The new director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center chose to swear her oath of office not on the Bible but on a copy of Carl Sagan’s 1994 Pale Blue Dot.
For her swearing-in ceremony last week, Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, who served as an AIP-ASA Congressional Fellow in the office of liberal Massachusetts representative Edward Markey from 2011-2012, opted out of swearing before the Almighty in favor of the agnostic astronomer Sagan.
In its tweet announcing the ceremony of induction for its new director, NASA Goddard cited Sagan: “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
The 45-year-old Lystrup, the first woman ever to lead the Maryland space center, explained her decision in an emailed statement.
“Sagan worked very hard to make science accessible and meaningful to everyone, and ‘Pale Blue Dot’ emphasizes the importance of exploring our universe and understanding our home planet,” she asserted.
“Given its personal significance to me and how its message resonates with the work we do at NASA Goddard on behalf of the world, it felt apropos to include it in the ceremony,” she said.
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