The Art of Russell Pierce

Growing up loving the space program which culminated in landing two men on the moon in 1969, it was easy to get hooked on the PBS program, The Cosmos starring Carl Sagan. He took an extremely vast and complicated subject and broke it down so I could easily grasp these immense concepts. To me his show was mind-blowing. I bought his book by the same name and devoured it. One of his core beliefs was that the universe was so vast with billions of galaxies all capable of sustaining life that there must be other civilizations out there. Thus he started SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Life. It’s a shame he died so young, he would love how today’s technology is reaching deep into the universe, sending back incredible images as well as proof of Earth-like planets capable of supporting life. I also loved his novel Contact about a time in the near future where we do make contact with an advanced civilization and how the world reacts to this news.