Soon after Carl Sagan passed away, The Planetary Society (www.planetary.org) set up a page of tributes to him.
My thanks to Carl can be seen here
 

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When I met Carl at the Flagstaff, AZ airport a few years ago as he was leaving the Astronomical Society of the Pacific conference, I had the chance to tap him on the shoulder and say hello. Regrettably, I was so tongue-tied at seeing Carl up-close (he was such an icon for so many of us) that I was reduced to pretty superficial chit-chat. I had wanted to ask him about Annie, his wife, and about plans for the movie version of his highly successful novel, CONTACT. Carl, of course, was very gracious and understanding and left soon thereafter.

What I didn't get to say as well, though, was that I had heard Carl years before in Pittsburgh, PA at another lecture and had not had a chance to approach him then.

As an English and humanities professor at Salt Lake Community College in Salt Lake City, Utah and a Pennsylvania and California transplant, I am so glad that Carl was the ultimate inspiration for so many of us "non-scientists," or at least technically speaking. Because of that inspiration, courage, and acumen, I and many other so-called "liberal arts" faculty have now incorporated science thinking and literature into our teaching and curricula. In fact, I plan to teach several "Science and Composition" classes in the next few years to honor the tremendous contribution of science literature to our culture and to celebrate the genius of major voices like Carl's.

I can't, of course, add much more to the endless litany of praise and brilliance ascribed to Carl (all of which is true) except to say that his achievements will never end for any of his admirers. Let's hope that the rest of the world -- even the naysayers -- can be ultimately infected by his wisdom, charm, and sensitivity and come to realize what is at stake for the human race and life everywhere.

Just one other thought, not meant prematurely or disrespectfully: here's hoping that Annie Druyan has had time to consider writing his biography or that she and Carl made arrangements somewhere along the line to that effect, knowing the delicacy of his condition. If so, it's a biography that will be eagerly anticipated and one that can only further disseminate his vision and optimism to ages hence.

Sincerely, and best wishes to Annie and her family,

Gary Howard
Assistant Professor of English
Salt Lake Community College
formerly, Instructor-- Penn State, Carnegie-Mellon, and UC San Diego

Thanx again, Carl, for reaching so many in so many disciplines and for never abandoning your role as Teacher. You were a Master. We'll never forget you.

Em vares ensenyar a estimar els estels, a conèixer la ciència, a respectar la Terra, a buscar la veritat..., i és per això que...en la vastitud de l'espai i la immensitat del temps espero que ens poguem retrobar de nou.

Thank you Carl, I'll never forget you.

Antoni Aparicio
Barcelona, Catalunya

Yes, it is true, he passed...

But just now I have besides the keyboard at my desk the Polish translation of his "Pale Blue Dot", fresh from the press, which I have bought a few hours ago.

And I am using his quote in my e-mail signature.

And...

And...

Yes, it is true, he is with us - and will remain!

-- Zenon

Zenon Kulpa
Institute of Fundamental Technological Research
Warszawa, POLAND
http://www.ippt.gov.pl/~zkulpa

It was very impressive to read in the newspaper that Dr. Sagan has died, with so many planetary mission taking place at this time. He left us not only the knowledge of planetary science through his marvelous books and TV programs, but also the spirit and enthusiasm to continue with this amazing task. He opened a scientific challenge for us and for the following generations, and whenever a mission will depart to a planet and send us its findings, Dr. Sagan will be present. In fact, the Solar System and beyond is now his spirit.

Rest in Peace.

Sincerely,

Miguel Cooper
Mexico City

Carl Sagan will always be remembered by me for inspiring a new sense of awe of this cosmos we live in. He wanted to be alive when we found life on other worlds, and I hope the findings of the martian meteorites intrigued him and brightened his dream that there is life out there in the universe. I will always cherish his COSMOS series, that has led me to pursue an interest in Planetary Geology I would otherwise not have undertaken as a hobby. I enjoyed his book, "Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors".

