Posted March 4, 2021.
An iconic Carl Sagan Moment: Sagan juggling with the solar system in an episode of "Cosmos"
First Mr Spock, then Professor Sagan. Following up on the previous post, Bob Pappalardo’s education as a planetary scientist continued:
...During high school, Bob worked at Vanderbilt Planetarium in Centerport, Long Island, not far from his house. A few years later at Cornell University in Ithaca, he found the field of planetary science the way everyone else in the wider discipline did: through a Carl Sagan Moment. Upon enrolling, Bob had intended to take up the ancient art of astronomy, but problem the first: there was no astronomy major proper at Cornell; the field was taught under physics. Problem the second: physics. Bob therefore switched studies, his base camp now the university’s new geology building. Myriad mineralogy labs lined the hallways, and to study the stuff of the Earth was to spend long days and late nights in them, over big, binocular-type microscopes adorning tall black lab tables. Pappalardo was seated in one such lab on one such night behind one such microscope when another student, first name John, last name Berner, and so of course they called him Bunsen, walked in.
Hey, Bob, asked Bunsen, you know about this course Sagan is offering? This course on icy moons?
Bob did not know about this course Carl Sagan was offering, this course on icy moons, but he went home that night, pulled out the course catalog, and looked it up. ICES AND OCEANS IN THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM. Instructor: SAGAN, CARL.
That Carl Sagan, yes. He of Cornell, yes, of course. The prominent professor was for Bob part of the university’s initial allure. But Sagan didn’t always teach, had a lot going on. Carl Sagan, recently of Cosmos (book and television series) and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (television series). Carl Sagan, of the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 and 2, the robotic explorers that in 1979 transformed the four telescopic dots of Jupiter’s moons into jaw-dropping globes of fire and ice,and later, around Saturn, revealed worlds diverse, living, geologically active, almost fully-fledged and practically planets (further study needed). Carl Sagan of the spacecraft Viking 1 and 2, which in 1976 revealed the Martian surface to be barren, though certainly in possession of everything necessary for life to exist (further study needed). Carl Sagan, a superstar in a profession bereft even of minor celebrities, who brought astrophysics into blue-collar living rooms, who in turtlenecks and with windswept hair spoke like a philosopher, practically in verse and presented the the pursuit of knowledge as something intrinsic and vital to the soul of every human being, who used his platform and lilting baritone to advance social causes, who planned protests against nuclear weapons test sites, arms linked with fellow activists, who crossed police lines and was placed gladly under arrest---Armageddon’s Thoreau---in order to advance his cause. Page one the next day: a rebel astronomer in handcuffs! Carl Sagan with a Ph.D. behind his name and a childlike imagination in his head, who had, for example, lobbied for light to be added to the Viking lander so that at night martian animals might be attracted to it and scurry up to investigate. Well, why not? Nobody knew what waited on the surface of the Red Planet.
That Carl Sagan.
---from “The Mission: A True Story” by David W. Brown.
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