. They could see us written off by the rest of the universe as a backward race and deemed fit for termination. Batten down the hatches and tool up my friends, a Mars Attacks-style assault could be but days away.