Carl Sagan is now piloting his space ship of the imagination across the expansive and limitless potential of the cosmos. I wish his spirit well.

I'm sorry that he is gone, yet it is so much more important that he lived. As I went about my busy life, I used to be comforted by the knowledge that Carl was afoot, always looking up. Now he is gone, and with him the luxury of letting him do all the work. Now we must pull together and get on with it ourselves. To participate is reward for us and tribute to him. Si Monumentum Circumspice!

For the last 16 years (when "Cosmos" was first broadcast in South Africa), just the mention of Carl Sagan or the word "cosmos" has unfailingly produced in me the sensation of flying.

In 1981, when 15 years old, I used up two of my school awards to purchase Cosmos, the illustrated book. I have since spent more time with that book, second only to one other special publication.

I am a teacher in a science museum today (and an astronomer at heart), thanks only to Carl Sagan. It really feels good to know that I have shared the same passion as he in attempting to banish ignorance and trying hard to reach others with a love and wonder of the Universe. Considering my conservative religious background and present social environment, I count myself fortunate to be influencing people who (quite innocently) hold outdated fundamentalist viewpoints. If anyone needs help, it's them.

Nothing in this man-made, mundane existence can compare to dreaming of the stars, contemplating life's origins and flying above the earth, spellbound by it all.

Carl, I deeply wish I could thank you personally -- yet be assured that, as you did in so many others, in me you have lit a flame that is burning strong, and will continue doing so until the end, after your example.

Mario Di Maggio
Durban Natural Science Museum
South Africa

I just wanted to say that the reason I got involved in the British Space program in the first place was because of the work Carl Sagan has done, such as his book and TV series COSMOS.

I hope he finds the answers to all his questions at last.

Brian Orchard
Space Department
DERA
England

Carl Sagan had a wonderful gift for making science understandable and, more important, exciting to the layperson. I will never forget when the "Cosmos" series first came out in 1980. Once a week, when "Cosmos" was aired on PBS, a friend and I had a ritual of preparing an evening meal together at my friend's house and afterwards to watch another episode from that great series; we were both held spellbound by Carl Sagan's superb gift as a great teacher who loved astronomy, physics, biology, and cosmology and who instilled in us a little bit of that love as well.

"The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence" was the first of Carl Sagan's books that I read. I have a bachelor's degree in zoology and was greatly impressed with Carl Sagan's keen insight in the field of biology. "The Dragons of Eden" was not only fascinating reading, but a really enjoyable experience as well.

Though Carl Sagan is gone now, his great ideas and the legacy he left behind still lives on. I will miss Carl Sagan but I will enjoy the great works he left behind so much more.

Karl Mueller
Planetary Society Member
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

It is very, very difficult to say anything. I remember so vividly the first time I ever heard that name and saw the man. He spoke at the Christmas Lectures in London many, many years ago and I remember seeing this guy who spoke of things I wanted to hear, he alone spoke them when my teachers were mute to speak and deaf to my calls for the need to talk about the Cosmos and my dreams of reaching the stars.

Carl was the force to keep my dreams going, and years later I would represent an organization he helped found to keep the dream alive.

Carl has taught me that even with all the obstacles in my way, I can touch the stars, and he has taught the human species that it too can touch the stars. The obstacles are tough, but we must work together to overcome them. For when humans are travelling ever outward they will remember that it was Carl Sagan who helped them on their way.

Carl told us we are ALL made of starstuff, and I wonder what star he will join in the future, a very bright one I'm sure.

With love,

Andy Lound
United Kingdom

Carl Sagan was one of the few real visionaries of our time. Through him, millions on this planet got a new vision of our future and our possibilities, and indeed of the Earth itself.

Björn Warnqvist,
Täby, Sweden
Planetary Society member

I am a recent member of the Society. However, my interest in what I can still only think of as a mysterious great space was awakened years ago by watching a program on Swedish TV on planets and stars hosted by Dr Carl Sagan. His charismatic description of what was going on "out there" has since become a devotion, and I will miss his special way of presenting the order of things in cosmos.

