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Remembering Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Introducing The Planetary Society

The following article by Planetary Society cofounder Carl Sagan announced the formation of The Planetary Society. It appeared in the September 1980 issue of Omni.

The Planetary Society

For all of human history the planets were wandering lights in the night sky. They stirred our ancestors, provoked their curiosity, and encouraged mathematics and more accurate record keeping. The work of Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton in the understanding of planetary motion led to the development of modern physics and in a very real sense opened up the modern age of science and technology. In the last 18 years every one of those wandering lights has been visited by space vehicles from Earth. We humans have landed exquisite robot spacecraft on Mars and Venus and have orbited both planets. We have flown by Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn. We discovered the broiling surface of Venus, the windswept valleys of Mars, the sulfur rivers of Io, the great polychrome storm systems of Jupiter. We have discovered new moons, new ring systems, puzzling markings, enigmatic pyramids, and have searched for life. Never again will the planets be mere wandering points of lights. Because of the effort of the last two decades they will forever after be worlds crying out for exploration and discovery.

Yet the pace of planetary exploration has slackened ominously. After the Voyager encounters with the Saturn system in November 1980 and July 1981, there will be a period of more than four years in which no new images will be returned from the planets by any American spacecraft. If we back off from the enterprise of the planets, we will be losing on many different levels. By examining other worlds—their weather, their geology, their organic chemistry, the possibility of life—we learn better how to understand and control Earth. Planetary exploration involves high technology that has many important applications to the national and global economy—robotics and computer systems being two of many examples. Such exploration uses aerospace technology in an enterprise that harms no one and that is a credit to our nation, our species, and our epoch. And planetary exploration is an adventure of historical proportions. A thousand years from now when the causes of temporary political disputes will be as obscure as the cause of the War of the Austrian Succession is to us, our age will be remembered because this was the moment when we first set sail for the planets and stars.

These arguments are widely accepted. When a specific planetary mission is being considered by the Executive Office of the President or by the appropriate congressional committees, however, planetary scientists hear another story. We are told that it is expensive, although a vigorous program of unmanned planetary exploration would cost about 0.1 percent of the federal budget; the Voyager spacecraft, when they are finished with their exploration, will have cost about 1 cent a world for every inhabitant of the planet Earth. But mainly we are told that, although the arguments for planetary exploration are widely understood in government circles, they are not supported by the people. We are told that spending money on planetary exploration—on the discovery of where we are, who we are, what our history and fate may be—is unpopular. I can remember a congressman telling me that the only letters he had received in support of the Galileo exploration of Jupiter were sent by people too young to vote.

But there is evidence of enormous support and enthusiasm for exploration of the planets. We can see it in the popularity of motion pictures, television programs, and books on planetary themes. While we puzzled over this apparent paradox, it became clear to me and a number of my colleagues that the solution would be a non-profit, tax-exempt public-membership organization devoted to the exploration of the planets and related themes—particularly the search for planets around other stars and the quest for extraterrestrial intelligence. If such an organization had a substantial membership, its mere existence would counter the argument that planetary exploration is unpopular. And so Dr. Bruce Murray, the director of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I, with a number of colleagues and friends, have established the Planetary Society. Charter membership is $20 a year, for which members receive a newsletter on the latest developments, access to spectacular color photographs taken by planetary spacecraft, notification of local events, talks, seminars, and workshops, and other advantages. If we are successful, we may be able not only to accomplish our initial goal of demonstrating a base of popular support for planetary exploration but also to provide funds for the stimulation of critical activities, for example, in planetary mapping and in the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We would be happy to hear from interested Omni readers at P.O. Box 3599, Pasadena, CA 91103. (Like many proposed interstellar radio messages, the box number is the product of two prime numbers, 59 and 61!)

– CARL SAGAN

Omni, September 1980 v2 p35(1)