I have always been interested in the stars and space. But I was never interested in the people that talked or taught about it — until Cosmos. Enter Carl Sagan, a gentle genius and boy-like man that loved what he did and wanted to share his inner world by telling us a story of his outer world.
I couldn't get enough of the Cosmos or Dr. Sagan. We could believe him, or at least believe his beliefs. He was the teacher that all of us wanted and few of us had.
When he died, I and many others were saddened beyond our understanding. We have missed him. While others have tried to take his place, they cannot do so. But others have tried to emulate Carl Sagan, and have succeeded to a degree, which has made the study of the stars and cosmos a much easier and gratifying experience.
Peter Bassett
I was in ninth grade when Cosmos debuted. My physical science teacher used to record it and bring it in each week for the class to watch. I'd never before really given much thought to the cosmos or the "stuff of life" until this show.
While other classmates moaned, I anticipated each Friday with excitement. From the moment I saw the first episode, I became a lifelong, devoted fan of Dr. Sagan. I believe this program really sparked an interest in science that had never really been in me before.
Over the rest of my academic history, I took almost every science class offered — soaking the knowledge in like a sponge. My eyes were literally opened to the universe. While my life path took me to the medical sciences, my love for astronomy and space continues.
My only regret is that I never got the opportunity to meet Dr. Sagan. That would have been one of the true crowning moments for me. Perhaps we will meet one day, out in the cosmos.
I applaud and thank the Discovery Channel and Science Channel for reworking this series and making it available for my children. A whole new generation of scientists and dreamers is sure to be born.
Donna Standridge
When I was of elementary-school age, the school I attended was able to bring Cosmos into the classroom, which back then was no inexpensive feat. I remember the wonder it inspired in me, and the awe on the faces of everyone around me. I remember looking forward to the days we could escape from the classroom and tour the universe led by the hand of Carl Sagan.
Carl Sagan was one of those people that you only get a chance to admire from a distance once a millennium. There will not soon be anyone of that caliber to push the boundaries of what is and what is possible. To Dr. Sagan, I say thank you posthumously, as I was not able to do so before you left us for your own journey through the cosmos.
After reading your memories page, I am deeply moved. I feel the same as they do, every one of them. It is a wonderful thing in our world nowadays that a man like Carl Sagan can bring so many others to the "same page" so to speak. I am looking forward to sharing one of my fondest childhood memories with my 9-year-old daughter.
Carl Sagan is my hero. There are "billions and billions" of things I could be doing, but not one of them seemed quite so worthwhile.
Terry Therkildsen
I first saw the Cosmos series when I was about 17. It made a large impression on me in my choice to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering in college.
The Planetary Society, of which Sagan was a co-founder, sponsored an essay contest when I was in high school called "Why Explore the Planets?" I won an all-expense-paid trip for myself and my astronomy teacher to Caltech for the first Planetary Society "Planetfest" in 1981 to watch the Voyager II encounter with Saturn at the Jet Propulsion Lab.
During the conference I had an opportunity to meet Sagan, where he signed my copy of Cosmos. That was pretty neat. Meeting Sagan was one of the most formative events of my life.
Bruce Powers
I was in junior high when the show premiered — an awkward age at best. Worse, I was a sci-fi literature fan long before it was in any way cool. Not only did Carl give us a show that was the definition of thought-provoking, but he also told the story about his own reaction to reading E.R. Burroughs’ John Carter, Warlord of Mars series.
Suddenly, I had a new friend who understood the power of dreams and ideas. And while he did not believe we had ever been visited by extraterrestrial intelligence, I now knew I was not alone. I savored every episode, read six of his books and miss him very much.
Jeffery Paul Cronin
My dad and I used to watch Cosmos on Sunday mornings together when it first aired 25 years ago on PBS. While my siblings and mother slept, Dad and I would watch Cosmos, eat breakfast and talk about what we learned. We never really had much of this kind of contact previously.
I will always treasure the program — not just for what it taught me about the romance of science, but for the opportunity it gave me to spend time with my dad.
J. Greenwood
The year was 1980. I was 20 years old.
One day I walked into the day room of my barracks. The room was empty, which was unusual for the early evening. I had come in to play pool before I went on the evening duty I had been assigned.
Someone had left the television on, but I ignored it. In the middle of a shot, I noticed this oddly compelling music coming from the television. Looking at the screen, I saw an assortment of stars and galaxies accompanied by a narrative in measured tones. Thinking it was just another showing of some educational program (having already identified the station as the local PBS affiliate), I nevertheless continued watching.
Over the next hour, my game of pool completely forgotten, I sat captivated as my guide led me on a journey of the known universe, showing me things I had read about and thought I understood, and it was as if I was discovering them for the first time. And in a way, that was the truth. The guide told the story with a love of the subject tinged with a bit of awe, both for the fact that we had learned so much, and for the mystery that there was yet so much left to learn.
Most of all, here was someone who had clearly spent most of their life working with the subject, and who had yet managed to retain an obvious (and contagious) sense of wonder. Not just wonder inspired by the beauty of our surroundings, but wonder at our ability to understand it, all along delivered with the conviction that the wonder need not be lost in our pursuit of understanding.
I was hooked. This episode, and the 12 that followed, truly awakened my own sense of wonder. I could look at the world around me with eyes that no longer merely processed images, but that actually saw. Everything that I had learned before, everything that I thought I knew, was revealed as little more than an accumulation of information, dry bits of data that might provide explanation, but not understanding.
The guide on this journey was Carl Sagan, and the program was Cosmos. He gained my gratitude and eternal respect, for while I had the ability to think, it was he and Cosmos that awakened me and provided me with the tools to truly learn.
Rod S.
When I was still in elementary school, I knew things, and I knew that I knew things, but most of all I knew that I wanted to know things. I wanted to know more. Just more — not any one subject more than another, just more, because there was just so much to know.
And then, in that childhood time of wonder above all else, came Cosmos, and I understood. I understood that the universe itself was a matchless puzzle, and that, in the form of Carl Sagan, the human being could spend its entire life span searching, never satisfied with knowing all, but always filled with the joy of knowing a little more each day.
Wonder. Joy. The music of the spheres. Questions — always more questions.
It was Cosmos, in many ways, which taught me about the nature, not just of science, which I still enjoy and admire, but of art, that force which excites me now the way scientific inquiry excited Sagan then.
Stuart
