Welcome to the BAUT, Ken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken from Dublin
Carl Sagan - America's most famous astronomer - never promoted the lie in his lifetime and in one of his last interviews stated that the Apollo program was just about intimidating other nations and beating the Russians, just falling short of stating it was a cold war exercise lest he be demonised by brainwashed fanatics like yourselves.
Later on in the same interview he stated that NASA's greatest achievements were the Viking missions to Mars.
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You are referring to the
Charlie Rose interview of Carl Sagan from January 5, 1995.
Sagan did not claim in the interview that Viking in particular was NASA's greatest achievement. However, early in the interview, he did state that Voyager 1 was "...a triumph of human engineering."
In the July 16, 1989, issue of
Parade magazine, Sagan wrote in the
conclusion of his story, "The Gift of Apollo":
Quote:
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Whatever the reason we first mustered the Apollo program, however mired in Cold War nationalism it was, the inescapable recognition of the fragility of the Earth is its clear and luminous dividend, the unexpected gift of Apollo. What began in deadly competition has led us to see that global cooperation is the essential precondition for our survival.
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Sagan, in his 1994 book,
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,
expanded on his
Parade story:
Quote:
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We may have found that perspective just in time, just as our technology threatens the habitability of our world. Whatever the reason we first mustered the Apollo program, however mired it was in Cold War nationalism and the instruments of death, the inescapable recognition of the unity and fragility of the Earth is its clear and luminous dividend, the unexpected final gift of Apollo. What began in deadly competition has helped us to see that global cooperation is the essential precondition for our survival.
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This is the best I can do for now. I'm still recovering from an intestinal bug. Back to bed.