Mission Point Light

Mission Point Light
Location	Peninsula Township, Michigan
Coordinates	44°59′28.7″N 85°28′46.1″W / 44.991306°N 85.479472°W / 44.991306; -85.479472Coordinates: 44°59′28.7″N 85°28′46.1″W / 44.991306°N 85.479472°W / 44.991306; -85.479472
Year first constructed	1870
Year first lit	1870
Deactivated	1933
Construction	Wood
Tower shape	Square tower on dwelling
Markings / pattern	White with black trim
Height	Tower – 36 feet (11 m)
Focal height	Focal plane – 47 feet (14 m)
Original lens	Fifth order Fresnel lens
Range	10 miles (16 km)
Characteristic	Flashing W 6 seconds.[1]
ARLHS number	USA-504
Michigan State Historic Site
Designated:	October 15, 1992

Another view of Mission Point Lighthouse

Mission Point Light is a lighthouse located in the U.S. state of Michigan at the end of Old Mission Point, a peninsula jutting into Grand Traverse Bay 17 miles (27 km) north of Traverse City. When it was built in 1870, it was an exact copy of the Mama Juda Lighthouse^[2] (now destroyed), which was built on the Detroit River in 1866.^[3]

The foundation is natural and emplaced. The wooden structure is painted white with black trim. The square tower is attached to a dwelling.^[4]

A fixed white Fifth Order Fresnel lens was installed. The building was only one and one half stories tall. However, its placement on a sand bank fourteen feet above the lake's surface created a lens focal plane of 47 feet (14 m). It was visible from 13 miles (21 km) at sea. Maintaining the dune and protecting it and the lighthouse from the deleterious effects of wave action has been a constant struggle.^[5]

For 67 years the light served to warn mariners about the shoals off the point. However, new techniques in offshore construction and the automation of lighthouse illumination made it possible to build a navigation aid on the shoal itself. In 1938, work began on a pier for the new light in 19 feet (5.8 m) of water, about 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Mission Point. The light ran on batteries. It was on a 36-foot (11 m) tall tower, and its focal plane of 52 feet (16 m) help make it visible for 13 miles (21 km). It had a 30 second dwell time between flashes, in order to conserve power.^[5]

Famously, the lighthouse stands a few hundred yards south of the 45th parallel north, halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. The lighthouse was deactivated in 1933 and purchased by the State of Michigan.^[6] There are a pair of signs that denote its location on the parallel,^[7] and it is one of 29 places (six are in Michigan) in the U.S.A. where such signs are known to exist.^[8]

Current status and activities[link]

The lighthouse is now part of the Lighthouse Park in Peninsula Township at the northern end of M-37.^[9]

As reported in the Traverse City Record Eagle, in a unique program, the lighthouse society sought volunteers to work and live in the Mission Point Light during 2008. There is a fee, which will benefit the light.^[10]

In 2008, the building opened for the first time to the public (it will have a small museum),^[11] after serving for many years as the park manager's residence.^[6]

The area around the lighthouse attracts many cross country skiers. There is a boat launch there, which is favored by sea kayakers. The location is becoming increasingly popular, which has subjected it to environmental issues that are being addressed by Peninsula Township.^[12]

The Old Mission Peninsula is said to be a premier place to sea kayak. One gets close to shore, lighthouse, picnic grounds and parks. The bay offers a shelter from the prevailing westerly winds and from the Lake Michigan waves. Maps, rentals and guided tours are available.^[13]

Because of its form, surroundings and location, it is photogenic, having inspired photographs and illustrations, including drawings^[14] and needlepoint.^[15]

See also[link]

• Lighthouses in the United States

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

• Mission Point Lighthouse - history and museum information from Peninsula Township, official site
• Aerial photos, Old Mission Point Light, marinas.com.
• Detroit News, Interactive map on Michigan lighthouses.
• Lighthouse Central, Photographs, History, Directions and Way points for Old Mission Point Light, The Ultimate Guide to West Michigan Lighthouses by Jerry Roach (Publisher: Bugs Publishing LLC – 2005). ISBN 0-9747977-0-7.
• Terry Pepper, Mission Point lighthouse at Seeing the Light.
• Article linking Mama Juda Lighthouse with Old Mission Point.
• Interactive map of Lights in Northern Lake Michigan, mapped by Google.
• Interactive map/list/information of lighthouses in northeastern Lake Michigan by LighthousesRus.
• Map of Michigan Lighthouse in PDF Format.
• Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy, Old Mission Point Lighthouse.
• National Park Service Maritime Heritage, Inventory of Historic Light Stations.
• "Historic Light Station Information and Photography: Michigan". United States Coast Guard Historian's Office. http://www.uscg.mil/history/weblighthouses/LHMI.asp.  Old Mission Point light.
• Wobser, David, Boatnerd.com Old Mission Point Light.
• Youtube, Mission Point Lighthouse and 45th Parallel.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since August 2008. It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Tagged since February 2012. It may be written from a fan's point of view, rather than a neutral point of view. Tagged since February 2012. Its tone or style may not reflect the formal tone used on Wikipedia. Tagged since December 2007. It may be too long to read and navigate comfortably. Some content may need to be summarized or split. Tagged since February 2012.

Point of Grace is an all-female Contemporary Christian music group. The trio consists of Shelley Breen, Denise Jones, and Leigh Cappillino. The group started out as a quartet in 1991, with original members Breen and Jones, as well as Terry Jones and Heather Payne. In November 2003, Terry Jones decided she needed to spend more time with her family after giving birth to her third child, and left the group, with Cappillino joining in March 2004 for their 2004 release I Choose You. In June 2008, Payne announced her retirement from the group, in order to spend more time with her husband and four children.

The group's debut self-titled album was released in 1993; since then, they have been recognized as one of the top Contemporary Christian music bands in the United States. In 2003, they released their ninth album, 24 - a compilation of 24 previous hits.

Biography[link]

1991–1992: Early years[link]

Point of Grace got its start at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Denise Masters, Terry Lang and Heather Floyd, who knew each other from Norman, Oklahoma, coincidentally found themselves at OBU, and naturally got involved in music. They sang in a vocal group called 'The Ouachitones,' which was made up of 14 girls. Within the group, the girls formed a trio, and after a sound check for a Ouachitones performance, the girls were singing a cappella when they were told by an onlooker that they should do something together. Shelley Phillips had come from Little Rock, Arkansas to OBU with a scholarship in vocal performance. She sang in a group called the Praise Singers, made up of four girls and four guys and they traveled around the country performing concerts. She became friends with Terry and Heather through Denise, who was her roommate and sister in the social club Chi Delta. After Heather, Terry and Denise made plans to form a trio and sing together over the summer, Denise went back to her dorm room and excitedly told Shelley about their summer plans. After Shelley suggested that the trio became a quartet, it seemed to be the perfect fit.

