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Star Stuff: An Exploratory Case Study of the Cosmos Television Franchise

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This 1970's NASA movie shows the results of the Mariner 9 mission -- which produced hundreds of photographs of the planet's surface, creating a new understanding of the planet's geography and atmosphere. At 7:30 , the film discusses the 1976 Viking mission including the dropping of a lander onto the planet's surface. The film speculates that the lander could find life on Mars, and shows at 8:00 possible types of Martian life that could be encountered, including creatures that extract water from rocks, or microscopic organisms. Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was an unmanned NASA space probe that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and reached the planet on November 14 of the same year, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet – only narrowly beating the Soviets' Mars 2 and Mars 3, which both arrived within a month. After months of dust storms it managed to send back clear pictures of the surface. Mariner 9 returned 7329 images over the course of its mission, which concluded in October 1972. The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down. The Viking program grew from NASA's earlier, even more ambitious, Voyager Mars program, which was not related to the successful Voyager deep space probes of the late 1970s. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and the second craft, Viking 2, was launched on September 9, 1975, both riding atop Titan III-E rockets with Centaur upper stages. Viking 1 entered Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, with Viking 2 following suit on August 7. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the orbiters and landers detached; the landers then entered the Martian atmosphere and soft-landed at the sites that had been chosen. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976, and was joined by the Viking 2 lander on September 3. The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface. The project cost roughly 1 billion USD in 1970s dollars, equivalent to about 11 billion USD in 2016 dollars. It was highly successful and formed most of the body of knowledge about Mars through the late 1990s and early 2000s. We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
This 45 minutes long interview of Carl Sagan by Ted Turner was only ever released commercially on the 1989 VHS box set of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage as a special bonus episode 14 and was never included on any of the subsequent commercial release. Carl Sagan and Ted Turner discuss the issues that are vital to the survival of our species on earth. Sagan explains the benefits of the American space program, the fascinating possibility of time travel, and our search for life on other worlds.This new digital transfer was made from a brand new, still sealed copy of the VHS tape and should be an upgrade over the transfer currently floating around. Some new subtitles were also added to make this accessible to non-english speaker.
The Sputnik 1 (PS-1) satellite is shown here on a rigging truck in the assembly shop in the fall of 1957 as a technician puts finishing touches on it. When the development of the first advanced scientific satellite, Object D, proved to be more difficult than expected, the Soviets decided to launch a simpler, smaller satellite. PS-1, or Sputnik 1, began development in November 1956. On October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 successfully launched and entered Earth's orbit. Sputnik shocked the world, giving the USSR the distinction of putting the first human-made object into space and putting the United States a step behind in the space race. *Image Credit*: NASA
These clips originally aired on The Science Channel during Summer of 2008 in the Eastern Time Zone of North East, North America. They were quickly captured haphazardly using a cheap consumer-grade video capture device, Diamond Multimedia VC500 One Touch Capture Device (RCA and/or S-Video to USB 2.0). These aired during a Cosmos: A Personal Voyage marathon and was hosted by Ann Druyan, a documentary producer and director specializing in the communication of science. She co-wrote the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981. (Source: Wikipedia.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan). These clips/promos were played before and between each episode of Cosmos during the marathon and contain informative behind-the-scenes information of the groundbreaking series, anecdotes, and background information on each episode. After extensive searching online (as of 2021.12) no copies of these clips which aired during this Science Channel Cosmos Marathon appear to exist anywhere else. No other recordings can be found online. As stated, the captures are far from perfect, and also, the videos here are not a complete collection of every single promo that aired. e.g., not every interstitial promo which aired was captured, which is why there are episode promos missing. This contributor quickly grabbed the nearest device for capturing, the VC500 One Touch Capture Device. But the process and device were shoddy. Sometimes it would drop the signal for color entirely and only capture in B&W. Other times it would capture in color, but the software would lock up. The capture was done through RCA (yellow, white, red) cables and the signal was fed through a USB 2.0 connection onto the desktop software it was bundled with. The software would then save the recording as an .mpg video file. Below is a list of the episode promos included in this item, referencing whether it's in b&w or color, the original air date, and time. All Rights To Their Respective Owners. This material is presented as-is for the permanent record only. Episode 6: Captured only in black & white, no color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 7: Captured only in black & white, no color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 8: Captured only in black & white, no color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 9: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM Episode 10: Captured only in black & white, no color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 11: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 12: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 12: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Episode 13: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Promo Clip: Meetings on Cosmos, Carl's Office: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET Promo Clip: Want More Cosmos, ScienceChannel.com: Captured in color. Aired on 2008.06.22, 10AM-11PM ET