Elisabeth Hellberg
Stockholm, Sweden

It was a very sad day for me when Carl Sagan died. I was fortunate to have met him several times, help him with the media and discuss planetary issues with him. He always responded to my inquiries and encouraged my interest. I have always had tremendous respect for him and his wife, Ann, who often worked closely with him. His thoughts -- and that special way he presented those thoughts -- will always be with us.

He not only shared with us his knowledge, but his passion as well. Long live the passion of Carl Sagan....

I first heard Carl Sagan speak at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland around 1971. He gave a thoughtful and intelligent discussion on the possibility of life on other worlds. I secured his book on Intelligent Life in the Universe that he wrote with Shklovskii, his Cosmic Connection a year or two later, and on through Cosmos and his other works over the years.

He did an outstanding job of communicating the excitement of discovery and showing the kind of rational approach needed to acquire knowledge. He will be greatly missed.

The Cosmos series had a great influence on me and on my way of watching everything. I´m a young university student at the Political Sciences College in Granada (Spain), and although I´m not in science studies, if sometime I would be somthing in this life, I will always remember his universal way of caring about life, his love for the human race and for peace.... I will try to apply and transmit all this in my job and in my life.

Sincerely,

Jordi C. S.
Granada, Spain

Dear People,

I read this at a winter solstice celebration last month. Thought you'd like to see it.

Other astronomiers and mathematicians talked
their thick and sluggish calculus,
ponderous theories of things too vast to know,
math models too tangled to hang a handle on.

Where others saw chalk dust, blackboards, impenetrable formulas,
you saw the raw beauty of the cosmos.
You were our universal translator.
You handed us the perfect symmetry of stars,
the intrigue of black holes and the flavors of quarks,
the lives of cells and the death of comets,
the warp and weave of infinite space.

Tomorrow the earth lifts again,
tilting back to face the light from our private star.
You're busy elsewhere, working your way out
to become stardust again.
Who can play the music of the spheres as well as you?

Thanks for giving me the chance to share this. I always figured I'd get to meet Carl or hear him speak some day . . . but it didn't happen. I'm glad the Society exists to keep his work alive.

Sarah Blanchard (My son, Philip Krulic, is a Planetary Society member. He hopes to found a moon colony in a couple of decades.)

Like many others, I first learned of Carl Sagan through his magnificent series, COSMOS. I remember sitting and watching it with my father when I was quite young, in awe and wonder listening to Dr. Sagan's lucid explanations of how things are. I shall never forget what must be his most famous and well remembered line of all, "We are made of starstuff."

I dare say that was what sparked my love for science and astronomy and which probably led to my now being a physicist. I wish I had paid tribute to Dr. Sagan himself for helping shape my life through his thoughts, words and writings, but now I will never get the chance. The human race owes so much to him and after reading some of the tributes that are being paid to him now, I ask why we couldn't have written this to him before. Why did we have to wait till this great man passed on before we told him how much we loved and thanked him for all he's done. I'm sure he deserved to know.

I will miss you, Dr. Sagan, but I'll never stop talking about you. Thank you for everything you've done. We're all better off for it. 'Tis a sad day for all.

Take Care, Dr. Sagan.

I loved the man as if he were my Father....He was my greatist Teacher. Now he knows what StarStuff is truly made of....

I wished for you more life.

Farewell

While I have had only minimal personal contact with two very special people, they gave me unique insight into the value and wonder of life, nature, and the cosmos: They are Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman.

I truly miss them both.

Larry Atherton
Anahiem, California

Carl E. Sagan, a man of superior intelligence . . . I hope he sleeps an eternal sleep.

--From a Korean student who always sees it as a step toward becoming a astrophysicist

My young sons were exposed to his Cosmos program and to this day my oldest son is an inveterate bacpacker and one who watches stars and has told me so many times what an impact Carl Sagan's program had on his life and that it makes his trips backpacking more meaningful too.