They called themselves Say So, taken after Psalm 107:2 where it says, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." It truly was a do-it-yourself project, and group's tasks were delegated amongst themselves according to each one's best ability. Heather took care of publicity and album sales, Terry took care of the money, Shelley was in charge of booking and Denise was in charge of all their music. Before their performances, they were the ones who would haul their equipment onstage and set it up. They developed quite a following that summer, and spent the remainder of the year singing every weekend. After many fan requests, they recorded an independent album, and became favorites in the South and Midwest. Despite not seeing a reason to pursue a major record deal, the girls, encouraged by their family members attended the 1992 Music in the Rockies Christian Artists Seminar in Estes Park, Colorado. They wowed the crowd and the judges when they performed "He's The Best Thing" and wound up winning the Overall Grand Prize in the Group competition.

The girls found that, after their performance, there was major record label interest, and by prayerful decision, the group decided to sign with Word Records. They then moved to Nashville to start work on what would become their self-titled debut album.

1993–1995: Point of Grace begins[link]

On August 23, 1993, led by the No. 1 single "I'll Be Believing", Point of Grace released their self-titled debut album. It was quickly embraced by fans and critics, who compared the group's tight harmonies to that of pop group Wilson Phillips. The album's next five singles also reached the top of the charts, a feat unmatched to this day. Before Point of Grace, the record was held by Gloria Estefan and Mariah Carey with 4 consecutive No. 1 singles from their debut albums. The group's undeniably catchy sound, inspiring lyrics and fresh-faced image increased their following, and songs like "I'll Be Believing", and "Jesus Will Still Be There" became fan favorites and regulars on their concert set lists to this day. In 1993 they were named New Artist of the Year at the 24th GMA Dove Awards and embarked on a national tour with Wayne Watson for whom they sang backup after opening each concert. After that tour ended, they began doing concerts on their own, and were gone roughly 22 days out of the month. In 1995, they were featured in the Warren Chaney docudrama, America: A Call to Greatness.^[1] In 1997, their debut album was certified gold by the RIAA and was the top-selling Christian catalog album of 1998. They were also a part of the Young Messiah Tour and regulars at Disney's Night of Joy concert series

The girls assembled back in the studio towards the end of 1994 to begin work on the follow-up to Point of Grace. They met with 35 different songwriters and told them where their hearts were. The songs that were born out of those writing sessions became part of the girls' lives. They worked hard, and on March 15, 1995, The Whole Truth was released. The album's first single, "The Great Divide", shot to No. 1 and became the girls' seventh consecutive No. 1 single. Its powerful message of the gospel touched so many lives, and it is to this day a favorite among the members of the group and their listeners. Lyrically, the whole album had an evangelistic feel to it, with its messages about God's love ("Love Like No Other" and "Without The Love Of Jesus"), Christ's sacrifice ("Dying To Reach You" and "The Great Divide") and Christian life ("Gather At The River"), and it spoke into the hearts of many listeners. The album did very well on the charts, charting at No. 1 and staying there for 13 consecutive weeks. After it left the No. 1 spot, it remained in the Top 10 for 45 consecutive weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA in 1997 and the remaining four singles also reached the top of the charts. The girls embarked on a nationwide tour with Phillips, Craig & Dean and special guest Cheri Keaggy, and were also a part of the Young Messiah Farewell Tour, along with artists like Sandi Patty, 4Him and Larnelle Harris. They also contributed songs in several special event albums. They recorded a new rendition of the hymn "Fairest Lord Jesus" for the Hymns & Voices album; the song "Hold On To Me" for the My Utmost for His Highest project and a new take on "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" for the album Christmas Carols Of The Young Messiah. The hard work on The Whole Truth paid off; they were named the 1996 Group of the Year at the Dove Awards and also won Doves for Pop/Contemporary Recorded Album of the Year (The Whole Truth), Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year ("The Great Divide") and Special Event Album of the Year (My Utmost For His Highest).

1996–1997: Growing up[link]

In July 1995 it was announced that the girls signed a major book deal with Simon and Schuster. They were getting noticed by the media and had been featured in major publications such as the Ladies Home Journal and TIME Magazine. The book was written by the girls along with Davin Seay. In it, each member told her life story, and the other chapters were divided into question-and-answer sections were the girls addressed topics like dating, sex, clothes, family life and friends. The girls hoped that this would offer their fans a greater glimpse into their lives and beliefs. Along with writing the book, the girls also began work on their third album. This project was a growing pain of sorts for them. John Mays, the man who had signed them to Word Records, had left his position there as A&R to join Sparrow Records. The girls were left to make all major decisions, and for the first time, were executive producers of their album. They took their time with the record, and the result was Life Love & Other Mysteries, released on September 9, 1996. The book was also released that same day, bearing the subtitle "Advice and Inspiration from Christian Music's No. 1 Pop Group."

The media was paying attention to Point of Grace. On the day of the album release, Word Records chartered the Dallas Mavericks' DC-9 jet and the girls flew to five different cities in one day to promote their album. They made stops in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and finally ended back in Nashville, Tennessee. During each stop they performed their current single, "Keep The Candle Burning", which went No. 1 on the day their album released. It became the girls' twelfth consecutive No. 1 single. A music video with footage from their whirlwind promo tour was released a few months later. The girls announced that they would be co-headlining an arena tour with 4Him, who had just released their album The Message. The tour hit major markets and was very successful, leading both groups to add a spring leg, which went into early summer of 1997. In 1996, the girls contributed the song "Follow The Star" to the album Emmanuel: A Musical Celebration Of The Life Of Christ. They were not able to go on the tour, with Avalon taking their place.

Life Love & Other Mysteries has been one of their most successful albums to date. It was certified gold by the RIAA in 1997 and platinum in 1999. The album debuted at No. 1 and stayed at the top of the charts for 10 weeks. It was one of the Top 5 selling albums throughout 1997 and one of the Top 10 selling albums in 1998. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album in 1997. The girls were also nominated for the 1997 Group of the Year at the Dove Awards and "Keep The Candle Burning" was nominated for Song of the Year. The girls gave a memorable performance of the song during the live The Nashville Network broadcast from the Sommet Center, with the whole audience swaying little flashlights back and forth. The girls continued touring until September of that year and took some time off, due to Denise's first child arriving in October.

1998–2000: Artistic establishment, media attention and a hiatus[link]

Point of Grace began work on their new album in late 1997/early 1998. Brown Bannister, who had previously worked with Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant was brought on to handle production duties. He brought an exciting twist to the girls' music. They were looking for a more progressive, live band sound for this album, and sure enough, there was less programming than their previous efforts. Chris Eaton was also brought along to handle the vocal production for the album, and the results pleased the girls, as the vocal arrangements were far more intricate than before. It would be interesting to apply these vocal arrangements on a live show setting, and on their one-off concert dates in the spring and summer of 1998, the girls previewed some of the new songs, such as "Jesus Is", "Steady On" and "Better Days." They took a pause in the middle of recording for Terry to give birth to her first child in April.

The remaining members appeared at the 1998 Dove Awards without her, where they were nominated for Artist of the Year, Group of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year for "Circle Of Friends", but the group went home empty-handed. During The Nashville Network broadcast of the show, pre-show host Kathy Troccoli informed fans of Cole Devore Jones' birth April 15 (a week before the Doves), calling him jokingly Terry and Chris's "tax return".