20 July 2006 Viking 1 landed 30 years ago today, on 20 July 1976. It was the first U.S. landing on Mars and a very exciting time for Mars exploration. Since that time, four additional spacecraft have successfully landed on Mars and conducted their science investigations. Today, new missions to the martian surface are in the works, with landings expected in 2008 (Phoenix) and 2010 (Mars Science Laboratory). The Viking 1 lander is difficult to see in Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images. The western Chryse Planitia landing site is often obscured by dust hazes and occasional storms, especially during northern winter, which would otherwise be the best time to look for the lander from orbit because the sun casts longer shadows in winter. When the atmosphere is clearest, in portions of the spring and summer, the sun is higher in the sky as seen from MGS's orbit. The spacecraft always passes over the landing site region around 2 p.m. in the afternoon. The suite of pictures shown here describes the best MOC view of the landing site. These were previously released in May 2005, but the MOC team felt that 20 July 2006 is an appropriate time to review this story. The first figure (left) visually tells how the lander was found. The initial observations of the location of Viking 1, as originally determined by members of the Viking science team based on sightlines to various crater rims seen in the lander images (black lines), did not show the detailed features we knew from the lander pictures (middle) to be in the area. Using geodetic measurements, the late Merton Davies of the RAND Corporation, a MGS MOC Co-Investigator, suggested that we should image areas to the east and north of where Viking 1 was thought to be. Timothy J. Parker of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), using sightlines to crater rims seen in the lander images (white lines), deduced a location very close to that suggested by Davies. The MOC image of that location, acquired in 2003, showed additional near-field features (rocks associated with a nearby crater) that closely matched the Viking 1 images (center and right frame, where B denotes "Volkswagen Rock"). The inset (upper right) is an enlargement that shows the location of the Viking 1 lander. The MOC image of the Viking 1 lander site (right) was acquired during a test of the MGS Pitch and Roll Observation (PROTO) technique conducted on 11 May 2003. (Following initial tests, the "c" part of "cPROTO" was begun by adding compensation for the motion of the planet to the technique). The PROTO or cPROTO approach allows MOC to obtain images with better than its nominal 1.5 meters (5 ft) per pixel resolution. The image shown here (right) was map projected at 50 centimeters (~20 inches) per pixel. The full 11 May 2003 image can be viewed in the MOC Gallery, it is image R05-00966. In addition to celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first U.S. robotic Mars landing, we note that 20 July is also the 37th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. There are two dates that are most sacred in the space business (three, if you count the 4 October 1957 launch of Sputnik 1). The other date is 12 April, which celebrates the 1961 launch of the first human in space, and the 1981 launch of the first space shuttle orbiter.
This episode of the U.S. Army's TV program "The Big Picture" deals with the the first satellite of the United States Explorer 1, launched as part of its participation in the International Geophysical Year. The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 and 2, beginning the Cold War Space Race between the two nations. Army General John Medaris headed the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, which oversaw both JPL and Wernher von Braun’s rocket team in Huntsville, Ala. JPL and the Army teamed up to launch Explorer 1. The Huntsville team provided the first-stage rocket, while JPL built the upper stages and the satellite that carried the science payload. Medaris played a pivotal role in advancing the development of Explorer 1. Explorer 1 was launched on January 31, 1958 at 22:48 Eastern Time (equal to February 1, 03:48 UTC) atop the first Juno booster from LC-26 at the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt, returning data until its batteries were exhausted after nearly four months. It remained in orbit until 1970, and has been followed by more than 90 scientific spacecraft in the Explorer series. Explorer 1 was given Satellite Catalog Number 4, and the Harvard designation 1958 Alpha 1, the forerunner to the modern International Designator. To the surprise of mission experts, Explorer 1 changed rotation axis after launch. The elongated body of the spacecraft had been designed to spin about its long (least-inertia) axis but refused to do so, and instead started precessing due to energy dissipation from flexible structural elements. Later it was understood that on general grounds, the body ends up in the spin state that minimizes the kinetic rotational energy for a fixed angular momentum (this being the maximal-inertia axis). This motivated the first further development of the Eulerian theory of rigid body dynamics after nearly 200 years—to address this kind of momentum-preserving energy dissipation. Sometimes the instrumentation would report the expected cosmic ray count (approximately 30 counts per second) but sometimes it would show a peculiar zero counts per second. The University of Iowa (under Van Allen) noted that all of the zero counts per second reports were from an altitude of 2,000+ km (1,250+ miles) over South America, while passes at 500 km (310 mi) would show the expected level of cosmic rays. Later, after Explorer 3, it was concluded that the original Geiger counter had been overwhelmed ("saturated") by strong radiation coming from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by the Earth's magnetic field. This belt of charged particles is now known as the Van Allen radiation belt. The discovery was considered to be one of the outstanding discoveries of the International Geophysical Year. The acoustic micrometeorite detector detected 145 impacts of cosmic dust in 78,750 seconds. This calculates to an average impact rate of 8.0×10−3 impacts m−2 s−1 over the twelve-day period (29 impacts per hour per square meter). This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2K. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
Mariner 2 was the world's first successful interplanetary spacecraft. Launched August 27, 1962, on an Atlas-Agena rocket, Mariner 2 passed within about 34,000 kilometers (21,000 miles) of Venus, sending back valuable new information about interplanetary space and the Venusian atmosphere. Mariner 2 recorded the temperature at Venus for the first time, revealing the planet's very hot atmosphere of about 500 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit). The spacecraft's solar wind experiment measured for the first time the density, velocity, composition and variation over time of the solar wind.
