Carl Sagan

Over the 90's I wrote several times to Carl Sagan, but being a very busy scientist and receiving many such communications from admirers, he often didn't have the time to write back.  Thus, I was never able to meet with Carl or open some written correspondence that would his explain his then obvious ambivalence to Optical SETI.  Remember, it was the fact that from 1981 till that time over which period The Planetary Report had failed to discuss the approach, that was largely responsible for me getting into the field in the first place.  In the early 90's, I had had offered several times to write an article on Optical SETI for The Planetary Report.  In 1993, at the time of the Santa Cruz Bioastronomy Meeting, there was some talk about the possibility of The Planetary Sponsoring some Optical SETI research (discussions with Dr. Tom McDonough in which author Keay Davidson was present).  However, nothing came of this.  Around that time a "distinguished scientist" was supposed to have been commissioned to write a Planetary Society article on Optical SETI, but that didn't happen either.

Before the 1996 OSETI II conference, I had invited Carl to be the keynote speaker.  This was at a time after he he had been  ill, while he was in remission.  The letter below is the one and only reply I received:

Stuart Kingsley
Composed: October 15, 200
Revised: 

• The Sagan Chair

• The Planetary Society