Much darling astronomer and science communicatorCarl Saganonce recorded a content , for future astronaut setting substructure on the satellite Mars .
Sagan was a braggy pleader for geographic expedition of the Red Planet . Co - founder of The Planetary Society , hebelievedwe should go to the satellite to study it as an analogue for our own major planet , to search for potential polarity of biography , and only because of the romance of explore Mars .
In 1996 , shortly before he died of pneumonia on December 20 , Sagan recorded a subject matter for future astronauts who have made it to Mars .
" I ’m Carl Sagan . This is a position where I often work in Ithaca , New York , near Cornell University . peradventure you’re able to hear , in the background , a 200 - human foot [ 60 - beat ] waterfall , right nearby , which is plausibly – I would guess – a rarity on Mars , even in time of eminent engineering , " Sagan say in the recording .
" Science and science fiction have done a kind of saltation over the last one C , specially with respect to Mars . The scientist make a finding , it revolutionise skill fiction writers to write about it , and a boniface of young multitude read the skill fabrication and are excited and inspired to become scientists to find out more about Mars , which they do , which then feed again into another generation of science fabrication and science . And that sequence has played a major role in our present ability to get to Mars . It certainly was an important ingredient in the life of Robert Goddard , the American rocketry trailblazer who , I mean more than anyone else , paved the way for our literal ability to go to Mars . And it sure played a part in my scientific development . "
" I do n’t know why you ’re on Mars . Maybe you ’re there because we ’ve recognized we have to carefully move small asteroids around to ward off the possibility of one impact the Earth with catastrophic consequence , and , while we ’re up in nigh - Earth blank , it ’s only a hops , omission , and a start to Mars . "
" Or , perhaps we ’re on Mars because we recognize that if there are human communities on many earth , the chance of us being turn in extinct by some tragedy on one earthly concern is much less . Or maybe we ’re on Mars because of the brilliant skill that can be done there , the logic gate of the wonder macrocosm are opening in our clip . Or possibly we ’re on Mars because we have to be , because there ’s a deep nomadic impulse built into us by the evolutionary process . We come after all , from hunter - gatherers , and for 99.9 per centum of our tenure on Earth , we ’ve been roamer . And the next place to ramble to is Mars . But whatever the reason you ’re on Mars is , I ’m glad you ’re there . And I wish well I was with you . "
The recording , thanks toThe Planetary Societywhich he co - founded , was sent to Mars , arriving on May 25 2008 after hitching a ride onboard NASA ’s Phoenix lander . It remains there on the open on an archival silica - chicken feed mini - DVD , which the social club hopes will last hundreds , or potentially thousands , of eld .
[ H / T : Gizmodo ]
