This landmark series touched everyone who saw it and had an unexpectedly enormous impact on pop culture. The phrase "billions and billions of stars" would forever be linked to creator and host, Dr. Carl Sagan, and the general public's understanding of science and the universe would forever be altered.
Thank you for sending so many truly inspirational stories to the Science Channel. Every single e-mail tells a tale of life-transforming awe and gratitude to Carl Sagan. While we can't print them all, we are touched by your willingness to share such beautiful memories.
I have been waiting for this for 25 years. I wanted my children to see the series that literally opened my eyes and lit a fire within my mind that burns bright to this day. The theme song, the art, the music, and who can forget the dandelion-seed starship. Thank you Science Channel. And thank you Dr. Sagan. We miss you.
Randy Wiggins
Cosmos is not the only thing celebrating a 25th anniversary. The humble VCR is also 25 years old —give or take a year or two. In my memory, the two are inexorably linked. Cosmos ran twice on PBS — once in late 1979 and once in early 1980. It had such an impact on me that I wanted to save it so I could play it whenever I wanted.
Just on the market were VCRs — large, cumbersome top-loading units, packed with circuit boards and delicate mechanical adjustments. I remember one was $550 — a tremendous investment for a young engineer on a salary of $15,000 a year. Blank tapes were $30 each — a precious commodity themselves!
I remember taking off of work for a couple of hours to go buy the expensive recorder and blank tape, take it home and hook it up. To my great relief, it would actually record television shows! Cosmos came on that night and I carefully taped each episode, keeping the collection through the years to the present day.
Bruce Carter
In 1980, when Cosmos first began its exploration of our universe and our minds, I was 9 years old. I wish I could say that as a 9-year-old, I was glued to the TV and understood everything that Dr. Sagan was talking about. Of course I didn't. But what I did see was the effect it had on my father. When Cosmos came on, my father was glued to the TV. A few years later, when PBS re-ran Cosmos, I found myself glued to the TV just like my father.
I found Dr. Sagan's confident and comforting demeanor made the impossible easy to understand. Cosmos sparked my interest in science and technology, a hobby I still have today.
I believe that Dr. Sagan created Cosmos to help drive a renewed spirit of exploration, not only of our universe but of ourselves and our relationships with one another on planet Earth. I don't believe there has been or ever will be another series like Cosmos. It was truly one of a kind. Thanks Science Channel for rekindling my imagination!
Chris Peters
What does Cosmos mean to me? All that ever was, is, or ever will be. I was always interested in space, astronomy and science as I grew up in the 1960s. I knew who Dr. Sagan was and admired him very much. I remember the anticipation I had for the upcoming PBS series was palpable. I tried to watch it with a friend, but he couldn't seem to get past the scenes where Carl is in the cosmic snowflake spaceship of the mind — too many scenes of the late doctor staring admiringly into the great unknown. We actually got into fights about it as I defended the show to my pal.
Well, I decided to watch on my own after that. My experience with Cosmos led me to pursue a career in science education as a high-school teacher. I have always tried to bring some of Dr. Sagan's teaching into my own. When he wrote The Demon Haunted World, I used it as a primer in my classes when discussing the frauds of pseudoscience and the scientific method as a tool for evaluating such claims. When the Fox network came out with that show about how we didn't really land on the moon — that it was all an elaborate hoax — I used my built-in baloney detection kit to set people straight.
My daughter has read Contact a couple of times now. What a wonderful role model Ellie Arroway is for a young woman aspiring to pursue a career in the natural sciences! Carl Sagan left us too soon. As he would say, "How could it be?" Now that we are without him in a time when religious dogma is threatening to tear our society into fragments of ignorance (see the Intelligent Design case in Dover, Pa., if you doubt me), I find that he is somehow still with me. Not in the conventional sense of the spirit, but in a deeper, more profound way. He changed my perceptions for life. When you change a life, you affect countless others. Carl Sagan affected the lives of many in amazing ways, and lives on as a candle of light burning against the onset of darkness.
Dave Schlom
