Happy Carl Sagan Day!

[n2doc]

Ivan Semeniuk
Back in 1980 the US space programme was in the doldrums. Apollo was fading into history and there hadn't been a US astronaut in space for five years. The quirky space shuttle, much diminished from its initial vision, was still waiting to make its maiden flight.

But that fall came Cosmos, a revolutionary documentary series with a compelling host. Both the television universe and the real one have never been quite the same.

Carl Sagan, by equal measure professorial and childlike, offered space enthusiasts a new paradigm. Buck Rogers was out; refined and groovy cosmic citizen was in. Here was a visionary whose perspective dwarfed the politics of the space race and who spoke of humanity as a brotherhood with a common past and a transcendent future in the heavens.

more:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2009/11/happy-carl-sagan-day.php

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I grew up with Cosmos I loved that program

[phasma ex machina]

5. +1

"The Harmony of Worlds" ranks as my favorite "Cosmos" episode. It tells the story of Kepler and Brahe's collaboration to account for planetary retrograde motion. My collection of Sagan's "The Planetary Report" begins with the September/October 1982 issue (Volume II Number 5). At that point The Planetary Society's Board of Advisors (listed on the front inside cover) included such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Johnny Carson, James Michener, Paul Newman, Adlai E Stevenson III, and James Van Allen.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Woohoo! I will re-read "Pale Blue Dot" in his memory.

[Kutjara]

3. How these dark and self-absorbed times need someone like him.

I long for the day we look outward again, and recapture a sense of genuine wonder at the cosmos in which we dwell.

[paulsby]

4. love sagan!

as a child, his books and cosmos.. "BILLIONS and BIIIILLLIONS of galaxies", totally peaked my interest in science

[endless october]

6. somebody did this youtube tribute :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Carl Sagan sings "A Glorious Dawn." i thought it was pretty brilliant.

[eShirl]

11. I thought the follow-up to that was even better: "We Are All Connected"

though I loved that first one, too :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk


The cosmos is also within us
We're made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself

[lapfog_1]

7. Ironically, less than a billion seconds have passed since then

not even close to "billions and billions".

But we are getting close to one billion (914 million or so).

time flies.

[krispos42]

8. Really?

heh, quite a coincidence. About a month ago I picked up some books at my local bookshop. One of them was a used copy of "The Demon-Haunted World". I've been reading it the past couple of weeks or so.


First Sagan book I've ever read!

[sarge43]

9. Huh

Just yesterday I gave a quick and dirty briefing on stellar evolution to a clerk at the supermarket. Finished up with Sagan's "We are made of star stuff." That got her. "That's something to think about."

Thank you Carl.

[eShirl]

10. cool - Hulu has the entire Cosmos series to watch online, I was just about to start

13 episodes in all

http://www.hulu.com/cosmos


My high school History teacher would record each episode on the school's brand new Betamax VCR and take one whole class period per week playing it to us (so I got to see each episode twice). Nobody minded :)