Voyager: Exploration, Space, and the Third Great Age of Discovery by Stephen J. Pyne

Author:Stephen J. Pyne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Voyager, Science, eBook, Cosmology, NASA, Astronomy
ISBN: 9781101190296
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

THE PLANETARY SOCIETY

On the eve of Voyager 1’s closest encounter, as had happened with Mariner 4 and Viking at Mars and with Voyager at Jupiter, a panel, now well versed in the venue, convened at JPL to discuss “Saturn and the Mind of Man.” Chaired by Walter Sullivan of the New York Times and the author of books on IGY and Antarctica, the panel included Bruce Murray, Ray Bradbury, and Carl Sagan, all veterans of previous encounters, and Philip Morrison, returning from a stint with the Viking landing panel. Framing the session were comments by Marvin Goldberger, president of Caltech, and Jerry Brown, governor of California.117

The themes identified the usual suspects: imagination, curiosity, wonder, the imperative to understand our place in the cosmos. All combined science with other themes. The physicist Morrison added an emphasis on the aesthetic qualities of Saturn—its enthralling rings. Geologist, and now director of JPL, Murray commented on Voyager as a “climax of a glorious decade of exploration” and as the vanguard of a necessary era of discovery by robots. There was no alternative to semiautonomous spacecraft: the distances were too great and the velocities too speedy to allow for hands-on guidance from Earth. Astronomer Sagan managed to mingle the scientific with the prophetic, a kind of modern astrology purged of its hocus-pocus.118

Afterward the panel, along with many others, retired to a fund-raising dinner on behalf of The Planetary Society, which Murray, Sagan, and Louis Friedman had just founded. Its originating purpose was to rally public sentiment on behalf of space exploration by providing an institutional focus for such enthusiasms, one that could speak to politics. Its stated mission: “to promote planetary exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life.” By the time the organization celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, that charter had expanded to read: “to inspire the people of Earth—through research, education, private ventures, and public participation—to explore other worlds and seek other life.”119

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