A LETTER TO THE FUTUREThere was a time, long ago, when small wandering bands of humans dotted the planet. They lived out their lives with hardly any contact with those in the next valley or across the river. Back then, the oceans of the Earth separated us from each other as effectively as the vast cosmic ocean long confined us to our world. However, we are, by nature, an ocean-crossing species with a need to touch the distant shore, to find what awaits us there. Our ancestors devised a means to ride the winds across the high seas. They began the process of turning our species into an intercommunicating organism; a process that even now remains unfinished on a planet dangerously divided by greed, ignorance and brutality. The names of these ancient explorers are lost to us. Today we honor their courage and genius with this first flight of Cosmos I. We seek to learn how to ride the light of our star across the immense ocean of space to the distant shores of other worlds. We know full well that it will not be enough to succeed in this great quest, but fail in our journey of understanding towards each other. We take hope and inspiration from the life of Carl Sagan, who taught that we must do both. He dreamed, as do we, that you, our descendants, will remember us for finding a way to illuminate the darkness that threatens to engulf our tiny world and, for figuring out how to ride the light all they way to the stars. Ann Druyan |