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  • 2018-02-26 (xsd:date)
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  • Is This Carl Sagan Holding a 'No Billboards in Space' Sign? (en)
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  • When Elon Musk launched the Falcon Heavy rocket (and its payload of a Tesla Roadster) in February 2018, many saw it as a giant step toward commercial space travel and sending a human to Mars. Others saw something slightly more cynical, namely a giant advertisement: In the wake of this monumental achievement of space travel advertising, a photograph purportedly showing a disapproving Carl Sagan holding a No Billboards in Space sign started recirculating on the internet: This image isn't real. This photograph has been circulating online since at least 2010. A Redditor claimed in a 2011 posting of the image that they had created it for a photoshop contest on the web site Fark, but we were unable to locate the original contest. Regardless, this has image has been doctored. The original image showed Sagan holding one of the Pioneer Plaques, not a sign reading No Billboards in Space. The Pioneer Plaques were launched into space in the early 1970s aboard the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts. The idea was that the plaques, which contained a pictorial message, would relay some information about the spacecraft's origins in case it was intercepted by an extraterrestrial life form: (en)
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