Review: Sagan's 'Cosmic Connection' still has the power to enthrall

"Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection"
By Carl Sagan
Cambridge University Press
Nonfiction/Science
301 pages

In this story: Powerful intellect Luminescent prose RELATED STORIES, SITES

By L.D. Meagher
Special to CNN Interactive

(CNN) -- By now, he's a part of our shared consciousness: the earnest baritone of his voice, the penetrating eyes, the turtleneck sweaters. How many of us have intoned, in jest, a variation on his signature phrase "billions and billions"? At the time of his death four years ago, Carl Sagan had achieved a sort of stardom. Appropriate, since he was fascinated by stars his entire life.

Sagan wasn't always the public personification of science. There was a time when his name wasn't known outside the rather cloistered confines of planetary studies. That all changed in 1973, when his book "The Cosmic Connection" was published. It was his first foray into "popularizing" science. It also was a distillation of his conclusions about the likelihood that intelligent life exists somewhere besides Earth.

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Nearly 30 years later, the book still holds the power to enlighten and inspire. A new edition, retitled "Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection," expands on and updates Sagan's original thinking on the subject of extraterrestrial life. Physicist Freeman Dyson, who has done his share of speculating about extraterrestrial life, offers an introduction to Sagan the person and Sagan the scientist. Writer Ann Druyan provides a spiritual perspective on the man she married. In a postscript, NASA's David Morrison assesses where Sagan's vision of a space-faring human race actively seeking contact with beings from other worlds stands today.

The most important part of the book, however, is Sagan's. He harnessed his powerful intellect and substantial abilities as a storyteller to the task of presenting, as the subtitle describes it, "An Extraterrestrial Perspective" on humans and our place in the universe. That he can speak knowledgeably about conditions on planets no human had yet observed when he wrote the book (including Mars and Venus) underscores his ability to imagine worlds no human eye could observe and lifeforms most human brains can't even imagine.

"Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection," a new edition of his 1973 book, expands on and updates Sagan's original thinking on the subject of extraterrestrial life

Some of "Cosmic Connection" is practical. Sagan reviews the state of planetary studies as of the early 1970s and speculates about what might lie just beyond the horizon (sometimes correctly, sometimes not). Some of the book is evangelical, a call for a grand human enterprise to explore the solar system and to look for signs of life beyond it.

He clearly expected space travel to be commonplace by now, with outposts on the moon and astronauts setting foot on Mars. That the reality of the early 21st century doesn't live up to his vision detracts not at all from his arguments for pursuing the epic adventure of space exploration.

Sagan's skill as a writer is also on display. He imbues even the driest of scientific topics -- the surface of Mars, for example -- with an almost poetic aura.

And there is a sly and subtle humor in much of what he writes. For example, at the end of a discussion about the inevitable expansion of our sun that will destroy life on Earth, Sagan notes, "When the Earth becomes uninhabitable, Mars will gain a balmy and clement climate. Our remote descendants, if any, may wish to take advantage of that coincidence."

There is a luminescence to Sagan's prose. He writes as if he is lit up from within by the magnitude of the ideas he's considering. On the notion of detecting signals from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization:

"Consider, for examples, seashells. Everyone knows the 'sound of the sea' to be heard when putting a seashell to one's ear. It is really the greatly amplified sound of our own blood rushing, we are told. But is this really true? Has anyone attempted to decode the message being sounded by the seashell? I do not intend this example as literally true, but rather as an allegory. Somewhere on Earth there may be the equivalent of the seashell communications channel. The message from the stars may be here already."

A lot of the material in "Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection" will seem familiar, even to people who haven't read the author's other books. Much of it has seeped into the public consciousness, as Sagan himself did. The new edition of the book is an opportunity to experience firsthand the reasons Carl Sagan deserved the stature he achieved.

Lander to listen to the sounds of Mars
November 1, 1999
Carl Sagan dies at 62
December 20, 1996

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