How many of you are big fans of Carl Sagan?

The movie Contact (based on his book) shaped my childhood in big ways. I must have watched it every year growing up, and I was always reading up on SETI news. I wanted to be Ellie Arroway. I finally read the book when I was about 16 and loved it even more.

I’m not old enough to have watched his Cosmos, but I’ve been watching the Neil Degrasse Tyson reboot religiously (ha). Sagan is a pretty big hero of mine, I’d have to say.

He was at my university when I went there. If he was doing a lecture I would wander in just to listen. Yeah, he was cool.

I liked Sagan a lot, and though I’m sure many will disagree, I think the original Cosmos show was better in some ways than the new one. Today’s special effects are cooler (though sometimes distracting) and certainly the science has come a long way since the ‘80s, but I just think Sagan connected with his viewers better than Neil deGrasse Tyson does.

@Mariah The original Cosmos can be watched on YouTube.

I liked him a lot: “Billions and billions”.

He brought astronomy and cosmology to anyone willing to listen. Everyone should visit the Sagan walk in downtown Ithaca. It is a true scale model of our solar system. (I think the scale is 1 to 5 billion.) When you see how small Earth is and how little space it takes up, even in our own solar system, you appreciate how insignificant we are.

I missed the first-run of the original “Cosmos”, but it was one of the first of any series that I “binge-watched”. I found myself with some time on my hands in the early 80’s and spent a lot of time watching it in VHS, checked out from the local library.

I liked his T.V. show “Cosmos”. I later bought his book “Cosmos”. Perhaps he should have called his book “Cosmos For Dummies” because it is easy to understand and loaded with picture. His greatest skill was being able present the complexities and vastness of the cosmos so that everyone can understand and appreciate.

You could just get so blissfully lost as he took you through the wonders of the universe connecting them with history and human civilizations. Watching Cosmos was almost a spiritual experience. May he have a billion fans!

I am more into Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

He was a clever, charismatic and excellent popularizer of what had been an arcane topic to most. However, he was a not-so-nice-guy. We both worked under the same roof for three years; he blatantly had an affair with his secretary while still married to his first wife.

I watched the Cosmos series when I was a little kid and I loved every minute of it. I bought the DVD series a few years ago. I still love every minute of it.