Dr. William H. Pickering, (center) JPL Director, presenting Mariner spacecraft model to President John F. Kennedy, (right). NASA Administrator James Webb is standing directly behind the Mariner model. The Mariner 2 probe flew by Venus in 1962 after the failure of Mariner 1, sending back data on its atmosphere, mass, and weather patterns. It stopped transmitting in 1963 after delivering a wealth of scientific information.
Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., Lunar Module (LM) pilot, unpacks the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP) from the Modularized Equipment Storage Assembly (MESA) of the LM. Image taken at Tranquility Base during the Apollo 11 Mission. Original film magazine was labeled S. Film Type: Ektachrome EF SO168 color film on a 2.7-mil Estar polyester base taken with a 60mm lens. Sun angle is Medium. Tilt direction is Northwest (NW).
This is the official crew portrait of the Apollo 11 astronauts. Pictured from left to right are: Neil A. Armstrong, Commander; Michael Collins, Module Pilot; Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot. Apollo 11 was the first marned lunar landing mission that placed the first humans on the surface of the moon and returned them back to Earth. Astronaut Armstrong became the first man on the lunar surface, and astronaut Aldrin became the second. Astronaut Collins piloted the Command Module in a parking orbit around the Moon. Launched aboard the Saturn V launch vehicle (SA-506), the three astronauts began their journey to the moon with liftoff from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 8:32 am CDT, July 16, 1969.
President Richard M. Nixon was in the central Pacific recovery area to welcome the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the U.S.S. Hornet, prime recovery ship for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. Already confined to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) are (left to right) Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. Apollo 11 splashed down at 11:49 a.m. (CDT), July 24, 1969, about 812 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii and only 12 nautical miles from the U.S.S. Hornet. The three crew men will remain in the MQF until they arrive at the Manned Spacecraft Center's (MSC) Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL). While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Collins remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar-orbit. Publication information: AS11-10075311
The Apollo 11 mission, the first manned lunar mission, launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida via a Saturn V launch vehicle on July 16, 1969 and safely returned to Earth on July 24, 1969. The Saturn V vehicle was developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) under the direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun. Aboard were Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, Command Module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module pilot. The Command Module (CM), piloted by Michael Collins remained in a parking orbit around the Moon while the Lunar Module (LM), named ?Eagle??, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, landed on the Moon. Armstrong was the first human to ever stand on the lunar surface, followed by Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin. During 2_ hours of surface exploration, the crew collected 47 pounds of lunar surface material for analysis back on Earth. Shown here is the recovery operation of the capsule in the Pacific Ocean after splashdown. Navy para-rescue men recovered the capsule housing the 3-man Apollo 11 crew. The crew was taken to safety aboard the USS Hornet, where they were quartered in a mobile quarantine facility. With the success of Apollo 11, the national objective to land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth had been accomplished.
The Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space, carries this pictorial plaque. It is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. (With the hope that they would not invade Earth.) The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The "1-" symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a "1" unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a "universal clock," and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick" for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the binary number representing "8" shown next to the woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. Across the bottom are the planets, ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars, and swinging by Jupiter.
The Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space, carries this pictorial plaque. It is designed to show scientifically educated inhabitants of some other star system, who might intercept it millions of years from now, when Pioneer was launched, from where, and by what kind of beings. (Hopefully, any aliens reading the plaque will not use this knowledge to immediately invade Earth.) The design is etched into a 6 inch by 9 inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the spacecraft's attenna support struts in a position to help shield it from erosion by interstellar dust. The radiating lines at left represents the positions of 14 pulsars, a cosmic source of radio energy, arranged to indicate our sun as the home star of our civilization. The "1-" symbols at the ends of the lines are binary numbers that represent the frequencies of these pulsars at the time of launch of Pioneer F relative of that to the hydrogen atom shown at the upper left with a "1" unity symbol. The hydrogen atom is thus used as a "universal clock," and the regular decrease in the frequencies of the pulsars will enable another civilization to determine the time that has elapsed since Pioneer F was launched. The hydrogen is also used as a "universal yardstick" for sizing the human figures and outline of the spacecraft shown on the right. The hydrogen wavelength, about 8 inches, multiplied by the binary number representing "8" shown next to the woman gives her height, 64 inches. The figures represent the type of creature that created Pioneer. The man's hand is raised in a gesture of good will. Across the bottom are the planets, ranging outward from the Sun, with the spacecraft trajectory arching away from Earth, passing Mars, and swinging by Jupiter.
