Those of us born in the 60s,
and thus unable to participate in the many
historic events of that historic decade, have few defining moments.
But one of
my earliest memories was watching the first Apollo moon landing in
1969.
Space, to coin the Star Trek phrase, was our ``final frontier' _ a
place in
which you could invest your dreams. And Carl Sagan was one of the guys
who helped
keep it that way.
A relatively nondescript
astronomer, Sagan found his true calling as a science
popularizer. His Cosmos television series became the most heavily
watched series on US public TV. I vividly remember watching that, too,
even being
entranced by it at times, as Sagan taught us with nice graphics and
easy
explanations, and awed us with a compelling message backed up by space-age
music.
Sagan had many interests
and a sweeping view of history. In Cosmos, he traced
the origins of life, back to the time when the first stars manufactured
the
elements such as carbon upon which life as we know it is based.
But his greatest quest was
the search for extraterrestrial life. Indeed, his
first major publication was a collaborative with a Russian scientist
on this
subject _ and that was back in 1965 at the height of the Cold War.
He later
founded the Planetary Society as an advocacy group for space exploration.
To find out about Sagan's
many accomplishments and interests, there is a fine
list of articles linked to the Dr Carl Sagan Honorary Site set up by
Michael Rapp at http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/(tilde)mrapp/sagan/sagan.html.
Sagan was often criticised
by other scientists for doing too
little ``real science', but he gave up much his work as a planetary
researcher to
pursue his career as a popularizer, where he was to have far more influence.
He can
claim some credit _ or blame _ for inspiring me to be an astronomy
major, and
turning my generation into space cadets.
Dr Sagan died on Dec 20,
and many of his admirers paid tribute to him at a
digital memorial site set up by the Planetary Society at http://www.transatlantech.com/tps/society-sagan-tribute-1.html.
Sagan's message may in some
ways have been too successful, as in
his final years he took exception to the current rage for stories about
alien
abduction stories and other paranormal incidents, which are partly
a result of
this generation's fascination with outer space. Sagan's final work
was a
piece of debunking called The Demon-Haunted World. I haven't read it,
frankly,
but I hope he realised that we all need ghost stories we can believe
in.
To read him at his most entertaining,
try Contact, a (plausible)
science-fiction novel _ now being made into a movie _ about a first
encounter
with an alien intelligence. The only failing is an occasional tendency
to make
his characters seem overly enlightened.
On Cosmos, Sagan had a little
equation he devised for
determining the possibility of meeting up with alien intelligence.
But many of the
variables in the equation were unknown: How common is it for stars
to have planets?
How commonly does life bloom on them? How likely is it that a species
will
become intelligent enough to both develop technology and not destroy
itself?
In the 17 years since then,
we have some answers. Planets have
been spotted around nearby stars. And now there is some evidence to
suggest life
might be tough enough to survive in quite a few hostile environments,
at the
depths of the ocean, in most frigid Antarctica, and of course on Mars.
As several of those paying
tribute noted, at least the good astronomer was able
to pass away aware that scientists had found a meteorite from Mars
which
seemed to offer evidence that life had existed there _ an event Sagan
claimed
could be ``a possible turning point in human history'.
You can check out the Evidence
of Primitive Life on Mars website at http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/marslife/index.html.
The claim is still being
disputed, of course, but it should at least spur further space
exploration. Nor is Mars the only place to look for life in the solar
system. Europa, a
moon of Jupiter with a giant ocean, could be even more hospitable.
On the other hand, if there's
anything our generation has learned, it's that no
human urge is more powerful than the profit motive. The search for
life and
adventure may get us into space, but chances are we will only stay
there
for commercial reasons.
Besides, Sagan was wise
enough to note that we humans face a huge
responsibility to bear whatever the answer to his burning question:
if alien
intelligence does exist, then we too can survive and thrive as a species;
and if
it doesn't, then it is more important than ever to live up to the privilege
we
have been given.
Hopefully, Sagan went to
the grave taking comfort at one of his own thoughts:
In the end, he noted, we are all made of starstuff.