In July 1998, the girls released their new single, "Steady On" to radio stations, and to promote the album, also entitled Steady On, they released a CD single to Christian bookstores. The single contained the album version of "Steady On", a pop remix and a dance remix, both produced by Tony McAnany. There was also enhanced content on the CD, such as brief bios from the girls, excerpts from a new devotional book, a photo gallery and other anecdotes. The album was released on August 4, 1998, and debuted at No. 1 on the SoundScan sales chart, and remained in the Top 10 for 7 consecutive weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA in 1999 and platinum in 2002. The lead single and title track soon reached the top of the charts, becoming Point of Grace's 16th consecutive No. 1 single. Five more singles followed suit, making it a total of 21 consecutive No. 1s. In October 1998, the girls launched their first tour as a headliner. The Steady On Tour was also the first time they toured with their own band. Led by Dana Cappillino, the musicians breathed new life into Point of Grace's music. In 1999 they won Dove Awards for Group of the Year and Enhanced CD of the Year for the Steady On CD Single. At the 1999 Grammy Awards, they were nominated for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album for Steady On. Heather also got married in 1999, in the middle of the tour. They contributed the song "The River" for the Experiencing God album, the song "Forever On And On" for the Streams album project, and "Love Won't Leave You Now" for The Mercy Project, dedicated to Mercy Ministries of America.

After the Steady On tour closed in the Spring of 1999, the girls began work on their first Christmas release. The album was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee; London, England and Montreal, Canada. Brown Bannister once again handled the production, and A&R man Brent Bourgeois and vocal arranger Chris Eaton were also brought back on. The orchestra, arranged by Carl Marsh and Ronn Huff was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London. The end result was a lush, classic collection of holiday favorites and new originals. The girls were proud of their accomplishment, and on September 27, 1999, A Christmas Story was released. The fact that Life Love & Other Mysteries had just been certified platinum and "The Song Is Alive" had just become their 21st No. 1 song caught the media's attention once again, and they appeared in several media outlets such as Donny & Marie, ABC's The View and The 700 Club, where they plugged A Christmas Story and their participation on Amy Grant's Christmas Tour. All four members started the tour together, but Terry, who was 9 months pregnant with her second child (another son, Luke Marshall), left the tour halfway through, leaving Heather, Shelley and Denise to perform as a trio. After the tour ended, the girls took a year-long hiatus, regrouping occasionally for Women of Faith conferences and one or two one-off dates. To keep their fans happy until the release of their next studio album, Word released Rarities & Remixes a collection of remixed hits from their first two releases, four songs from their independent album, two rare tracks and a live version of "Circle Of Friends". They also performed four songs at the Billy Graham Crusade in Nashville, Tennessee.

[edit] 2001–2003: A fresh (re)start, Girls of Grace, and 24

After a well-deserved hiatus, the girls regrouped in early 2001 to begin work on the follow-up to 1998's Steady On. While the girls approached this recording as if it were the first, their experience led them to call all the shots during the process. They worked with six different producers in this album: Brown Bannister, with whom they had previously worked, David Tyson, Nathan Nockels who played keyboards for them in the Steady On Tour, Tom Laune, Glenn Garrett, and Wayne Tester. Each producer brought a different sound from the girls, which is what they were aiming for when they started work on this project. The lead single, "Blue Skies" was an instant radio hit, and soon went No. 1 on the charts. The album, entitled Free to Fly was released on May 1, 2001, and that same week they opened the Dove Awards telecast, shot at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. They gave a rousing performance of the cut "Begin With Me", complete with a pyrotechnics display. The girls went on to promote the album during the summer of 2001, performing at the major Christian festivals and doing their own concerts, while preparing for The Free To Fly Tour. There were rumors going around that the tour might be canceled due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but Heather cleared this up on a newsletter, stating that now, more than ever, people needed to hear the message of hope. And in honor of the ones who lost their lives in the attacks, they closed each show with a rousing a cappella rendition of "America The Beautiful".

In early 2002, Point of Grace began work on a project that is dear to their hearts to this day. After years of receiving letters and getting questions from teenage girls, they felt as if God was calling them to do something to make a difference in those girls' lives. The Girls of Grace project slowly became a reality. They worked with the Tennessee Choral Academy, and several female artists such as Rachael Lampa, Joy Williams, Out of Eden and Jaci Velasquez contributed to the project with their talents. Point of Grace previewed the Girls of Grace devotional book, workbook, journal and album during the 2002 GMA Week and premiered one of their songs from the project, "All I'll Ever Need", on the 2002 Dove Awards telecast. The girls continued performing concerts until the summer of 2002, when they took a few months off. Shelley and Heather gave birth to their first children in September, and in the same month, Terry gave birth to her third child. The Girls of Grace album was released on August 20, 2002, and the first conference took place in October of the same year in Lakeland, Florida. It was a two-day event. To start things up on Friday night, the girls would give a high-energy concert. On Saturday, there were many speakers, such as Susie Shellenberger of BRIO Magazine, Nancy Alcorn of Mercy Ministries of America, and each member of Point of Grace as well. They addressed topics such as self-esteem, sex, family issues, friendships and relationships with God. There were also musical guests. On the first series of Girls of Grace conferences, Joy Williams helped provide music. Out of Eden was there for the 2003 and 2004 conferences. The Katinas also played in a few select 2004 conferences while Jaime Jamgochian and M.O.C. provided music and worship in 2005 and 2006.

In 2003, the commemorative album, 24 was released, featuring the group's 24 greatest hits—as well as a new song, "Day By Day". Along with the album came a booklet that gave information and thoughts on the songs. They also released their first DVD, entitled 7, which contained the videos to "Jesus Will Still Be There", "Dying To Reach You", "Gather At The River", "Keep The Candle Burning", "Circle Of Friends", "Steady On", and "Begin With Me". Then in November 2003, they published a hardcover book titled, Keep The Candle Burning: 24 Reflections From Our Favorite Songs, which contained reflections on each of their previous hits. The group spent 2003 doing one-off shows, "Girls of Grace" concerts, and appeared on Michael W. Smith's Christmastime Tour.

2004–2006: Lineup changes and new sound[link]

In November 2003, Terry Jones announced she would be retiring from Point of Grace. She was finding it harder and harder to handle a full-time music career and being a full-time wife and mother to her family. After much prayer, she wrote a letter which was posted on the group's official website, along with a letter from Heather, Shelley and Denise. They made it clear that they had no intentions of carrying on as a trio, and called upon band leader Dana Cappillino's wife Leigh, to join her husband on tour. Terry's last tour with the group was the 2003 Christmastime Tour with Michael W. Smith, and her last concert was in Little Rock, Arkansas, on February 28, 2004. Leigh had been officially on board since January 1, 2004, but her first concert was in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 12, 2004.

