Science · Texts & cultural history

Carl Sagan

Astronomer and Voyager message committee chair

Also known as Sagan

Who they are

Carl Sagan chaired the committee that selected the contents of the Voyager Golden Record. That project assembled images, sounds, music and greetings to represent Earth aboard the two Voyager spacecraft. His role connects space exploration with the problem of communicating across an unknown cultural and biological divide, through a documented human-made message.

The Golden Record is a tangible attempt at interstellar communication and a record of how its makers chose to represent humanity.

Selected contributions

Chaired the committee selecting the Golden Record’s contents.Source ↗
Contributed to Murmurs of Earth with fellow members of the record project.Source ↗

Selected works

Book · 1978
Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record
Coauthor with Frank Drake, Ann Druyan, Timothy Ferris, Jon Lomberg and Linda Salzman Sagan · Random House
The Golden Record team’s book documents the Voyager message project. It offers a reading route into the choices behind an attempt to represent Earth’s life and culture for an unknown audience.
Archival record ↗
Reading scope & citation
Fresh indexed catalog metadata records the 1978 Random House edition and six named contributors. Direct page fetch timed out. No chapter text read; blurb is limited to the title, catalog and NASA’s account of the record project.