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Carl Sagan and His Fully Armed Spaceship of the Imagination

Carl Sagan on his Spaceship of the Imagination

My path to Carl Sagan began with magic. In my my early 20′s I developed a hobby for card tricks and slight of hand. Penn and Teller were my main influences and through them I discovered (The Amazing) James Randi. I remember James Randi once saying Richard Dawkin’s book, The Blind Watchmaker should be required reading in all American classrooms. Hearing that I decided to read the book. I found it amazing. After that I read every Richard Dawkins book I could find. Through these books I discovered Carl Sagan.

Reading Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark changed my life. The way he explained the scientific method and the value of skepticism made me want to learn to more. The Demon-Haunted World remains one of my favorite books of all time.

Commander Capricorn gives an order to Major Pisces: Fire the Homeopathic Medicine Ray!!!

In Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, his stories about the Heike Crab, and Eratosthenes’ calculation of the circumference of the earth blew my mind. Today these stories still resonate with me and I look forward to the day when I will share them with my children.

The Cosmos episode, “The Harmony of the Worlds”, in which Sagan challenges Astrology, inspired me to draw the comic. I thought it would be funny to have him encounter the forces of pseudo-science as he flew through the Cosmos in his spaceship of the Imagination. The design of Carl’s spaceship and his iconic wardrobe were fun for me to draw. I enjoy his mannerisms and his careful choice of words, so I tried to echo them in his dialog for the strip.

Homeopathy is no match for SCIENCE!

While Carl Sagan’s books have remained my favorites, I currently enjoy following scientists like Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene and Michio Kaku. I love the quest they are on, the questions they ask, and I appreciate the way they communicate with their readers.

To see the entire storyboard, and to check out the rest of Michael’s work, visit his site Ninjerktsu.

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Celebrating Sagan | Feb 07, 2011 | Comments View Comments

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch…

To celebrate Dr. Sagan’s birthday, Joe and Julie from St. Louis made an apple pie, from scratch.

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Celebrating Sagan | Nov 11, 2009 | Comments View Comments

Sounds of Earth

Probably the most humanizing and often talked about aspects of Voyager is the Golden Record… humanity’s message to the unknown. Here you can listen to just a few of NASA’s original recordings that were featured on the record.

For more on the Golden Record, check out this post from 2006.

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admin | Aug 20, 2009 | Comments View Comments

Spacecraft to Be Launched Today

from the New York Times, August 20, 1977

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Aug. 19–The Voyager spacecraft scheduled for launching tomorrow to scout Jupiter, Saturn, and possibly Uranus will be carrying a message from Earth on the off chance that extraterrestrial beings will come upon the craft centuries from now, somewhere on its endless journey beyond the solar system.

The message is in the form of a recoding, called “Sounds of Earth.” It is a 12 inch copper phonograph record inserted in an aluminum protective jacket that is attached to the outside of the 1,820 pound spacecraft.

Dr. Carl Sagan, the Cornell University astronomer who conceived the idea, calls the recorded message a “bottle cast into the cosmic ocean.”

Languages and Nature

Inscribed on the record are nearly two hours of greetings in dozens of human languages, samples of music of various cultures and times, natural sounds such as the wind and surf and animals and birds, and a message from President Carter.

All preparations were reported to be running smoothly for the launching at 10:25 A.M. tomorrow at the Kennedy Space Center here. The spacecraft, called Voyager 2 even though it is to be the first of the two craft to be launched in the Voyager program, is to be blasted into its interplanetary course by a Titan 3E Centaur rocket.

George F. Page, the director of the mission launching operations at the space center, said today that “everything is proceeding right on time” and that the forecast was good launching weather.

Voyager2, equipped with television cameras and scientific instruments, is to fly by Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981 and, if all continues to go well, Uranus in 1986. An identical spacecraft, Voyager 1, scheduled for launching Sept. 1, is to explore Jupiter and Saturn. The missions call for the most far-ranging reconnaissance of the outer solar system thus far.

