Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot [ang]

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Ballantine Books Edition, September 1997
ISBN: 0-345-37659-5
Scanned: December, 2000 V.1.0
Formatted for viewing in Word 97
CARL SAGAN
PALE BLUE DOT
A V I S I O N O F T H E
H U M A N F U T UR E I N S PA C E
F O R S A M
Another wanderer,
May your generation see
Wonders undreamt.
SPACECRAFT EXPLORATION
OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
NOTABLE EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS
UNITED STATES
1958 First scientific discovery in space-Van Allen radiation belt
(Explorer 1)
1959 First television images of the Earth from space
(Explorer 6)
1962 First scientific discovery in interplanetary space -direct observation of the solar wind
(Mariner 2)
1962 First scientifically successful planetary mission
(Mariner 2
to Venus)
1962 First astronomical observatory in space
(OSO-1
)
1968 First manned orbit of another world
(
Apollo 8
to the Moon)
1969 First landing of humans on another world
(
Apollo 11
to the Moon)
1969 First samples returned to Earth from another world
(
Apollo 11
to the Moon)
1971 First manned roving vehicle on another world
(
Apollo 15
to the Moon)
1971 First spacecraft to orbit another planet
(Mariner 9
to Mars)
1973 First flyby of Jupiter
(Pioneer 10)
1974 First dual-planet mission
(Mariner 10
to Venus and Mercury)
1974 First flyby of Mercury
(Mariner 10)
1976 First successful Mars landing; first spacecraft
to search for life on another planet
(Viking 1)
1977 First flybys of Saturn
(Pioneer 11)
1981 First manned reusable spacecraft
(STS-1)
1980- First satellite to be retrieved, repaired,
1984 and redeployed in space
(Solar Maximum Mission)
1985 First distant cometary encounter
(International Cometary Explorer
to Comet Giacobini-Zimmer)
1986 First flyby of Uranus
(Voyager
2)
1989 First flyby of Neptune
(Voyager
2)
1992 First detection of the heliopause
(Voyager)
1992 First encounter with a main-belt asteroid
(Galileo
to Gaspra)
2
1994 First detection of a moon of an asteroid
(Galileo
to Ida)
SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA
1957 First artificial satellite of the Earth
(
Sputnik 1
)
1957 First animal in space
(
Sputnik 2
)
1959 First spacecraft to escape the Earth's gravity
(
Luna 1
)
1959 First artificial planet of the Sun
(
Luna 1
)
1959 First spacecraft to impact another world
(
Luna 2
to the Moon)
1959 First view of the far side of the moon
(
Luna 3
)
1961 First human in space
(
Vostok 1
)
1961 First human to orbit the Earth
(
Vostok 1
)
1961 First spacecraft to fly by other planets
(
Venera 1
to Venus;
1962
Mars 1
to Mars)
1963 First woman in space
(
Vostok 6
)
1964 First multi-person space mission
(
Voskhod
1)
1965 First space "walk"
(
Voskhod
2)
1966 First spacecraft to enter the atmosphere of another planet
(
Venera 3
to Venus)
1966 First spacecraft to orbit another world
(
Luna 10
to the Moon)
1966 First successful soft landing on another world
(
Luna 9
to the Moon)
1970 First robot mission to return a sample from another world
(Luna 16
to the Moon)
1970 First roving vehicle on another world
(Luna 17
to the Moon)
1971 First soft landing on another planet
(Mars 3
to Mars)
1972 First scientifically successful landing on another planet
(Venera 8
to Venus)
1980
First
approximately year-long manned spaceflight
1981
(comparable to Mars flight time)
(Soyuz 35)
1983
First
full orbital radar mapping of another planet
(Venera 15
to Venus)
1985
First
balloon station deployed in the atmosphere of another planet
(Vega 1
to Venus)
1986
First
close cometary encounter
(Vega 1
to Halley's Comet)
1986
First
space station inhabited by rotating crews
(Mir)
3
CONTENTS
WANDERERS: AN INTRODUCTION
5
1. YOU ARE HERE
10
2. ABERRATIONS OF LIGHT
14
3. THE GREAT DEMOTIONS
20
4. A UNIVERSE NOT MADE FOR US 29
5. IS THERE INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH? 39
6. THE TRIUMPH OF
VOYAGER
46
7. AMONG THE MOONS OF SATURN
54
8. THE FIRST NEW PLANET 62
9. AN AMERICAN SHIP AT THE FRONTIERS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM 69
10. SACRED BLACK 78
11. EVENING AND MORNING STAR 84
12. THE GROUND MELTS 90
13. THE GIFT OF
APOLLO
98
14. EXPLORING OTHER WORLDS AND PROTECTING THIS ONE 103
15. THE GATES OF THE WONDER WORLD OPEN 109
16. SCALING HEAVEN
122
17. ROUTINE INTERPLANETARY VIOLENCE
134
18. THE MARSH OF CAMARINA
143
19. REMAKING THE PLANETS
152
20. DARKNESS
162
21. TO THE SKY!
171
22. TIPTOEING THROUGH THE MILKY WAY
177
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
189
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
189
REFERENCES 191
4
WANDERERS:
AN INTRODUCTION
But tell me, who are they, these wanderers . . .?
—RAINER MARIA RILKE, "THE FIFTH ELEGY" (1923)
W
e were wanderers from the beginning. We knew every stand of tree for a hundred miles.
When the fruits or nuts were ripe, we were there. We followed the herds in their annual
migrations. We rejoiced in fresh meat. through stealth, feint, ambush, and main-force assault, a
few of us cooperating accomplished what many of us, each hunting alone, could not. We
depended on one another. Making it on our own was as ludicrous to imagine as was settling
down.
Working together, we protected our children from the lions and the hyenas. We taught them
the skills they would need. And the tools. Then, as now, technology was the key to our survival.
When the drought was prolonged, or when an unsettling chill lingered in the summer air, our
group moved on—sometimes to unknown lands. We sought a better place. And when we couldn't
get on with the others in our little nomadic band, we left to find a more friendly bunch
somewhere else. We could always begin again.
For 99.9 percent of the time since our species came to be, we were hunters and foragers,
wanderers on the savannahs and the steppes. There were no border guards then, no customs
officials. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the Earth and the ocean and the
sky—plus occasional grumpy neighbors.
When the climate was congenial, though, when the food was plentiful, we were willing to
stay put. Unadventurous. Overweight. Careless. In the last ten thousand years—an instant in our
long history— we've abandoned the nomadic fife. We've domesticated the plants and animals.
Why chase the food when you can make it come to you?
For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400
generations in villages and cities, we haven't forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a
nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal,
I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our
survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever.
It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on
us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band's, or even your species' might be owed to
a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered
lands and new worlds.
Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: "I am
tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas . . ."
To the ancient Greeks and Romans, the known world comprised Europe and an attenuated
Asia and Africa, all surrounded by an impassable World Ocean. Travelers might encounter
5
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