A Tribute To Carl Sagan | Music: SPHERES | by we hope

We like to share Carl Sagan quotes, illustrations of space, the future, fantasy, science fiction films/gifsets and of course, the goings on in the world of space exploration; but this is really happening, everyone. The visions of those before us - depicting a society and civilization with curiosity and bravery at the helm - are being implemented as you read this.

The future is now. The only “cosmic speed bump” we have yet to surpass before journeying out unto the frontier is political will, fueled by bold and loud public advocacy. We can do this.

The collaboration of nations to set aside artificial boundaries - figurative and literal, indeed - will bring forth such a grand unification unseen by any of our kind since the voyage to our natural satellite.

The Apollo era was a teaser trailer of what’s to come, not simply and passively of what was once thought possible.

Although this video/lecture (above, via ESA) isn’t jazzed up with inspring music or dramatic graphics, it’s a conversation worth sitting through, because it’s a conversation we are actually having as a human species.

Set a brief, quiet moment aside for yourself - uninterrupted - where you can listen, digest and grasp the reality and scope of the true “goings on” of our quest toward the unimaginable offerings awaiting us amidst the cosmos.

Stay Curious.

- Donny Miller

Carl Sagan | The Frailty of Knowledge

sense?

Like the Romans, who once mistakenly thought that their empire ruled “all the world that mattered,” humans until recently could be content in their belief that they were already teh lords of the only relevant piece of cosmic real estate. We now know that such self-satisfied belief was ignorance. We realize now that the universe “that matters” is far vaster than our one little world. A few years ago it was possible for a scientifically educated person to believe that our galaxy contained only one inhabited planet.

The evidence is now before us that we live in a system containing billions of habitable and inhabited worlds. A few years ago, no one knew that incoming extraterrestrial objects, asteroids, have had a decisive influence on the survival and evolution of life on Earth. Now we know, and in knowing are faced with the fact that humanity’s span on Earth can only be made secure if we gain control of the solar system’s flight traffic. A few years ago, “practical” people with full access to all relevant facts could reasonably assert that the necessary costs involved in space travel were so large as to make the notion of a spacefaring civilization a chimera. But now we know that technologies can be brought into existence that can make this wider universe accessible to us, a universe that, therefore, in all probability, is already being accessed by others.

Under such circumstances, to be content with the Pax Mundana, humanity must not only blind itself, but lobotomize itself as well.

We stand on the threshold of the universe, considering whether we should step forward or step back. The question has been posed to us: Will humanity retreat and allow itself to be, and to see itself as, mere passengers adrift in a sea of stars? Or will we step forward and, in taking hold of our solar system, take charge of our destiny, a species fully capable of contending with the challenges to come? The choice is ours.

Robert Zubrin | Entering Space: Creating A Spacefaring Civilization

(Source: saganseries.com)

“Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other’s eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever.”

Ann Druyan, Epilogue to Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

via WhiskerPrints, Etsy

(Source: astrodidact)

The Earth’s needs have largely been met, and the planet is currently in the process of effective unification. I believe this marks the end, not of human history, but of the first phase of human history, our development into a mature Type I civilization. It is not the end of history because, if we choose to embrace it, we have in space a new frontier offering endless challenge - an infinite frontier, filled with worlds waiting to be discovered and history waiting to be made by myriad new branches of human civilization waiting to be born.

The opening of the space frontier, the creation of a spacefaring civilization, is thus the critical task facing our age. Compared to it, all other human enterprises of the present day are of trivial significance. Our success in this endeavor will determine whether we stand at the beginning of human history or the end. It will determine whether humanity continues as a truly human species. Failure is unacceptable.

Robert Zubrin | Entering Space: Creating A Spacefaring Civilization

(Source: saganseries.com)

(Source: facebook.com)

The Cosmos was discovered only yesterday. For a million years it was clear to everyone that there were no other places than the Earth. Then in the last tenth of a percent of the lifetime of our species, in the instant between Aristarchus and ourselves, we reluctantly noticed that we were not the center and purpose of the Universe, but rather lived on a tiny and fragile world lost in immensity and eternity, drifting in a great cosmic ocean dotted here and there with a hundred billion galaxies and a billion trillion stars. We have bravely tested the water and have found the ocean to our liking, resonant with our nature. Something in us recognizes the Cosmos as home. We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the Cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.

As the ancient mythmakers knew, we are children equally of the sky and the Earth, In our tenure on this planet we have accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, hereditary propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders and hostility to outsiders, which place our survival in some question. But we have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and our children’s children, a desire to learn from history, and a great soaring passionate intelligence - the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our vision and understanding and prospects are bound exclusively to the Earth - or, worse, to one small part of it. But up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits us. There are not yet any obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours always rush implacably, headlong, toward self-destruction. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. Travel is broadening.

There are worlds on which life has never arisen. There are worlds that have been charred and ruined by cosmic catastrophes. We are fortunate: we are alive; we are powerful; the welfare of our civilization and our species is in our hands. If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?

Carl Sagan | Cosmos; Who Speaks For The Earth?

(Source: liveandbfree, via lieherewithme)

Keep looking up.

(via invaderxan)

“The Greatest Explorer” by Dustin Harbin on INPRNT

For Carl Art Print by Venus Fallen | Society6

via thedemon-hauntedworld