The Evolution of Interstellar Space Flight

This drawing, created by a 10-13 year-old Carl Sagan, presents a vision for space flight as a collage of newspaper headlines from the future. Some of the headlines announce technological developments, like an atomic space ship that can travel 5 miles per second. Many of the headlines suggest space travel would overcome political struggles on Earth. For example, an agreement of mutual cooperation between the American and Soviet governments to create the "first moon ship" and the ultimate success of this imagined mission as two Russians and two Americans land on the moon in 1959. Going forward, the drawing predicts reaching Mars in 1960 and the discovery of prehistoric-like reptiles on Venus in 1961. At the bottom of the drawing, the young Carl Sagan imagines a 1967 advertisement for Interstellar Spacelines inviting men and women to sign up to travel to and inhabit, "Altair 8," a habitable planet in another solar system.