On this Solstice Day of briefest light and longest darkness, a day sacred to the generations of humans, our most distant emissary, NASA’s Voyager 1, is sending back replies to our commands that no longer make sense. After 46 years of exploring our solar system and its environs, she has exceeded the dreams of her designers and builders in every way. Voyager forges on into the unknown, to sail the Milky Way for the closest thing to forever that we have ever touched.
Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of the end of Carl Sagan’s wondrous life. His death was a loss like no other to the planet, our family and me. He foresaw the dangers and horrors we are struggling with now, but also the soaring potential of our species if we can only manage to awaken.
In honor of these two exemplars of what human beings can achieve and become, I ask that you to do something today – an act big or small -- that affirms we have received their message and it was understood.
- Ann Druyan
Artist and screenwriter, Linda Salzman Sagan, who designed NASA’s Pioneer Plaque and was a member of the team that created NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message, second wife of Carl Sagan and mother of their son, Nick (Clinnette Minnis), and grandmother of Zoe, has died at 83. We are thankful for her life, her beauty and her many gifts and feel deeply the pain of losing her.
@Evan88232351 Between the pandemic and the advancement of AI, sometimes I wish the trilogy wasn’t so relevant. But you make a very good point here, thanks, and I appreciate the encouraging words. I’ll see what can be done here.
@Maricihime CHAOS-2, now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. I’m so happy you remember that chatbot. The technology has since been eclipsed many times over but I have good memories of it from back when. Maybe I can resurrect a version of it sone day.
@august55433 First, total awe in seeing our beautiful world as such a tiny part of the cosmos. Everything we call home: just a dot among so many dots. It’s moving, humbling, mysterious. But for me, the image also brings such joy in remembering my dad’s insight and wisdom. So proud of him.
Sixty three years ago in October 1959, The Twilight Zone premiered. As my dad said: The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time.
Carl Sagan would love this "It is so achingly clear that we have no choice. It is time to grow up, to stop entertaining ourselves to death, to give up our obsessions with glamor and consumption. We must begin to value what is real" https://t.co/NhgWSsrpb4
He was there when I entered this world, and I was there when he left:
Frank D Drake, May 28, 1930 - September 2, 2022.
Rest among the stars, my sweetest Papa D. You will always be my brightest star.
More info here: https://t.co/Bt60VCfrxa
@EVanLustbader In the 80s, instead of being an attentive prep school student, I ran a role playing game BBS that I named The Freehold. So taken with your TSW cycle. Though my grades suffered from all that RPGing, The Freehold became a wonderful storytelling workshop & helped set me on my path.