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VOICE ONE:
This is Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with theVOA Special English program, Explorations. Today we tell aboutAmerican scientist Carl Sagan. He spent much of his life helpingmake space travel possible far out in the universe. He also helpedpeople understand science.
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VOICE ONE:
The year is nineteen-forty-seven. Twelve-year-old Carl Sagan isstanding outside a small house in the eastern city of Brooklyn, NewYork. It is dark. He is looking up at the sky. After a few minutes,he finds the spot for which he has been searching. It is a light redcolor in the night sky. Carl is looking at the planet Mars.
Carl has just finished reading a book by American writer EdgarRice Burroughs. It is the story of a man who travels from Earth tothe planet Mars. He meets many strange and interesting creaturesthere. Some of them are very human. The name of the book is “ThePrincess of Mars.” It is just one of many books that MisterBurroughs wrote about travels to Mars.
VOICE TWO:
In “The Princess of Mars,” the man who travels to Mars can makethe trip by looking at the planet for several minutes. He then istransported there by a strange force.
Carl Sagan stands watching the red planet. He wishes he couldtravel across the dark, cold distance of space to the planet Mars.After a while, young Carl realizes this will not happen. He turns toenter his home. But in his mind he says, “Some day. . . Some day itwill be possible to travel to Mars. “
VOICE ONE:
Carl Sagan never had the chance to go to Mars. He died inDecember, nineteen-ninety-six. However,much of the work he didduring his life helped make it possible for the American Pathfindervehicle to land on Mars. It landed on July fourth,nineteen-ninety-seven. It soon began sending back to earth lots ofinformation and thousands of pictures about the red planet.
Carl Sagan’s friends and family say he would have been extremelyhappy about the new information from Mars. They say he would havetold as many people as possible about what Pathfinder helped uslearn.
VOICE TWO:
Carl Sagan was a scientist. He wasalso a great teacher. He helped explain extremely difficultscientific ideas to millions of people in a way that made it easy tounderstand. He made difficult science sound like fun.
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VOICE ONE:
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York innineteen-thirty-four. Even as a child he wanted to be a scientist.He said it was a child’s science book about stars that helped himdecide to be a scientist.
Mister Sagan said he read a book that told how our sun is a starthat is very close to earth. The book also said that the stars inthe night sky were also suns but very far away. Mister Sagan saidthat suddenly, this simple idea made the universe become much largerthan just Brooklyn, New York.
VOICE TWO:
It should be no surprise to learn that Carl Sagan studied thestars and planets when he grew older. He did this at the Universityof Chicago. Later he taught astronomy at Harvard University andCornell University.
In the nineteen-fifties, Mister Sagan helped design mechanicaldevices for use on some of the first space flights. He alsopublished two important scientific theories that were laterconfirmed by space flights. One theory was that Venus is extremelyhot. The other was that Mars did not have a season when plants grewas scientists had believed. He said that the dark areas on Mars thatwere thought to be plants were really giant dust storms in theMartian atmosphere.
VOICE ONE:
Mister Sagan was deeply involved in American efforts to explorethe planets in our solar system. He was a member of the team thatworked on the voyage of Mariner Nine to Mars. It was launched innineteen-seventy-one. Mariner Nine was the first space vehicle toorbit another planet.
Mister Sagan helped choose the landing area for Viking One andViking Two, the first space vehicles to successfully land on Mars.He also worked on Pioneer Two, the first space vehicle toinvestigate the planet Jupiter. And he worked on Pioneer Eleven,which flew past Jupiter and Saturn.
VOICE TWO:
Carl Sagan was a member of the scientific team that sent theVoyager One and Voyager Two space vehicles out of our solar system.He proposed the idea to put a message on the Voyager, on the chancethat other beings will find the space vehicles in the distantfuture.
Mister Sagan worked for many months on what to say in themessage. It was an extremely difficult task. When the Voyager spacevehicles left our solar system they carried messages that includedgreetings from people in many languages. They carried the sound ofhuge whales in our oceans. And they carried the sound of ninetyminutes of many different kinds of music from people around theworld. Carl Sagan had created a greeting from the planet Earth.
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VOICE ONE:
Carl Sagan was an extremely successful scientist and universityprofessor. He was also a successful writer. He wrote more thansix-hundred scientific and popular papers during his life. And hewrote more than twelve books. In nineteen-seventy-eight, he won thePulitzer Prize for one of them. It is called “The Dragons of Eden:Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence.” He even helpedwrite a work of science fiction in the nineteen-eighties. The bookis called “Contact.” It is about the first meeting between beingsfrom another world and the people of Earth. It was made into apopular movie.
VOICE TWO:
Perhaps Carl Sagan may best beremembered for his many appearances on television. He usedtelevision very effectively in his efforts to make science popular.He first became famous in nineteen-eighty when he appeared on athirteen-part television series about science. The show was called”Cosmos.” It explored many scientific subjects–from the atom to theuniverse. It was seen by four-hundred-million people in sixtycountries. Mister Sagan wrote a popular book based on his televisionshow.
VOICE ONE:
Millions of people saw Carl Sagan on television in thenineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties. He especially liked totalk about science and scientific discoveries on the late nighttelevision program “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” MisterSagan said he always tried to accept invitations to “The TonightShow” because about ten-million people watched it, people who werenot usually interested in science.
On television, Mister Sagan was a good story-teller. He was ableto explain complex scientific ideas in simple ways. He believed thatincreasing public excitement about science is a good way to get morepublic supporters. He said much of the money for science andscientific studies comes from the public, and people should know howtheir money is being spent.
VOICE TWO:
Some scientists criticized CarlSagan because of his many appearances on television. They said hewas not being serious enough about science. They said he wasspending too much time appearing on television trying to makescience popular. Other scientists valued his efforts to explainscience. They said he communicated his message with joy and meaning.
VOICE ONE:
One of Carl Sagan’s last books is called “The Pale Blue Dot: AVision of the Human in Space. Mister Sagan said he got the idea forthe book from a picture taken by the Voyager One space vehicle. Asit passed the planet Neptune, Voyager turned its cameras back towardthe distant Earth.
Mister Sagan said. . . . “And there it was. Very small. The smallblue dot in space with all of us. And you can’t tell the differencebetween one nation and another. You can’t even tell the differencebetween continents and oceans.
He said, “I thought it had a great deal to say about thefoolishness of the issues that divide us. I thought it said we needto care for each other. And we have to also preserve this small dotin space. It is the only home we have ever known. “
VOICE TWO:
Carl Sagan died December twentieth, nineteen-ninety-six inSeattle, Washington. He was being treated at a medical center therefor a bone marrow disease. Carl Sagan was sixty-two years old.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Paul Thompson andNancy Steinbach. It was produced by Paul Thompson. This is ShirleyGriffith.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherExplorations program on the Voice of America.