Leigh's first album with Point of Grace was I Choose You, released on October 12, 2004. It displayed a rawer, less glossy sound than before from the group. They also worked with producers with whom they had never worked with such as Mark Hammond, Wayne Kirkpatrick and David Zaffiro. Brent Bourgeois, who produced the song "Forever On And On" from the Streams album also produced one track. The album was the most progressive of their career up to that point. They spent the remainder of 2004 doing promotional appearances and participating once again in Michael W. Smith's Christmastime Tour along with The Katinas. In February 2005, they began the I Choose You Tour with Scott Krippayne and special guest Charity Von. The tour took the girls through 30 cities, and the show's set lists featured cuts from I Choose You as well as songs from their back catalog. After the tour wrapped, the girls began work on their second Christmas release, again produced by Brown Bannister. The girls spent the summer of 2005 recording the album, which, like A Christmas Story, featured holiday classics and new original songs. Winter Wonderland was released on October 4, 2005. They launched their first Christmas tour, the Winter Wonderland Tour in late November 2005, playing 16 concerts in varied markets. The show had John David Webster, who was featured on Winter Wonderland, as a special guests, and local choirs participated in every show.

In 2006, the girls resumed their Girls of Grace activities, and began working with Michael Passons, formerly of Avalon, who began to tour with them. On one-off dates, the girls would have acoustic segments where Dana and Michael would be featured on guitar and piano, respectively, along with vocals from the girls. Heather also gave birth to her third child in 2006. The girls launched the 2006 Winter Wonderland Tour with special guest Scott Krippayne.

2007–2008: How You Live[link]

The girls spent the first half of 2007 finishing work on their latest release, entitled How You Live. During that time, they contributed an a cappella rendition of the hymn "All Hail The Power Of Jesus' Name" to the WoW Hymns project, which was released in March 2007. The girls promoted the first two singles, "All The World" and "You Are Good" during GMA Week in April, and have been singing a few album cuts during their recent concerts. The album, produced by Brown Bannister finds the girls returning to their musical roots, with the harmonies they are known for, and an earthy sound not yet explored by the girls. They shot a video to the single "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)", in mid-June in Birmingham, Alabama, and premiered it on their official website in early July. Led by the single "All The World", they released the album How You Live in late August. "All The World" was reasonably popular and found its way into the Top 40 in the Mediabase charts. The follow-up single, "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)" did far better, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot Christian Adult Contemporary Chart.^[2] The album peaked at number fifty-six on the Billboard 200 and at number four on the Top Christian & Gospel Album Charts. The unexpected success of the album and single earned the group five Dove Award nominations, including Song of the Year for "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)", Group of the Year and Artist of the Year. "How You Live" was released to country radio in April 2008, entering the country charts at #56.

In February 2008, the girls embarked on the All The World Tour with special guests Selah and Michael Passons, who has become the group's standard keyboard player.

In February 2008, Point Of Grace was nominated for five Dove Awards, including Group of the Year and Artist of The Year. The girls performed their single "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)" with Cindy Morgan, the song's writer. They were backed by ballerinas and group member Denise Jones displayed her guitar skills for the first time on the telecast. They picked up the award for Country Recorded Song of the Year and Cindy Morgan took home the award for Songwriter of the Year, for "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)." On the same week of the Doves telecast, they made their debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage, solidifying their growing acceptance in the country music market. They have been back on the show several times since their debut.

In June 2008, after much speculation, Heather Payne announced that she was retiring from Point Of Grace in order to spend time with her four children and to support her husband in his ministry. Shelley Breen, Leigh Cappillino and Denise Jones announced they would continue on as a trio, and recorded new music for the re-release of their album How You Live, released in October 2008. In a recent chat session, Shelley Breen noted the group's recurring keyboard player Michael Passons, who is a solo artist and former Avalon member, sings selections of the group's older four-part harmonies.

http://www.pointofgrace.net/circleoffriends/viewthechat.htm

The girls released How You Live: Deluxe Edition and Tennessee Christmas: A Holiday Collection in early October, and went on their annual Winter Wonderland Tour in early December, with special guest Ronnie Freeman.

2009–present: now three[link]

In 2009, the group began by, once again, appearing at the Grand Ole Opry, performing the hits "I Wish" and "How You Live (Turn Up The Music)". Their song, "I Wish", won the Dove Award for Country Recorded Song of the Year for songwriters, Cindy Morgan and Phil Madeira.

On August 23, 2009, the group appeared on Fox News Channel's Huckabee, performing "King of the World", the last single from How You Live accompanied by Mike Huckabee on bass guitar.

The group spent the bulk of 2009 working on the new album, entitled No Changin' Us, produced by Nathan Chapman. It was released on March 2, 2010, and featured a more country sound. They embarked on a fall tour with Mark Schultz, called the Come Alive Tour. Along with the album, came a cookbook, called "Cooking with Grace", which they wrote with Julie Adkison.

The summer of 2010 was spent recording a new holiday album, Home For The Holidays, which was released on October 5, 2010. The group headlined a Christmas tour in support of the album.

A new album called A Thousand Little Things is due to be released on May 1, 2012.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Holiday albums[link]

Compilation albums[link]

Remix albums[link]

Singles[link]

Awards[link]

GMA Dove Awards[link]

Books[link]

• Life Love & Other Mysteries, 1996
• Steady On . . . Secured by Love, 1998
• Circle of Friends, 1999
• When Love Came Down at Christmas, 2000
• Girls of Grace, 2002
• Keep the Candle Burning: Reflections from Our Favorite Songs, 2003
• Girls of Grace: Q&A with Point of Grace, 2004
• Girls of Grace: Make It Real, 2005
• How You Live, 2008
• Cooking With Grace, 2010

Tours[link]

• The Whole Truth Tour with Phillips, Craig & Dean and Cheri Keaggy (1995)
• The Life Love & Other Mysteries Tour with 4Him (1996–97)
• The Steady On Tour with special guests Watermark (1998–99)
• An Amy Grant Christmas Tour (with Michael W. Smith and The Katinas) (1999)
• The Free To Fly Tour with special guests FFH (2001–02)
• The Christmastime Tour with Michael W. Smith and The Katinas (2002, 2003, 2004)
• The I Choose You Tour with Scott Krippayne and special guest Charity Von (2004)
• The Winter Wonderland Tour with special guest John David Webster (2005)
• The Winter Wonderland Tour with special guest Scott Krippayne (2006, 2007)
• The All The World Tour with special guests Selah and Michael Passons (2008)
• The Winter Wonderland Tour with special guest Ronnie Freeman (2008)
• The Come Alive Tour with Mark Schultz (2009–10)

Other activities[link]

Mercy Ministries[link]

Since the beginning of their career, the members of Point of Grace have had their hearts drawn to reaching out to young women. Early on, they began showing support of Mercy Ministries of America, a non-profit organization that helps young women who face life-controlling issues such as abuse, depression, unplanned pregnancies and eating disorders. The group frequently plugged Mercy Ministries at their concerts, and Nancy Alcorn, the founder, would normally go on the road with them or send a graduate from the Mercy Program to share her testimony about the work of Mercy Ministries. Alcorn is a regular featured speaker at the Girls of Grace conferences.

Compassion International[link]

In 2006, the girls began showing support of Compassion International, a Christian child-sponsorship organization dedicated to the long-term development of children living in poverty all over the world. In March 2006, Heather and her husband Brian took a trip to El Salvador to meet their sponsored child, and in April 2006, Shelley Breen, Denise Jones and Leigh Cappillino traveled to Ecuador to meet their sponsored children. According to the members, their trips were a life-changing experience, and have partnered with Compassion to create awareness for poverty and to urge their listeners to sponsor children as well.