I hope that wonderful man who has now gone beyond the stars is seeing all the things he dreamed of and that they are more beautiful and better than he even dreamed. Truly he is now a Voyager to his dreams.

Other scientists have made greater contributions to knowledge, but never before has a scientist been able to so effectively and persuasively share that knowledge with the world. Carl, you are missed.

I have never met Carl Sagan, but he radiated more energy than any star I have ever gazed upon, even our own. His influence and my admiration of the man and his work, encouraged me to be a part of the Planetary Society.

Although I never saw Cosmos, (I was in the Navy at the time, and I was only dimly aware of it), I have been a member of The Planetary Society for the last two years, and I look forward to all correspondence. I was shocked to learn of his death; I felt a personal loss. Not many people come along with the gift of genius and communication ability at the same time. Carl had it. My condolences to his family, and all those personally affected.

I felt deeply saddened by the loss of Carl Sagan, and I haven't gotten over it yet, because I wasn't aware of his illness, and it is going to take me a very long time to get used to the idea that one of my main role models of science in my contemporary life is no longer alive among us, because he gave me so much in the sense that I have more reasons to appreciate the world in which we live as well as the universe around us.

He influenced millions through his strong beliefs that some day we may travel and reach the stars, that there are no boundaries and that we have to learn to appreciate and take care of our home planet properly to be able to appreciate other worlds -- and those are some of the reasons that I joined The Planetary Society. As a member, I feel proud to have become part of his legacy, but his death was so unexpected that he taught me a last lesson: never wait for tomorrow for what we can accomplish today. Just as he did and showed us the way to follow his ideals, I have realized that he didn't die and never will, and we have to make sure to sustain that belief by keeping his dreams alive.

Carl Sagan was a great human being among us, one of the very few that have contributed to the future of humanity, the Galileo Galilei of our times, and as he has been lifted up to the heavens, he is among the stars, and as long as there is a Cosmos, his soul will remain forever as we all are made of starmatter. And from now on, whenever we look at the skies, it won't be a lonely place anymore.

When I heard that Carl Sagan had died, I felt a great personal loss. Even though I never came close to meeting this great man, I felt as if I knew him personally from his books and his frequent public appearances.

His knowledge was great, but his ability to communicate was even more amazing. And he left us with his enthusiastic quest to explore beyond the edges of our tiny little solar niche, out into the Cosmos. I feel privileged to have lived in his era.

His article in the new political magazine "George" for February 1997 was very revealing. In fantasizing what historians would say about a Carl Sagan presidency, he remarked: "I hope they would note...a renewed focus on long-term [thinking]...and the establishment of a human presence on Mars."

While he never got to be President, I propose he be remembered when we get to Mars. Let's name the first colony established there in his honor, so future generations will never forget him.

May you explore the infinite realms of being forever, Carl Sagan!

With deep fondness and appreciation,

Gregory J. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Pasadena, California, USA, Earth, Sol

I believe I have read most of Dr. Sagan's books and of course watched his television series "Cosmos" when it first aired in the 80s, but almost as much as the books and television appearances, I enjoyed reading and listening to Dr. Sagan's remarks on the Johnny Carson, show or just an article here and there I would see in the newspaper. Dr. Sagan surely had a good grasp on human nature, and I am very saddened that we won't be able to listen to or read his interesting insights again.

Siendo Miembro de la Planetary Society desde hace ya muchos años y admirador del Dr. Carl Sagan desde muchos mas todavía, acabo de recibir la carta del Dr. Bruce Murray anunciándonos el trágico fallecimiento de este eminente científico. Les ruego que transmitan de mi parte mi mas sincero pésame a su familia y crean que siento profundamente que la humanidad ha perdido un gran hombre.

Dr. Miguel Sampedro Lassere
Venezuela

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Last Updated: 2.4.97