This official circa 1973 NASA color film tells the story of Pioneer 10 — the first spacecraft to travel beyond Mars to the outer planets of our solar system. Launched in March 1972, the spacecraft took a 21-month, 620-million-mile journey to Jupiter, during which Pioneer penetrated the previously unexplored asteroid belt without mishap, eliminating the long held fear that high-speed particles or huge asteroids might destroy the spacecraft. This film tells of the findings recorded by the scientific instruments and cameras onboard. We see its unmistakeable great red spot (mark 01:30 ) and various animations before seeing Gerard Kuiper, considered by many to be the father of modern planetary science, who shares a number of his photographs. The actual launch of the spacecraft is shown at mark 09:33 , followed by several animations of Pioneer 10 mixed with scenes from mission control. Grainy images — gathered from scans taken by the spacecraft — are shown on a monitor at mark 14:22 . The narrator speculates whether some form for life exists beneath the planet’s thick clouds, with astronomer Carl Sagan detailing the possible reasons why beginning at mark 15:22 . At mark 16:05 we see the familiar “picture postcard of what nude human female an male bodies look like as well as Earth’s location in the galaxy. For the first time ever, we see “crescent” images of Jupiter (mark 22:20 ). Even more animations follow as the narrator explains how more mysteries are waiting to be unlocked. After leaving the Jovian system and wandering endlessly through the Milky Way galaxy, carrying a message for possible extraterrestrial beings, radio communications were lost with Pioneer 10 in 2003. We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
Image PSP_001435_2280 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on November 16, 2006. The complete image is centered at 47.7 degrees latitude, 134.0 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 316.0 km (197.5 miles). At this distance the image scale is 31.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~95 cm across are resolved. The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 cm/pixel and north is up. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:11 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 49 degrees, thus the sun was about 41 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 136.2 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo.
This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters -- violet, blue and green -- and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.
National Archives and Records Administration VOYAGER II-URANUS FLY BY U.S. Information Agency. (1982 - 10/01/1999) VOYAGER II-URANUS FLY BY - HIBBS/STONE/SMITH/GAUTIER/BRAHIC. ARC Identifier 59760 / Local Identifier 306-WNET-188. TELEVISION DISCUSSION: AL HIBBS, DR. EDWARD STONE, DR. BRAD SMITH, DR. DANIEL GAUTIER, AND DR. ANDRE BRAHIC, SCIENTISTS, JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, DISCUSS THE DISCOVERY OF NEW MOONS, ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION OF URANUS, THE NINE KNOWN RINGS OF URANUS, THE DISCOVERY OF A 17-HOUR DAY, PLANET TEMPERATURE, AND THE FACTS UNCOVERED ABOUT URANUS' MAGNETIC FIELD. SHOWS RECENT VOYAGER PHOTOGRAPHS. Made possible by a donation from Shawn Masters.
The Golden Record Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The Golden Record Cover In the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour. The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to ordinary television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster, showing that there are 512 vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Electroplated onto the record's cover is an ultra-pure source of uranium-238 with a radioactivity of about 0.00026 microcuries. The steady decay of the uranium source into its daughter isotopes makes it a kind of radioactive clock. Half of the uranium-238 will decay in 4.51 billion years. Thus, by examining this two-centimeter diameter area on the record plate and measuring the amount of daughter elements to the remaining uranium-238, an extraterrestrial recipient of the Voyager spacecraft could calculate the time elapsed since a spot of uranium was placed aboard the spacecraft. This should be a check on the epoch of launch, which is also described by the pulsar map on the record cover. The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a sort of time capsule . Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years ' distance of the star Gliese 445 , currently in the constellation Camelopardalis , in about 40,000 years . Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet." The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University . The selection of content for the record took almost a year. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales ). To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's), and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim . The record also includes the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code . The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA , and human anatomy and reproduction . Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition . All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe . The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as J.S. Bach (interpreted by Glenn Gould ), Mozart , Beethoven (played by the Budapest String Quartet ), and Stravinsky . The disc also includes music by Guan Pinghu , Blind Willie Johnson , Chuck Berry , Kesarbai Kerkar , Valya Balkanska , and electronic composer Laurie Spiegel , as well as Azerbaijani folk music ( Mugham ) by oboe player Kamil Jalilov . The inclusion of Berry's " Johnny B. Goode " was controversial, with some claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet." The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, Linda Salzman Sagan , Frank Drake , Alan Lomax , Ann Druyan as creative director, artist Jon Lomberg , Timothy Ferris as producer, and Jimmy Iovine as sound engineer. The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan . During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love. After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg , with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs. The pulsar map and hydrogen molecule diagram are shared in common with the Pioneer plaque . The 115 images are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at 16⅔ revolutions per minute. Jimmy Iovine , who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project at the recommendation of John Lennon , who was contacted to contribute but was unable to take part. Sagan's team wanted to include the Beatles song " Here Comes the Sun " on the record, but the record company EMI , which held the copyrights, declined. In the 1978 book Murmurs of Earth , the failure to secure permission for the song is cited as one of the legal challenges faced by the team compiling the Voyager Golden Record. In the book, Sagan said that the Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk." When asked about the obstacle presented by EMI with regard to "Here Comes the Sun", despite the artists' wishes, Ann Druyan said in 2015: "Yeah, that was one of those cases