Carl Sagan

This is my Narrative about Carl Sagan,

Carl Sagan, author and science educator, was born on November 9th, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. Carl died in Seattle Washington on December 20th, 1996. During Carl’s life, the United States partook in the Manhattan project, the project to synthesize and build the first nuclear bomb. He was only a child when the first nuclear weapon was created, and as Carl aged, he would witness the devastating power of the nuclear bomb grow as countries sought an arms race against each other to be the first to create the biggest nuclear bomb to date. The threat of complete mutually assured destruction from these weapons is the only deterrent from even using them. To date only two nuclear bombs have ever been utilized in the history of humanity. The unimaginable loss of life from both events caused the country they were used against to pull entirely out of a world war. The world understood the implication of these weapons and sought to never utilize them again.

Carl Sagan helped introduce the term Nuclear Winter into the global lexicon, the idea that the Earth would go through a tremendous cooling period like an ice age if humanity wiped itself out in a nuclear war. Humans not immediately killed by the blast would suffer the effects of nuclear radiation and freezing temperatures, shall humanity somehow persevere after such a war. Nuclear Winter could mean the extinction of many species on this Earth and the possible inability for life to recover. We as a species have officially placed the Earth and all its’ ecology in a precarious spot to exist in. Peaceful existence has been placed in jeopardy by our governing powers.

To place ourselves in a far more favorable position, we must first start off with the abolition of nuclear weaponry. The weapons have already been made and exist in silos at this moment. But they cannot be easily disposed of. Shooting them off into deep space could have unintended consequences, so that leaves us with options which involve the dismantling and disarmament of nuclear weapons on planet. This poses significant challenges as some of the material required to synthesize the bomb components are highly radioactive and often has to be buried in tunnels under the earth. Simple exposure to the tools of bomb creation can kill a person. The energy and aura of this evil weaponry is nothing that should ever be touched by humans as they pose a danger to us during and after the creation process. However, will our world leaders be interested in hearing our concerns over these weapons, or the planet’s fate with these weapons on its surface?


In 1977 NASA launches a probe called Voyager into deep space. On this probe contains a Golden Record which contains media files encoded into the disc related to humans and our fundamental understanding of math and science. The record contains various noises of the inhabitants of earth, its sounds, and instructions for playing it. If an alien could even use or play this record at all it would be an amazing thing to witness.


Along this probe’s journey Carl Sagan decided it would be an interesting opportunity to take a photograph no human had ever taken before. As Voyager passes Neptune Carl has the NASA engineers carefully turn the probe around to take a picture of the Earth. In a miracle of timing, alignment, and luck the Earth is seen suspended as a single blue dot pixel in the center of a ray of sunlight that is entering the lens of the camera. All of humanity and Earth in one pixel, the largest group photo ever taken. From this distance one's own worries and stories dissolve away as you are captivated by the sight of your entire reality shrunk down to a grain of sand in an infinite void. From this distance one can see how silly the conflicts our world leaders engage themselves and the rest of humanity in are fruitless and pointless endeavors. The clutch of late-stage capitalism loses its grip from the distance of 3.7 billion miles. This image inspired Carl Sagan to author a book named Pale Blue Dot where he highlights the fragility of life here on Earth, and how precarious of a position we have placed ourselves in our own hubris.


Carl was more than an educator or author; he is a humanitarian icon who fought against the nuclear proliferation of humans. He championed nonviolence and scientific principles. I place him among the other great humanitarians like Jesus Christ, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and more. Sagan advocated peace through education and scientific understanding. It was critical to reduce religious dogma and violence in society and the planet to preserve our fragile place on this planet. Carl seeks out a future for humanity where we conquer the stars, not each other. Space travel and science fiction always blended the ideas of humanity expanding and exploring out into space. Sometimes we forget the ugly truth that attached to humanity is a whole host of undesirable negative emotional traits which we utilize to destroy each other, keeping us from advancing forward and exploring. We have only so far explored the depths of our depravity and how far a nation or government is willing to go to conquer another, to fight over a fraction of a dot.

Sagan is just one of many humanitarian advocates, but I feel that his ability to speak eloquently as an educator helps him tell a beautiful story of humanity and our potential. Sagan does not see us only as animals that are victims of circumstance and mindlessly warring ourselves to death. He saw potential in each human as he looked up at the stars. He reminds us all that at one point the atoms that made our planet and bodies were once themselves pieces of stars in the sky. It only seemed natural to Carl Sagan that the children of star stuff would eventually return to the stars.