codebeef

“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.

…And there were other instances of Carl’s remarkable persuasiveness. One was a great story of a so-called “creation scientist” who watched Carl testify at a hearing about creationism in schools. Carl testified for about four hours. It was somewhere in the South, I can’t remember where. And six months later a letter came from the “creation scientist” expert who had also testified that day, saying that he had given up his daytime job and realized the error of what he was doing. It was only because Carl was so patient and so willing to hear the other person out. He did it with such kindness and then, very gently but without compromising, laid out all of the things that were wrong with what this guy thought was true. That is a lesson that I wish that all of us in our effort to promote skepticism could learn, because I know that very often the anger I feel when confronting this kind of thinking makes me want to start cutting off the other person. But to do so is to abandon all hope of changing minds.”

(Above) January 01, 1984; Cosmologist and author Carl Sagan and his wife author Ann Druyan pose in the Turnbull Conference Center on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida in 1984. 

Credit: Mickey Adair

Multiple people said ‘expand dong,’ so expand dong it is.

Tunisong Kasa in an illegal boxing club. Johannesburg, South Africa

The Lensblr Gallery presents:

Gustav Butlex | Portfolio

via thelifeofmeghan (via thelifeofmeghan)

Teen Girls to Create Africa’s First Private Satellite

Africa’s first private satellite will be launched in 2016.

But scientists and engineers will not be behind this bold move – it is being powered by a group of South African high school girls. Pupils from across Cape Town on Youth Day attended the launch of the ambitious project, run by the Meta Economic Development Organisation (Medo). A shortage of technical skills required for building businesses motivated the company to launch a science, technology, engineering and maths focused programme, explained Medo CEO Judi Sandrock.

“The intention of this programme is not to be a once-off. It is to be the start of at least a decade-long drive to inspire young people to enter the science and technical fields,” she said.

Ponderlust | Ep. 17: Ponderlust | Ep 17: Star Stuff w/ Special Guest Dr. Jeffrey Silverman 

Ponderlust | Ep. 15: Dear Pluto w/ special guest Janet Ivey 

Ponderlust | Ep. 14: First Robotics w/ special guest, Melissa Masters

…you’re looking at this:

with these:

and you see: 

or this: 

and you understand that:

which makes you feel like this:

because you understand that:

This is the #cosmicperspective.

Pictures of Laura Delgado Lopez (Project Manager, Secure World Foundation) taken at the 30th Space Symposium at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, CO, courtesy of the National Space Society and The Space Foundation.