References[link]

1. ^ America Movie (Musicians)
2. ^ Top Music Charts - Hot 100 - Billboard 200 - Music Genre Sales
3. ^ ^{a b c d} "Point of Grace Album & Song Chart History - Christian Albums". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/point-of-grace/chart-history/118682?f=310&g=Albums. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} "Point of Grace Album & Song Chart History - Billboard 200". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/point-of-grace/chart-history/118682?f=305&g=Albums. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America - Searchable Database". Recording Industry Association of America. http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?content_selector=gold-platinum-searchable-database. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 
6. ^ "Point of Grace Album & Song Chart History - Holiday Albums". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/point-of-grace/chart-history/118682?f=325&g=Albums. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 
7. ^ "Point of Grace To Release 'Hits' Album July 12th". CMSpin. June 16, 2011. http://www.cmspin.com/newsmanager/anmviewer.asp?a=6382&z=1. Retrieved June 21, 2011. 
8. ^ "Point of Grace Album & Song Chart History - Christian Songs". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/point-of-grace/chart-history/118682?f=355&g=Singles. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 
9. ^ "Point of Grace Album & Song Chart History - Country Songs". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. http://www.billboard.com/#/artist/point-of-grace/chart-history/118682?f=357&g=Singles. Retrieved June 17, 2011. 

External links[link]

• Official site
• Girls of Grace Conferences
• NewReleaseTuesday.com Exclusive Interview with Denise Jones

Carl Sagan
Sagan in 1980
Born	(1934-11-09)November 9, 1934 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	December 20, 1996(1996-12-20) (aged 62) Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Residence	United States[1]
Nationality	United States
Fields	Astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, astrobiology, space science, planetary science
Institutions	Cornell University Harvard University Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory University of California, Berkeley
Alma mater	University of Chicago (B.A.), (B.Sc.), (M.Sc.), (PhD)
Known for	Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Cosmos Voyager Golden Record Pioneer plaque Contact Pale Blue Dot
Notable awards	NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1977) Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (1978) Oersted Medal (1990) National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal (1994)

Carl Edward Sagan ( /ˈseɪɡɪn/; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers^[2] and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote.^[3] The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.

Early life[link]

Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York,^[4] to a Ukrainian Jewish family. His father, Sam Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine;^[5] his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, a housewife. Carl was named in honor of Rachel's biological mother, Chaiya Clara, in Sagan's words, "the mother she never knew." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1951.^[6]

He had a sister, Carol, and the family lived in a modest apartment near the Atlantic Ocean, in Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood. According to Sagan, they were Reform Jews, the most liberal of the three main Jewish groups. Both Sagan and his sister agree that their father was not especially religious, but that their mother "definitely believed in God, and was active in the temple ... and served only Kosher meat."^[6]:12 During the height of the Depression, his father had to accept a job as a theater usher.

According to biographer Keay Davidson, Sagan's "inner war" was a result of his close relations with both his parents, who were in many ways "opposites." Sagan traced his later analytical urges to his mother, a woman who had known "extreme poverty as a child," and had grown up almost homeless in New York City during World War I and the 1920s.^[6]:2 She had her own intellectual ambitions as a young woman, but they were blocked by social restrictions, because of her poverty, her being a woman and wife, and her Jewish ethnicity. Davidson notes that she therefore "worshiped her only son, Carl. He would fulfill her unfulfilled dreams."^[6]:2

However, his "sense of wonder" came from his father, who was a "quiet and soft-hearted escapee from the Czar." In his free time, he gave apples to the poor, or helped soothe labor-management tensions within New York's "tumultuous" garment industry.^[6]:2 Although he was "awed" by Carl's "brilliance, his boyish chatter about stars and dinosaurs," he took his son's inquisitiveness in stride, as part of his growing up.^[6]:2 In his later years as a writer and scientist, Sagan would often draw on his childhood memories to illustrate scientific points, as he did in his book, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.^[6]:9 Sagan describes his parents' influence on his later thinking:

My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.^[7]

1939 World's Fair[link]

Sagan recalls that one of his best experiences was when he was four or five years old, his parents took him to the 1939 New York World's Fair. The exhibits became a turning point in his life. He later recalled the moving map of the "America of Tomorrow" exhibit: "It showed beautiful highways and cloverleaves and little General Motors cars all carrying people to skyscrapers, buildings with lovely spires, flying buttresses—and it looked great!"^[6]:14 At other exhibits, he remembered how a flashlight that shined on a photoelectric cell created a cracking sound, and how the sound from a tuning fork became a wave on an oscilloscope. He also witnessed the future media technology that would replace radio: television. Sagan wrote:

Plainly, the world held wonders of a kind I had never guessed. How could a tone become a picture and light become a noise?^[6]:14

He also saw one of the Fair's most publicized events, the burial of a time capsule at Flushing Meadows, which contained mementos of the 1930s to be recovered by Earth's descendants in a future millennium. "The time capsule thrilled Carl," writes Davidson. As an adult, Sagan and his colleagues created similar time capsules, but ones that would be sent out into the galaxy. These were the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record records, all of which were spinoffs of Sagan's memories of the World Fair.^[6]:15

World War II[link]

During World War II, Sagan's family worried about the fate of their European relatives. Sagan, however, was generally unaware of the details of the ongoing war. He writes, "Sure, we had relatives who were caught up in the Holocaust. Hitler was not a popular fellow in our household ... But on the other hand, I was fairly insulated from the horrors of the war." His sister, Carol, said that their mother "above all wanted to protect Carl ... She had an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with World War II and the Holocaust."^[6]:15 Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World (1996), included his memories of this conflicted period, when his family dealt with the realities of the war in Europe, but tried to prevent it from undermining his optimistic spirit.^[7]

Inquisitiveness about nature[link]

Soon after entering elementary school, he began to express a strong inquisitiveness about nature. Sagan recalled taking his first trips to the public library alone, at the age of five, when his mother got him a library card. He wanted to learn what stars were, since none of his friends or their parents could give him a clear answer:

I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.^[6]:18

About the time he was six or seven, he and a close friend took trips to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. While there, they went to the Hayden Planetarium and walked around the museum's exhibits of space objects, such as meteorites, and displays of dinosaurs and animals in natural settings. Sagan writes about those visits:

I was transfixed by the dioramas—lifelike representations of animals and their habitats all over the world. Penguins on the dimly lit Antarctic ice; ... a family of gorillas, the male beating his chest, ... an American grizzly bear standing on his hind legs, ten or twelve feet tall, and staring me right in the eye.^[6]:18

His parents helped nurture his growing interest in science by buying him chemistry sets and reading materials.^[8] His interest in space, however, was his primary focus, especially after reading science fiction stories by writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, which stirred his imagination about life on other planets, such as Mars. According to biographer Ray Spangenburg, these early years as Sagan tried to understand the mysteries of the planets, became a "driving force in his life, a continual spark to his intellect, and a quest that would never be forgotten."^[7]

Education and scientific career[link]

He attended the University of Chicago, where he participated in the Ryerson Astronomical Society,^[9] received a bachelor of arts in self-proclaimed "nothing" with general and special honors in 1954, a bachelor of science in physics in 1955, and a master of science in physics in 1956 before earning a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960.^[10][11][12] During his time as an honors program undergraduate, Sagan worked in the laboratory of the geneticist H. J. Muller and wrote a thesis on the origins of life with physical chemist H.C. Urey. From 1960 to 1962 Sagan was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1962 to 1968, he worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sagan lectured and did research at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He became a full Professor at Cornell in 1971, and he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies there. From 1972 to 1981, Sagan was the Associate Director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell.