of having to see the tragedy of our planet. Here's a chance to send a piece of music into the distant future and distant time, and to give it this kind of immortality, and they're worried about money ... we got this telegram [from EMI] saying that it will be $50,000 per record for two records, and the entire Voyager record cost $18,000 to produce." However, this was refuted in 2017 by Timothy Ferris; in his recollection, "Here Comes the Sun" was never considered for inclusion. In July 2015, NASA uploaded the audio contents of the record to the audio streaming service SoundCloud . In the upper left-hand corner is a drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom . The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record—about an hour (more precisely, between 53 and 54 minutes). The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to analog television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster , showing that there are 512 (2 9 ) vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. Color images were represented by three images in sequence, one each for red, green, and blue components of the image. A color image of the spectrum of the sun was included for calibration purposes. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the Solar System with respect to 14 pulsars , whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Blank records were provided by the Pyral S.A. of Créteil , France. CBS Records contracted the JVC Cutting Center in Boulder, Colorado , to cut the lacquer masters which were then sent to the James G. Lee record-processing center in Gardena, California , to cut and gold-plate eight Voyager records. After the records were plated they were mounted in aluminum containers and delivered to JPL. The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238 . Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years. It is possible (e.g. via mass-spectrometry ) that a civilization that encounters the record will be able to use the ratio of remaining uranium to the other elements to determine the age of the record. The records also had the inscription "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" hand-etched on its surface. The inscription was located in the "takeout grooves", an area of the record between the label and playable surface. Since this was not in the original specifications, the record was initially rejected, to be replaced with a blank disc. Sagan later convinced the administrator to include the record as is. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990, and left the Solar System (in the sense of passing the termination shock ) in November 2004. It is now in the Kuiper belt . In about 40,000 years, it and Voyager 2 will each come to within about 1.8 light-years of two separate stars: Voyager 1 will have approached star Gliese 445 , located in the constellation Camelopardalis ; and Voyager 2 will have approached star Ross 248 , located in the constellation of Andromeda . In March 2012, Voyager 1 was over 17.9 billion km from the Sun and traveling at a speed of 3.6 AU per year (approximately 61,000 km/h (38,000 mph)), while Voyager 2 was over 14.7 billion km away and moving at about 3.3 AU per year (approximately 56,000 km/h (35,000 mph)). Voyager 1 has entered the heliosheath , the region beyond the termination shock. The termination shock is where the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically charged gas blowing continuously outward from the Sun, is slowed by pressure from gas between the stars. At the termination shock, the solar wind slows abruptly from its average speed of 300–700 km/s (670,000–1,570,000 mph) and becomes denser and hotter. Of the eleven instruments carried on Voyager 1 , five of them are still operational and continue to send back data today. It is expected that there will be insufficient energy to power any of the instruments beyond 2025. On September 12, 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had left the heliosheath and entered interstellar space , although it still remains within the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence.
The Golden Record Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The Golden Record Cover In the upper left-hand corner is an easily recognized drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0,70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom. The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record - about an hour. The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to ordinary television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster, showing that there are 512 vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the solar system with respect to 14 pulsars, whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Electroplated onto the record's cover is an ultra-pure source of uranium-238 with a radioactivity of about 0.00026 microcuries. The steady decay of the uranium source into its daughter isotopes makes it a kind of radioactive clock. Half of the uranium-238 will decay in 4.51 billion years. Thus, by examining this two-centimeter diameter area on the record plate and measuring the amount of daughter elements to the remaining uranium-238, an extraterrestrial recipient of the Voyager spacecraft could calculate the time elapsed since a spot of uranium was placed aboard the spacecraft. This should be a check on the epoch of launch, which is also described by the pulsar map on the record cover. The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a sort of time capsule . Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, Voyager 1 will pass within 1.6 light-years ' distance of the star Gliese 445 , currently in the constellation Camelopardalis , in about 40,000 years . Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet." The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University . The selection of content for the record took almost a year. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales ). To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's), and printed messages from U.S. president Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim . The record also includes the inspirational message Per aspera ad astra in Morse code . The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA , and human anatomy and reproduction . Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition . All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe . The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as J.S. Bach (interpreted by Glenn Gould ), Mozart , Beethoven (played by the Budapest String Quartet ), and Stravinsky . The disc also includes music by Guan Pinghu , Blind Willie Johnson , Chuck Berry , Kesarbai Kerkar , Valya Balkanska , and electronic composer Laurie Spiegel , as well as Azerbaijani folk music ( Mugham ) by oboe player Kamil Jalilov . The inclusion of Berry's " Johnny B. Goode " was controversial, with some claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet." The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, Linda Salzman Sagan , Frank Drake , Alan Lomax , Ann Druyan as creative director, artist Jon Lomberg , Timothy Ferris as producer, and Jimmy Iovine as sound engineer. The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan . During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love. After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg , with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs. The pulsar map and hydrogen molecule diagram are shared in common with the Pioneer plaque . The 115 images are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at 16⅔ revolutions per minute. Jimmy Iovine , who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project at the recommendation of John Lennon , who was contacted to contribute but was unable to take part. Sagan's team wanted to include the Beatles song " Here Comes the Sun " on the record, but the record company EMI , which held the copyrights, declined. In the 1978 book Murmurs of Earth , the failure to secure permission for the song is cited as one of the legal challenges faced by the team compiling the Voyager Golden Record. In the book, Sagan said that the Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk." When asked about the obstacle presented by EMI with regard to "Here Comes the Sun", despite the artists' wishes, Ann Druyan said in 2015: "Yeah, that was one of those cases of having to see the tragedy of our planet. Here's a chance to send a piece of music into the distant future and distant time, and to give it this kind of immortality, and they're worried about money ... we got this telegram [from EMI] saying that it will be $50,000 per record for two records, and the entire Voyager record cost $18,000 to produce." However, this was refuted in 2017 by Timothy Ferris; in his recollection, "Here Comes the Sun" was never considered for inclusion. In July 2015, NASA uploaded the audio contents of the record to the audio streaming service SoundCloud . In the upper left-hand corner is a drawing of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it. The stylus is in the correct position to play the record from the beginning. Written around it in binary arithmetic is the correct time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, expressed in time units of 0.70 billionths of a second, the time period associated with a fundamental transition of the hydrogen atom . The drawing indicates that the record should be played from the outside in. Below this drawing is a side view of the record and stylus, with a binary number giving the time to play one side of the record—about an hour (more precisely, between 53 and 54 minutes). The information in the upper right-hand portion of the cover is designed to show how pictures are to be constructed from the recorded signals. The top drawing shows the typical signal that occurs at the start of a picture. The picture is made from this signal, which traces the picture as a series of vertical lines, similar to analog television (in which the picture is a series of horizontal lines). Picture lines 1, 2 and 3 are noted in binary numbers, and the duration of one of the "picture lines," about 8 milliseconds, is noted. The drawing immediately below shows how these lines are to be drawn vertically, with staggered "interlace" to give the correct picture rendition. Immediately below this is a drawing of an entire picture raster , showing that there are 512 (2 9 ) vertical lines in a complete picture. Immediately below this is a replica of the first picture on the record to permit the recipients to verify that they are decoding the signals correctly. A circle was used in this picture to ensure that the recipients use the correct ratio of horizontal to vertical height in picture reconstruction. Color images were represented by three images in sequence, one each for red, green, and blue components of the image. A color image of the spectrum of the sun was included for calibration purposes. The drawing in the lower left-hand corner of the cover is the pulsar map previously sent as part of the plaques on Pioneers 10 and 11. It shows the location of the Solar System with respect to 14 pulsars , whose precise periods are given. The drawing containing two circles in the lower right-hand corner is a drawing of the hydrogen atom in its two lowest states, with a connecting line and digit 1 to indicate that the time interval associated with the transition from one state to the other is to be used as the fundamental time scale, both for the time given on the cover and in the decoded pictures. Blank records were provided by the Pyral S.A. of Créteil , France. CBS Records contracted the JVC Cutting Center in Boulder, Colorado , to cut the lacquer masters which were then sent to the James G. Lee record-processing center in Gardena, California , to cut and gold-plate eight Voyager records. After the records were plated they were mounted in aluminum containers and delivered to JPL. The record is constructed of gold-plated copper and is 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The record's cover is aluminum and electroplated upon it is an ultra-pure sample of the isotope uranium-238 . Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.468 billion years. It is possible (e.g. via mass-spectrometry ) that a civilization that encounters the record will be able to use the ratio of remaining uranium to the other elements to determine the age of the record. The records also had the inscription "To the makers of music – all worlds, all times" hand-etched on its surface. The inscription was located in the "takeout grooves", an area of the record between the label and playable surface. Since this was not in the original specifications, the record was initially rejected, to be replaced with a blank disc. Sagan later convinced the administrator to include the record as is. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, passed the orbit of Pluto in 1990, and left the Solar System (in the sense of passing the termination shock ) in November 2004. It is now in the Kuiper belt . In about 40,000 years, it and Voyager 2 will each come to within about 1.8 light-years of two separate stars: Voyager 1 will have approached star Gliese 445 , located in the constellation Camelopardalis ; and Voyager 2 will have approached star Ross 248 , located in the constellation of Andromeda . In March 2012, Voyager 1 was over 17.9 billion km from the Sun and traveling at a speed of 3.6 AU per year (approximately 61,000 km/h (38,000 mph)), while Voyager 2 was over 14.7 billion km away and moving at about 3.3 AU per year (approximately 56,000 km/h (35,000 mph)). Voyager 1 has entered the heliosheath , the region beyond the termination shock. The termination shock is where the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically charged gas blowing continuously outward from the Sun, is slowed by pressure from gas between the stars. At the termination shock, the solar wind slows abruptly from its average speed of 300–700 km/s (670,000–1,570,000 mph) and becomes denser and hotter. Of the eleven instruments carried on Voyager 1 , five of them are still operational and continue to send back data today. It is expected that there will be insufficient energy to power any of the instruments beyond 2025. On September 12, 2013, NASA announced that Voyager 1 had left the heliosheath and entered interstellar space , although it still remains within the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence.