‘A Very Big Step’

At a news conference today, Dr. Edward C. Stone, the project scientist from the California Institute of Technology, described the Voyager missions as “a very big step in extending our ability to observe our surroundings and the solar system.”

The $400 million project has been five years in preparation, directed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena, Calif. The idea of attaching a phonograph message to the space vehicle was an afterthought.

The messages on the record were designed to enable possible extraterrestrial civilizations that might intercept the spacecraft millions of years hence to put together some picture of 20th century Earth and its inhabitants. The record runs about two hours.

The record contains, in scientific language, information on how it is to be played, using the cartridge and needle provided. The first eight minutes consist of a wavy, electronic hum, which is the transmission of 115 photographs and diagrams in electronic form depicting the mathematics, chemistry, geology and biology of the Earth and a description of the solar system.

The President’s Message

One of the messages, in electronic form, is a letter from President Carter. It reads, in part:

“We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some–perhaps many–may have inhabited planets and space-faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”

The musical selections represent many cultures and many times, including Eastern and Western classical music, ethnic music, and jazz and rock-and-roll. There is Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, A Navajo Night Chant, Peruvian Woman’s Wedding Song and Australian Horn and Totem Song.

“Because space is very empty, there is essential no chance that Voyager will enter the planetary system of another star,” Dr. Sagan said. “The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space.

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admin | Aug 20, 2009 | Comments View Comments

God, the Universe and Everything Else

“Feeling unhappy because it isn’t immediately understandable.”

“Nothing will put astrologers out of business.”

Here is a video of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke talking about everything and everything’s beginning. It consists of questions and answers. The first point that Carl Sagan makes in this video is about questions and answers. He goes on to talk about answers in his own answers. Many people in this world are obsessed with finding and having answers to the questions that they encounter in their lives. Carl Sagan was not one of these people.

The canon of human knowledge will always be finite. The remainder of available knowledge in the universe will always be infinite. Carl Sagan encouraged us to celebrate that which we do not know, and attack it with questions and investigation. With full understanding that the task of science is undoubtedly insurmountable, we attempt it anyway. Not only is the task of science insurmountable, it is constantly working against itself. As soon as we figure something out, that new knowledge has a pesky habit of creating even more questions. Those people who recognize this fact, and purse the pursuit anyway are those who wind up finding the greatest answers.

Sadly, so long as there are things which we do not understand, and indeed there always will be, there will be people who will seek a shortcut to answers without even knowing the right questions to ask. It’s easier to follow the words of a charismatic leader, to believe in psychics, blame personal shortcomings on fate, or settle a dispute with violence than to seek and confront an uncomfortable truth.

On behalf of all those he helped make the jump into rejecting dogma and seeking truth through rational inquiry knowing we will never fully find it, let me say thank you to Carl Sagan.

– submitted to Celebrating Sagan by Dave Lodewyck.

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Celebrating Sagan | Jul 15, 2009 | Comments View Comments

Nick’s Memories

Nick Sagan wrote an outstanding post yesterday – if you haven’t read it, you ought to. From Carl’s dictaphone habits to his distate for Beavis & Butthead and the movie Aliens, Nick lets us in on a little secret; his father was, it’s true, a human being.

Sagan was so clearly a hero to countless people across the globe, and for those of us who can’t help but do a bit of worshiping, Nick’s portrait helps ground that awe without diminishing our hero’s stature. Here’s a choice picture and excerpt:

He had a knack for pinball, knowing just how hard to bump a machine without tilting it. We’d go to arcades together and he’d win bonus games like mad. Videogames were never his thing, though he could appreciate the better ones. I remember the day I showed him Computer Baseball, a strategy game for the Apple IIe. You could pit some of the greatest teams in MLB history against each other. We played Babe Ruth’s 1927 Yankees against Jackie Robinson’s 1955 Dodgers for about an hour, and then he turned to me and said, “Never show this to me again. I like it too much, and I don’t want to lose time. Link.

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admin | Dec 21, 2006 | Comments View Comments