Sagan was associated with the US space program from its inception. From the 1950s onward, he worked as an advisor to NASA, where one of his duties included briefing the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon. Sagan contributed to many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the solar system, arranging experiments on many of the expeditions. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft destined to leave the solar system that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. Sagan assembled the first physical message that was sent into space: a gold- anodized plaque, attached to the space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. Pioneer 11, also carrying another copy of the plaque, was launched the following year. He continued to refine his designs; the most elaborate message he helped to develop and assemble was the Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes in 1977. Sagan often challenged the decisions to fund the Space Shuttle and Space Station at the expense of further robotic missions.^[13]

Sagan taught a course on critical thinking at Cornell University until he died in 1996 from pneumonia, a few months after finding that he was in remission of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Scientific achievements[link]

Sagan's contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of that planet's surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, Planets. His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of 500 °C (900 °F). As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962.

Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter's moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable.^[14] Europa's subsurface ocean of water was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo. The mystery of Titan's reddish haze was also solved with Sagan's help. The reddish haze was revealed to be due to complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto Titan's surface.^[15]

He further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter as well as seasonal changes on Mars. Sagan established that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense with pressures increasing steadily all the way down to the surface. He also perceived global warming as a growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter's clouds, given the planet's dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied the observed color variations on Mars' surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms.

Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation.^[16]

He is also the 1994 recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare."^[17] He was denied membership in the Academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists.^[18]

Scientific advocacy[link]

Planetary Society members at the organization's founding. Carl Sagan is seated on the right.

Sagan's ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos—simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the Earth in comparison to the universe. He delivered the 1977 series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London.^[19] He hosted and, with Ann Druyan, co-wrote and co-produced the highly popular thirteen-part PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage modeled on Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

Cosmos covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award. It has been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people,^[3][20] making it the most widely watched PBS program in history.^[21] In addition, Time magazine ran a cover story about Sagan soon after the show broadcast, referring to him as "creator, chief writer and host-narrator of the new public television series Cosmos, [and] takes the controls of his fantasy spaceship."^[22]

Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from potential intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms. Sagan was so persuasive that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETI published in the journal Science and signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners. This was a tremendous increase in the respectability of this controversial field. Sagan also helped Dr. Frank Drake write the Arecibo message, a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing potential extraterrestrials about Earth.

Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal Icarus for twelve years. He co-founded the Planetary Society, the largest space-interest group in the world, with over 100,000 members in more than 149 countries, and was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

At the height of the Cold War, Sagan became involved in public awareness efforts for the effects of nuclear war when a mathematical climate model suggested that a substantial nuclear exchange could upset the delicate balance of life on Earth. He was one of five authors—the "S" of the "TTAPS" report as the research paper came to be known. He eventually co-authored the scientific paper hypothesizing a global nuclear winter following nuclear war.^[23] He also co-authored the book A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race, a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of nuclear winter.

Sagan also wrote books to popularize science which reflected and expanded upon some of the themes of A Personal Voyage, and became the best-selling science book ever published in English;^[24] The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, which won a Pulitzer Prize; and Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel Contact in 1985, based on a film treatment he wrote with his wife in 1979, but he did not live to see the book's 1997 motion picture adaptation, which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Adaption.

Pale Blue Dot: Earth is a bright pixel when photographed from "Voyager 1" six billion kilometers out (past Pluto). Sagan encouraged NASA to generate this image.

He wrote a sequel to Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, which was selected as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times. He appeared on PBS' Charlie Rose program in January 1995.^[25] Sagan also wrote an introduction for the bestselling book by Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. Sagan was also known for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience, such as his debunking of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. To mark the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, David Morrison, a former student of Sagan, recalled "Sagan's immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement" in Skeptical Inquirer.^[26]

Sagan hypothesized in January 1991 that enough smoke from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia ..." He later conceded in The Demon-Haunted World that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4°–6 °C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared."^[27] A 2007 study noted that modern computer models have been applied to the Kuwait oil fires, finding that individual smoke plumes are not able to loft smoke into the stratosphere, but that smoke from fires covering a large area, like some forest fires or the burning of cities that would be expected to follow a nuclear strike, would loft significant amounts of smoke into the stratosphere.^{[28][29][30][31]}

In his later years Sagan advocated the creation of an organized search for near Earth objects that might impact the Earth.^[32] When others suggested creating large nuclear bombs that could be used to alter the orbit of a NEO that was predicted to hit the Earth, Sagan proposed the Deflection Dilemma: If we create the ability to deflect an asteroid away from the Earth, then we also create the ability to deflect an asteroid towards the Earth—providing an evil power with a true doomsday bomb.^[33][34]

Billions and billions[link]

Sagan with a model of the Viking Lander probes which would land on Mars. Sagan examined possible landing sites for Viking along with Mike Carr and Hal Masursky.

From Cosmos and his frequent appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Sagan became associated with the catchphrase "billions and billions". Sagan stated that he never actually used the phrase in the Cosmos series.^[35] The closest that he ever came was in the book Cosmos, where he talked of "billions upon billions":^[36]

A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars—billions upon billions of stars.

—Carl Sagan, Cosmos, chapter 1, page 3^[37]

However, his frequent use of the word billions, and distinctive delivery emphasizing the "b" (which he did intentionally, in place of more cumbersome alternatives such as "billions with a 'b'", in order to distinguish the word from "millions" in viewers' minds),^[35] made him a favorite target of comic performers, including Johnny Carson,^[38] Gary Kroeger, Mike Myers, Bronson Pinchot, Penn Jillette, Harry Shearer, and others. Frank Zappa satirized the line in the song "Be In My Video", noting as well "atomic light". Sagan took this all in good humor, and his final book was entitled Billions and Billions, which opened with a tongue-in-cheek discussion of this catchphrase, observing that Carson was an amateur astronomer and that Carson's comic caricature often included real science.^[35]

Similarly he is also known for expressing wonderment at the vastness of space and time, as in his phrase "The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth."