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Who Owns (the) Cosmos? An Epilogue, Prologue, and Intermission While working on this Scalar Project, I was able to explore over 60 years of space exploration history through educational media. Every event that is covered in each section of this project is highlighted in the timeline at the top of this page. One of the things that has stuck with me throughout this experience is a sentiment expressed by Ann Druyan. In a Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Q&A session embedded in this project, she argues that the information contained in these documentaries is a “birthright” that everyone should be entitled to. This idea is also crystallized in a quote from the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage that this project is named after. “The cosmos is within us. We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself”. However, in the mission to distribute the findings of cosmology to the public, I believe science communicators could go much further. In this short essay, I will briefly outline three ways that science communicators can improve their work using examples from the Cosmos series. These recommendations include taking a clear stance on social and political issues, using more everyday objects in place of CGI effects for symbolic representations, and engaging with knowledge privatization in their content. Those three recommendations are by no means comprehensive, but I think that discussing them here will encourage us to think about who really owns the knowledge communicated by the Cosmos series: the scientists, the media companies, or everybody on this planet?
Science Communication Needs to Take a Stance on Social and Political Issues
While working on this project, a relative of mine told me that my grandmother, better known as Nan Dawson, was a staunch critic of space exploration while the Cold War space race was unfolding before her eyes. “What a colossal waste of human technological prowess and energy that could be better directed at something more useful” she likely would have thought. When I began this project, I shared similar views on space exploration to that of my late grandmother. Space exploration disinterested me because I perceived it as having nothing to say about present social and political realities here on Earth. This changed when I watched the 1989 update to Cosmos: A Personal Voyages’ final episode, "Who Speaks for Earth". In this six-minute update, Carl Sagan discusses how the study of the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus has helped us better understand climate change’s effects on Earth. This discussion is further expanded upon in episode 12 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, "The World Set Free". As a result, I've become a lot more sympathetic to what other space exploration missions can reveal about our own planet. These projects include the recently opened James Webb Telescope or the fabled mission to visit the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system depicted at the end of the first episode of Cosmos: Possible Worlds. I have included that clip from Cosmos: Possible Worlds here below.
My change of heart while watching these television series suggests that science communication is most engaging when it is relevant to the everyday lives of its audience. Science communication needs to showcase what endeavors such as space exploration can tell us about ourselves. It must demonstrate that by looking outwardly we might be better able to look inwardly. We cannot pretend that science is somehow impartial or separated from prevailing social inequities and struggles of power within society. The above clip from Possible Worlds opens by comparing the exploration of space to life evolving out of Earth’s Ocean, or "birds beginning to fly". Science communicators should not position what they are talking about as apolitical in this kind of way. It is uncalled for to suggest that space exploration is a natural extension of evolution. Exploration needs to be a conscious and concerted effort that strives to yield meaningful results for those living on Earth. Those with authority over space exploration cannot delude themselves of their agency under the guise of their work being somehow natural, preordained, or inevitable. The questions posed by episode 11 of Cosmos: Possible Worlds, named after the book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Sagan and Druyan, ask viewers to think deeply about who they are in relation to other animals. These revelations, if accepted, would have profound consequences on how they live their lives. I would like to see more of this kind of social and politically conscious content from science communicators moving forward.
Science Communication Should Include Everyday Symbolic Representations
Another way communicators can make the findings of science more tangible for their audiences is by using everyday symbolic representations in place of CGI effects. For all the fantastical computer-generated spectacles in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, one of my favorite moments was when Tyson used the analogy of walking a dog to explain the difference between climate and weather.
Instances where everyday events activities and objects are used to explain complex concepts are extremely rare in A Spacetime Odyssey and Possible Worlds with Neil deGrasse Tyson. However, they were more commonplace in Cosmos: A Personal Voyage with Sagan. Take for example this sequence where Sagan describes the challenges of conceiving a 4th dimension of experience using pieces of paper, and other household items.
Something about this stripped-down, bare-bones approach to communicating makes science feel inviting and accessible. It is as though the scientist and the layperson have the same set of tools before them for resolving problems at the edge of our understanding. The remake of this sequence in Cosmos: Possible Worlds loses the sense of invitation in my opinion. Its use of special effects doesn’t convey the sense that this is a conversation that the average person can be a part of in the same way.

Though the original Cosmos: A Personal Voyage does later provide its own visualization of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th dimensions using the ground-breaking special effects of its time, this comparison of these sequences nevertheless illustrates a divergence between the two series. It may be possible that this change in direction for the Cosmos series is indicative of a broader shift in science communication. A shift brought on by growing budgets and advancements in CGI technology. If that is the case, there is room to hope that independent content creators constrained by smaller budgets on video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok could continue this tradition of simplicity. The challenges of creating a long-term knowledge repository on the internet are something that I would now like to discuss in my third recommendation.
