On September the 5th, 1977, NASA launched the
spacecraft Voyager. Destination unknown.

Its only cargo a set of records curated by American
astronomer Carl Sagan. The collection was designed
to last a billion years and potentially give
extraterrestrial life a glimpse at humankind.

The records were printed in gold-plated copper to prevent corrosion
and included international music, greetings in 59 languages,
the crashing of an ocean wave, wind through an oak tree,
whale calls, the human heartbeat, and the sound of a kiss.


"I thought it might be a good idea just after Saturn
to have them take just one last glance homeward.
From Saturn I knew, the Earth would appear too small
for Voyager to make out any detail.
Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel.
Such a picture might be worth having.

From this distant vantage, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest.
But for us, it's different That's home. That's us.

On it everyone you love,
Everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of,
Every human being who ever was lived out their lives.

Every young couple in love, every mother and father,
Hopeful child, inventor and explorer, the aggregrate of our joy and sufferring,
Thousands of confidient religions, ideologist, and economic doctrines.
Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward,
Every creator and destroyer of civilization,
Every king and peasant, every teacher of morals,
Every corrupt politicians, every superstar, every supreme leader,
Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -
On the mote of dust suspended in a Sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors
So that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Think of the endless cruelty visited
By the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel.
On the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.

How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another,
How fervent their hatreds. Our posturings,
Our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some
privileged position in the Universe are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

In our obscurity, in all this vastness,
there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.
There is nowhere else, at least in the near future to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes. Settle, not yet.
Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human
conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish

The Pale Blue Dot,
The Only Home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan

 

Last edited: Aug 19, 2017

love it

 

Then..............without warning.......came the 2016 U.S. Election.........and there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

 

Carl Sagan was a truly inspiring man. He was my inspiration as a kid when I used to study space travel and the mysteries of the universe. It was from 3rd grade to 6th grade, most of the kids in school were out playing video games with buddies, but I didn't have any buddies. So I always read books on space/astronomy and constellations, stargazing, birth and death of stars, big bang stuff, black holes (and especial interest of mine at the time, because they are so mysterious, and I like mystery. I was always trying to understand them, even make my own hypotheses of how they work, what they really are, what might happen should one get sucked in, etc), planet anatomies, gravity, supernovas, galaxies, nebulas, comets and all that other stuff. Hence, why a lot of my music is very spacey sounding and related to stars/comets and stuff like that... because I was always fascinated by the mysteries underlying our universe.

If you ask me, I don't think we will be leaving this planet anytime soon. I think colonizing mars is gonna take a mid-space catastrophe or two before we officially make it there. By mid-space catastrophe, I mean we're gonna have to see some spaceships go missing in space along with their passengers. It's not gonna be like the movie either, where a guy is presumed dead but is found alive and living off eating his own poo or whatever. We're not ready to live on another planet... not one person is. Mentally maybe, but not physically. We can't even fully cure the hiccups, we don't even know everything about our own brains. If we do make it to mars, I think it will be just like inventing the internet or inventing fire or inventing weapons - we will not use it responsibly. While we have a bunch of technology like the internet and stuff, the truth is, we weren't ready for that technology. Humans are irresponsible. And violent too. Take one good look at the hatred, racism, vandalism of historical monuments, and violent upheaval going on in the USA and tell me if we are stable species. Take a look at the middle east, and all those other things. We can't even accept one another for our differences. We're getting good at saying we hate this or hate that but we forgot how to love. When was the last time we said "f**k you" to someone? Now when was the last time we called someone we cared about up, just to tell them we appreciate them, and how much we love them? The latter is so rare that it's to the point where if we do, the person hearing it is gonna think we want something from them and are just kissing their ass. The saddest part is, no child is born thinking these ways... that stuff is taught. We rage at one another now, but keep in mind that the little ones, the future generations, are sitting in front of the TV watching that stuff go down, they are hearing about it. If we adults act like this, our future generations are gonna continue that for us... because this is gonna become their standard impression of "normal life". So when they get older, all this violence and hatred will become 10x more widespread... thus getting far worse.

That's not space travel material, folks... that's the road to our own extinction. Perhaps maybe this is something to think about.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 19, 2017

I loved Sagen, every word that he uttered, every sentence on a page. He and Jacques Coustau are heros to me, one looking outward and the other below, each explaining the wonder of creation in order that we might realize our inner comnection to creation in the hopes that we might cherish and protect this world and actively carerake, act as protectors to this magicical world that we all call home.

 

He was my inspiration, too. He is one of the three people I owe my view of the world today. The other two are Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Hawking.
Although I was raised as a Christian and studied Philosophy, my true love was Astronomy, Physics and Music. I'm on the same path for more than 30 years now, thanks to Sagan and the others.
If only there were more people like him!

 

@superliquidsunshine
I loved Hoimar von Ditfurth's "Im Anfang war der Wasserstoff" It's like the bible of cosmology. Really cool. It's a bit older. Ever read it? I think unfortunately there is no english version.

 

Haha.. yes @SAiNT there was so "A MESSAGE TO" thread these days.. So just checking in .

And now, it doesn't look good with the other threads

 

FlatEarth comes to mind! ..lol

 

I just shared this to a FE friend.
"We won't be seeing this again until 21st August 2017"
-Frank 1979