Sagan units[link]

As a humorous tribute to him, a sagan has been defined as a unit of measurement equal to at least four billion, since the smallest number that may be described as billions and billions must be two billion plus two billion.^[39][40]

Social concerns[link]

Sagan believed that the Drake equation, on substitution of reasonable estimates, suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations highlighted by the Fermi paradox suggests technological civilizations tend to self-destruct. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm and eventually becoming a spacefaring species. Sagan's deep concern regarding the potential destruction of human civilization in a nuclear holocaust was conveyed in a memorable cinematic sequence in the final episode of Cosmos, called "Who Speaks for Earth?" Sagan had already resigned from the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and voluntarily surrendered his top secret clearance in protest over the Vietnam War.^[41] Following his marriage to his third wife (novelist Ann Druyan) in June 1981, Sagan became more politically active—particularly in opposing escalation of the nuclear arms race under President Ronald Reagan.

In March 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative—a multi-billion dollar project to develop a comprehensive defense against attack by nuclear missiles, which was quickly dubbed the "Star Wars" program. Sagan spoke out against the project, arguing that it was technically impossible to develop a system with the level of perfection required, and far more expensive to build than for an enemy to defeat through decoys and other means—and that its construction would seriously destabilize the nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, making further progress toward nuclear disarmament impossible.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared a unilateral moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons, which would begin on August 6, 1985—the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—the Reagan administration dismissed the dramatic move as nothing more than propaganda, and refused to follow suit. In response, US anti-nuclear and peace activists staged a series of protest actions at the Nevada Test Site, beginning on Easter Sunday in 1986 and continuing through 1987. Hundreds of people were arrested, including Sagan, who was arrested on two separate occasions as he climbed over a chain-link fence at the test site.^[42]

Personal life and beliefs[link]

Sagan was married three times—in 1957, to biologist Lynn Margulis, mother of Dorion Sagan and Jeremy Sagan; in 1968, to artist Linda Salzman, mother of Nick Sagan; and in 1981, to author Ann Druyan, mother of Alexandra Rachel (Sasha) Sagan and Samuel Democritus Sagan. His marriage to Druyan continued until his death in 1996.

Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he ever met whose intellect surpassed his own. The other, he claimed, was the computer scientist and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky.^[43]

Sagan wrote frequently about religion and the relationship between religion and science, expressing his skepticism about the conventional conceptualization of God as a sapient being. For example:

"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others—for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein—considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."^[44]

In another description of his view of God, Sagan emphatically writes:

"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."^[45]

On atheism, Sagan commented in 1981:

"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed".^[46]

In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, "I'm agnostic."^[47] Sagan's views on religion have been interpreted as a form of pantheism comparable to Einstein's belief in Spinoza's God.^[48] Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator of the universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe.^[49] According to his last wife, Ann Druyan, he was not a believer:

When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens—and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl.^[50]

In 2006, Ann Druyan edited Sagan's 1985 Glasgow Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology into a book, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, in which he elaborates on his views of divinity in the natural world.

Carl Sagan (center) speaks with CDC employees in 1988.

Sagan is also widely regarded as a freethinker or skeptic; one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"^[51] (called the "Sagan Standard" by some^[52]). This was based on a nearly identical statement by fellow founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Marcello Truzzi, "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof."^[53][54] This idea originated with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer who said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."^[55]

Late in his life, Sagan's books elaborated on his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, he presented tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent ones, essentially advocating wide use of critical thinking and the scientific method. The compilation Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, published in 1997 after Sagan's death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and his widow Ann Druyan's account of his death as a skeptic, agnostic, and freethinker.

Sagan warned against humans' tendency towards anthropocentrism. He was the faculty adviser for the Cornell Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In the Cosmos chapter "Blues For a Red Planet", Sagan wrote, "If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if the Martians are only microbes."^[56]

Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered.^[57][58] The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan's death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, Carl Sagan: A Life, in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan's life.^[59][60][61] Not long after his death, widow Ann Druyan had gone on to preside over the board of directors of NORML, a foundation dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.^[62]

In 1994, engineers at Apple Computer code-named the Power Macintosh 7100 "Carl Sagan" in the hope that Apple would make "billions and billions" with the sale of the PowerMac 7100.^[4] The name was only used internally, but Sagan was concerned that it would become a product endorsement and sent Apple a cease and desist letter. Apple complied, but engineers retaliated by changing the internal codename to "BHA" for "Butt-Head Astronomer".^[63][64] Sagan then sued Apple for libel, a form of defamation, in federal court. The court granted Apple's motion to dismiss Sagan's claims and opined in dicta that a reader aware of the context would understand Apple was "clearly attempting to retaliate in a humorous and satirical way", and that "It strains reason to conclude that Defendant was attempting to criticize Plaintiff's reputation or competency as an astronomer. One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase 'butt-head'."^[63][65] Sagan then sued for Apple's original use of his name and likeness, but again lost.^[66] Sagan appealed the ruling.^[66] In November 1995, an out of court settlement was reached and Apple's office of trademarks and patents released a conciliatory statement that "Apple has always had great respect for Dr. Sagan. It was never Apple's intention to cause Dr. Sagan or his family any embarrassment or concern."^[67]

Sagan briefly served as an adviser on Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.^[6] Sagan proposed that the film would suggest, rather than depict, extraterrestrial superintelligence.^[68]

Sagan and UFOs[link]

Sagan had some interest in UFO reports from at least August 3, 1952 when he wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson to ask how the U.S. would respond if flying saucers turned out to be extraterrestrial.^[69] He later had several conversations on the subject in 1964 with Jacques Vallee.^[70] Though quite skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question, Sagan thought scientists should study the phenomenon, at least because there was widespread public interest in UFO reports.

Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical and empirical fallacies regarding UFOs and the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical and pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports and that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study."^[71]

In 1966, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation project. The committee concluded Blue Book had been lacking as a scientific study, and recommended a university-based project to give the UFO phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee (1966–1968), led by physicist Edward Condon, and in their final report they formally concluded that UFOs, regardless of what any of them actually were, did not behave in a manner consistent with a threat to national security.

Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers William Hartmann and Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, and it is to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon".^[70] With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures and discussions given at the symposium; these were published in 1972 as UFOs: A Scientific Debate. Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs (as did one episode of Cosmos) and he claimed a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon.

Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his 1980 Cosmos series. In one of his last written works, Sagan argued that the chances of extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth are vanishingly small. However, Sagan did think it plausible that Cold War concerns contributed to governments misleading their citizens about UFOs, and that "some UFO reports and analyses, and perhaps voluminous files, have been made inaccessible to the public which pays the bills ... It's time for the files to be declassified and made generally available." He cautioned against jumping to conclusions about suppressed UFO data and stressed that there was no strong evidence that aliens were visiting the Earth either in the past or present.^[72]

Death[link]

Stone dedicated to Carl Sagan in the Celebrity Path of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

After a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia, which included three bone marrow transplants, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, on December 20, 1996.^[73] He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.^[74]

Posthumous recognition[link]

The 1997 movie Contact, based on Sagan's novel of the same name and finished after his death, ends with the dedication "For Carl".

In 1997, the Sagan Planet Walk was opened in Ithaca, New York. It is a walking scale model of the solar system, extending 1.2 km from the center of The Commons in downtown Ithaca to the Sciencenter, a hands-on museum. The exhibition was created in memory of Carl Sagan, who was an Ithaca resident and Cornell Professor. Professor Sagan had been a founding member of the museum's advisory board.^[75]

The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station on July 5, 1997. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named in his honor.

