The Sagan Series: Redefining the Frontier

While researching for my recent entry on Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, I came across this Vancouver TEDx conference talk presented last November. Reid Gower, one of the millions inspired by the late scientist’s groundbreaking series Cosmos in the 80’s, recognized the potential of Sagan’s storytelling ability to resonate with a new generation. In the Sagan Series, he extracted short powerful narratives from the audiobook version of Pale Blue Dot and combined them with modern imagery and music. The result is a series of videos that are deeply inspirational and soul-stirring. They embody Sagan’s earnest desire for humanity to understand the fragility and appreciate the wonder of “this mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam”, the pale blue dot we all call home.

The following chapter in the series, End of an Era: The Final Shuttle Launch, is my favourite:

The rest of the chapters can be viewed HERE at the Sagan Series.