# Carl Sagan and NASA **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 19, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666 "2010-12-19T00:58:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pdunderhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4bbf92/32.png) [@pdunderhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pdunderhill)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/1 "2010-12-19T00:58:52Z")
Good day good people, I remember when the Voyager probes were launched in the late '70s that Carl Sagan had been invited to organize a collection of Earth relevant data, including our culture, relative position ,in three dimensions, and our standard measurements of distance with regard to local pulsars. Essentially a big ‘We are here’ map. As I understand it, he later said that it: ‘it wasn’t worth the chance’. So … the question, how pro-active a listener do you have to be before you realize that the party has moved on? Peter Underhill ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/2 "2010-12-19T01:11:50Z")
Well, it would help if you provided a cite or two. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/3 "2010-12-19T01:34:28Z")
I’m not sure I understand the question. Are you saying Carl Sagon was against giving out the home base location on the off chance something nasty showed up, or that it was so unlikely it was a waste of time? ---
**Author:** ![pdunderhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4bbf92/32.png) [@pdunderhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pdunderhill)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/4 "2010-12-19T02:19:01Z")
Thank you both, User hostile and The Tao’s revenge, cites for the content of Voyager’s gold disk are here [voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html) The argument that Sagan used against Human over exposure to the rest of the Cosmos. His argument was actually quite close, although politically opposite, to Rumsfeld’s ‘what we know and what we don’t know’. I will cite it to the forum, I should know I was the Dubbing Mixer at the BBC when we presented this as a Television Programme. If I cite an Horizon BBC/PBS will you accept the end credit/sources? I ask this purely as I’m not sure if I’d trust many other broadcasters. The question, nonetheless, remains was Sagan wise to, or to advise, the rest of our local group as to our locality, our capabilities and or benign intentions. Yours Peter and his cat, Basil Purely BTW both your user names sound as if you’ve read Iain m Banks, if you haven’t… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/5 "2010-12-19T02:30:44Z")
I think I remember that. Didn’t he mention that when primitive earth societies make contact with more advanced societies it seldom works out well for the primitives? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/6 "2010-12-19T02:48:24Z")
Since this seems more a matter of opinion than a factual question, it’s better suited to IMHO than GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/7 "2010-12-20T03:27:03Z")
> [@pdunderhill](#): > > Thank you both, User hostile and The Tao’s revenge, cites for the content of Voyager’s gold disk are here [voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html) > The argument that Sagan used against Human over exposure to the rest of the Cosmos. > His argument was actually quite close, although politically opposite, to Rumsfeld’s ‘what we know and what we don’t know’. > I will cite it to the forum, I should know I was the Dubbing Mixer at the BBC when we presented this as a Television Programme. > If I cite an Horizon BBC/PBS will you accept the end credit/sources? I ask this purely as I’m not sure if I’d trust many other broadcasters. > > The question, nonetheless, remains was Sagan wise to, or to advise, the rest of our local group as to our locality, our capabilities and or benign intentions. > Yours Peter and his cat, Basil > Purely BTW both your user names sound as if you’ve read Iain m Banks, if you haven’t… If this is a restatement of your OP, I don’t understand either. Are you asking whether Sagan was saying that trying to tell aliens who and where we are is dangerous, or a waste of time, or impossible? ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carl-sagan-and-nasa/564666/8 "2010-12-20T04:19:40Z")
Theoretically dangerous, realistically (at least, likely) entirely irrelevant. It’s like that if anyone ever recovers those artifacts, they’ll likely be human. Given how slow those objects are moving relative to how huge the galaxy is… bleh. It’s possible aliens with super-duper space ships will come across them, but they’re well within our Radio Sphere, so any intelligent aliens would likely be able to glean the fact that there are intelligent aliens (us) relatively close anyway, from the patterned radio signals (assuming they’re detectable above background radiation). Or are you guys talking about that signal we shot off towards the globular cluster?