Science Editor Fred Golden first met Carl Sagan, this week's cover subject, in 1969, when TIME did a story on possible earth contamination from the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission. Golden, who had just come to the subject after writing for the World section, was eager to develop a list of specialists he could count on for expert advice and story ideas. He struck gold with Sagan and his gift for putting complex ideas into compelling language. Golden remembers him as a "very accessible and articulate young scientist who had a marvelous ability to get quickly to the heart of an issue--an unusual and enviable talent in a scientist." Sagan went on to assist TIME in a number of important celestial undertakings, including stories about the 1976 Viking landing on Mars and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. "In those days Sagan did the work and we did the writing," says Golden. "Now, of course, he writes and talks for himself." Sagan's growing celebrityhood, the latest manifestation of which is Cosmos, his PBS-TV science series, has made him a bit less accessible to Golden for last-minute consultations. But he is certainly no less articulate and remains a valuable source. Golden has also been a helpful source for Sagan, who once called to learn about Soviet plans to launch space probes to Venus. Sagan could be the last of the Renaissance scientists, reports Golden. He is equally at home in the observatory, on the television screen and in the wine cellar. For his cover story, Golden relied chiefly on reports from New York Bureau Chief Peter Stoler, who interviewed Sagan in Los Angeles. Stoler, who has known Sagan since 1975 when Stoler was serving as TIME'S Science writer, spent the whole day following him, from the Griffith Park Observatory to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, to Venice, Calif., for a photograph of Sagan "on the shore of a cosmic ocean." Explains Stoler: "Since a real cosmic ocean was unavailable, we had to settle for the Pacific." The story was researched by Philip Faflick, who held jobs programming computers and writing mathematical games for grade-school students before becoming the Science section's reporter-researcher. Despite that expertise, he has found working with a scientist like Sagan a humbling experience. Says Faflick: "It was a daily reminder of how much I did not know."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.