Science Communication Needs to Engage with Knowledge Privatization
The question of “why put Cosmos on Fox” is brought up in two interviews from the new Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Seth MacFarlane sections of this project. In those interviews, both Tyson and Druyan expressed that they weren’t interested in having a show on networks that already had plenty of science-related content. They wanted to reach a commercial network audience that typically didn't engage with science communication documentaries. That is a perfectly reasonable objective. However, the choice to privatize scientific information rather than release it on a publicly accessible platform has consequences for long-term knowledge dissemination. I think that communicators should take the time to teach the difference between public and private information, where to find publicly available science content, and consider releasing their work on publicly available platforms if possible. I will now demonstrate why having information publicly available online is important by discussing what I have organized for this case study of the Cosmos franchise.
The original Cosmos was the shining star of American public broadcasting for over a decade. Releasing your content on a publicly available network means more than just allowing people to access your show for free without advertisements, it places your work within the public commons where anyone can engage with it. Let's use another poster child of public broadcasting as an example. The painting instructor Bob Ross. His show The Joys of Painting, which ran from 1983 to 1994, has gained an immense resurgence in popularity during the internet age. This is due in part to the fact that any content creator online can watch, react to, and paint along with the program. You can also do this with any episode of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. All the episodes of the show are available on places like the Internet Archive for you to do whatever you like with online. The same cannot be said for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey or Possible Worlds. This has consequences that are not truly apparent until you start to engage with the content of the shows. For instance, the four videos I used in this essay when discussing my other two points came from different places online. The first Possible Worlds clip is from an individual YouTube account that likely didn't get copyright approval from the Walt Disney Corporation (who now own Fox and National Geographic). The second clip with the dog from A Spacetime Odyssey and the fourth clip of Tyson describing flatland come from the National Geographics official YouTube channel. The third clip from A Personal Voyage is on the Internet Archive.

That first Possible Worlds clip from the individual YouTube account is at very high risk of being taken down. It would only require someone, not even Disney, to file a report against the video. That would replace the videos window on this Scalar page with an error screen, an issue which is extremely common on other projects I have looked at. Meanwhile, the first and third videos which were officially released through National Geographic are at the second highest risk of leaving. There is nothing stopping National Geographic from taking it down or YouTube changing the metadata my project is using to display the video. This is because YouTube is a private platform that isn't concerned with maintaining a stable source of information for long-term knowledge preservation. Lastly, the A Personal Voyage clip from the Internet Archive is the most likely to stand the test of time. It is a publicly available television show that is hosted on a platform committed to keeping its metadata consistent. The copyright holder is not going to file any sort of claim against the video and the archive is unlikely to change its metadata for no apparent reason.

However, the Internet Archive is not a foolproof place to store information either. There is an ongoing lawsuit that is attempting to take down the internet archive's library of books. Every single book I reference in the sections of this project has a link to their Internet Archive listing. The only exception to that is the recent Cosmos: Possible Worlds book which is not available on the platform. If this lawsuit rules in favor of the publishing companies, all those book links will be rendered useless and people viewing this project will be unable to access them legally for free online.
If the content in this project survives getting taken down for the multitude of reasons I have just mentioned, the long-term sustainability of the internet itself is also a concern. In the work of Druyan after the death of Sagan section of this project, I showcase a website that was commissioned by Cosmos Studios in the mid-2000s. The Adobe Flash platform that this website was built on has since been discontinued and the page is rendered inaccessible without an emulator. Instances like this highlight how unarchived private information is at constant risk of being scrubbed off the face of the internet.

Below is a visualization created using Scalar's tagging system of all the media items that I have included in the project. I have divided them into two categories: Public and Private. If you have a computer mouse, you can use its scroll wheel to zoom out and see more of the visualization. You can also click on the tiny box in the bottom left corner to make it full screen. My goal throughout the project was to include as few private items as possible. Publicly available media outnumbers the private 73 to 19 as a result. It’s only a matter of time until some of these media items begin to disappear from the project. The question is which items will be left standing the longest? In some ways, we can think of this project as a test of who is entitled to the scientific information communicated in these documentaries. The scientific community who conducted the research, the media companies publishing it, or the public whose ‘birthright’ it is to access it? ‘Who’ in fact ‘owns the cosmos’ is the question being posed by this experiment.
This concludes my short essay containing three recommendations for the betterment of future science communication endeavors. I hope that these reflections may have prompted you to think about the connection between information ownership, symbolic representation, and sociopolitical relevance when it comes to science dissemination. You can now return to the Launch Point to explore more of the project or simply select a section you are interested in from the dropdown menu at the top of your screen. If you would like to learn more about the academic underpinnings of this project, along with the process I went through to make it, you can also read my 30-page companion paper. You can find it by clicking the blue button at the bottom of your screen.