To celebrate his 50th Birthday, Toppie walks the Carl Sagan Memorial Planet Walk. But he takes a wrong turn at Mars. Later, long past Pluto, he may or may not have sharted in his underpants.
Dig it folks! The photo at the right is of the planet Earth, taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a tiny dot against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of Carl Sagan.
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Tags: 50th birthday, carl sagan, contact, cosmos, Cosmos A Personal Voyage, earth, gay podcast, mars, pale blue dot, queer, sagan planet walk, solar system, space, toppie smellie, universe, voyager
The Smellcast 
August 13, 2012 at 11:10 pm |
Did you have a major birthday and I didn’t say anything? Not that I knew when it was, that might be weird… but truly, I hope all the other days are also happy ones for you. Uh, thanks, Mr. Sagan, for the words of encouragement!
Your space explorations made me wonder if you were entranced by 2001 A Space Odyssey at an impressionable age, like I was. or something comparable. Then again not many of us have ever been off the tiny dot.
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August 14, 2012 at 12:03 am |
Hah! Sincerely Butler! Still don’t know if Sagan wanted to inspire us or depress the living fuck out of us. But I love that guy. He had some kinda insight.
Indeedy yes, August 6th was my 50th Birthday and thank you for your kind hopes. I was VERY entranced by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001 A Space Odyssey.” I was dragged to it by my parents soon after its second re-release — I was just a young kid then. It left quite an impression on me. I still watch that movie every two years or so. Incredible! I even have a soft spot for its sequel, “2010.” I kinda sorta wished I had been a tad older and been experimenting with LSD, so that I could have seen 2001 in all its intended glory. By the way… Sagan was a big-time advocate of marijuana. Just sayin’… 😀
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