Sagan's son, Nick Sagan, wrote several episodes in the Star Trek franchise. In an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise entitled "Terra Prime", a quick shot is shown of the relic rover Sojourner, part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, placed by a historical marker at Carl Sagan Memorial Station on the Martian surface. The marker displays a quote from Sagan: "Whatever the reason you're on Mars, I'm glad you're there, and I wish I was with you." Sagan's student Steve Squyres led the team that landed the Spirit Rover and Opportunity Rover successfully on Mars in 2004.

On November 9, 2001, on what would have been Sagan's 67th birthday, the NASA Ames Research Center dedicated the site for the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Cosmos. "Carl was an incredible visionary, and now his legacy can be preserved and advanced by a 21st century research and education laboratory committed to enhancing our understanding of life in the universe and furthering the cause of space exploration for all time", said NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Ann Druyan was at the Center as it opened its doors on October 22, 2006.

Sagan has at least three awards named in his honor:

• The Carl Sagan Memorial Award presented jointly since 1997 by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the Planetary Society,
• The Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science presented since 1998 by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (AAS/DPS) for outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public—Carl Sagan was one of the original organizing committee members of the DPS, and
• The Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science presented by the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP)—Sagan was the first recipient of the CSSP award in 1993.^[76]

In 2006, the Carl Sagan Medal was awarded to astrobiologist and author David Grinspoon, the son of Sagan's friend Lester Grinspoon.

On December 20, 2006, the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, a blogger, Joel Schlosberg, organized a Carl Sagan "blog-a-thon" to commemorate Sagan's death, and the idea was supported by Nick Sagan.^[77] Many members of the blogging community participated.

August 2007 the Independent Investigative Group IIG awarded Sagan posthumously a Lifetime Achievement Award. This honor has also been awarded to Harry Houdini and James Randi.^[78]

Beginning in 2009, a musical project known as Symphony of Science sampled several excerpts of Sagan from his series Cosmos and remixed them to electronic music. To date, the videos have received over twenty-million views worldwide on the popular user generated website Youtube, and have exposed a new generation to the interconnected grandeur of the universe as Sagan described them in his documentary series.^[79]

Awards and honors[link]

NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal

• Annual Award for Television Excellence—1981—Ohio State University—PBS series Cosmos
• Apollo Achievement Award—National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal—National Aeronautics and Space Administration (twice)
• Emmy—Outstanding Individual Achievement—1981—PBS series Cosmos
• Emmy—Outstanding Informational Series—1981—PBS series Cosmos
• Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal—National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Helen Caldicott Leadership Award – Awarded by Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament
• Hugo Award—1981—Cosmos
• Humanist of the Year—1981—Awarded by the American Humanist Association
• In Praise of Reason Award—1987—Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
• Isaac Asimov Award—1994—Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
• John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award—American Astronautical Society
• John W. Campbell Memorial Award—1974—The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
• Joseph Priestley Award—"For distinguished contributions to the welfare of mankind"
• Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific—1974
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal—Awarded by the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation
• Locus Award 1986—Contact
• Lowell Thomas Award—Explorers Club—75th Anniversary
• Masursky Award—American Astronomical Society
• Miller Research Fellowship—Miller Institute (1960–1962)
• Oersted Medal—1990—American Association of Physics Teachers
• Peabody Award—1980—PBS series Cosmos
• Prix Galbert—The international prize of Astronautics
• Public Welfare Medal—1994—National Academy of Sciences^[80]
• Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction—1978—The Dragons of Eden
• SF Chronicle Award—1998—Contact
• Named the "99th Greatest American" on the June 5, 2005, Greatest American show on the Discovery Channel
• Named an honorary member of the Demosthenian Literary Society on November 10, 2011
• 2009 New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee.^[81]

Publications[link]

• Planets (LIFE Science Library), Sagan, Carl, Jonathan Norton Leonard and editors of Life, Time, Inc., 1966
• Intelligent Life in the Universe, I.S. Shklovskii coauthor, Random House, 1966, ISBN 1-892803-02-X, 509 pgs (note: republished in 1998 by Emerson-Adams Press)
• UFOs: A Scientific Debate, Thornton Page coauthor, Cornell University Press, 1972, 310 pgs
• Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. MIT Press, 1973, 428 pgs
• Mars and the Mind of Man, Sagan, Carl, et al., Harper & Row, 1973, 143 pgs
• The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, Jerome Agel coauthor, Anchor Press, 1973, ISBN 0-521-78303-8, 301 pgs
• Other Worlds. Bantam Books, 1975
• Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Sagan, Carl, et al., Random House, ISBN 0-394-41047-5, 1978
• The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. Ballantine Books, 1978, ISBN 0-345-34629-7, 288 pgs
• Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Ballantine Books, 1979, ISBN 0-345-33689-5, 416 pgs
• Cosmos. Random House, 1980. Random House New Edition, May 7, 2002, ISBN 0-375-50832-5, 384 pgs
• The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War, Sagan, Carl et al., Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985
• Comet, Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, 1985, ISBN 0-345-41222-2, 496 pgs
• Contact. Simon and Schuster, 1985; Reissued August 1997 by Doubleday Books, ISBN 1-56865-424-3, 352 pgs
• A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race, Richard Turco coauthor, Random House, 1990, ISBN 0-394-58307-8, 499 pgs
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are, Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, October 1993, ISBN 0-345-38472-5, 528 pgs
• Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Random House, November 1994, ISBN 0-679-43841-6, 429 pgs
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Ballantine Books, March 1996, ISBN 0-345-40946-9, 480 pgs (note: the book was first published and copyrighted in 1995 with an errata slip inserted)
• Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, June 1997, ISBN 0-345-37918-7, 320 pgs
• The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, Carl Sagan (writer) & Ann Druyan (editor), 1985 Gifford lectures, Penguin Press HC, November 2006, ISBN 1-59420-107-2, 304 pgs

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Davidson, Keay (1999). Carl Sagan: A Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 33–41. ISBN 0-471-25286-7. 
• Head, Tom (ed.) (2005). Conversations with Carl Sagan. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-736-7. 
• Poundstone, William (1999). Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5766-8. 
• Morrison, David (2006). "Carl Sagan: The People's Astronomer" (PDF). AmeriQuests 3 (2). http://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/ameriquests/include/getdoc.php?id=402&article=93&mode=pdf. 
• Achenbach, Joel (1999). Captured by Aliens: the search for life and truth in a very large universe. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84856-2. [Includes detailed account of Sagan's role in the search for extraterrestrial life. Lay summary]. 

External links[link]

Find more about Carl Sagan on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

• The Carl Sagan Portal
• Video of skit from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson mentioning "billions and billions"
• BBC Radio program "Great Lives" on Carl Sagan's life
• A Man whose time Has come—Interview with Carl Sagan by Ian Ridpath, New Scientist 1974 July 4
• Carl Sagan at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Carl Sagan in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization
• Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science, presented by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (AAS/DPS)
• Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute
• Carl Sagan's Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and Skeptic, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• A Tribute to Carl Sagan: Our Place in the Universe, The Skeptics Society