The Seth MacFarlane collection on Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan contains correspondence, scripts, book drafts and resource material, notes, subject files, course files, organization files, biographical material, slides and transparencies, photographs and negatives, and other papers documenting Carl Sagan's career as an astronomer, astrobiologist, science educator, television personality, and author. The collection chronicles his work as a professor at Harvard University; professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell University; director of the Cornell University Laboratory for Planetary Studies; associate director of the Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research; consultant and adviser to the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); popularizer of science through the television series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage"; and author of numerous articles and best-selling books. The collection also documents the collaboration of Sagan and his wife, author and producer Ann Druyan, on television programs, films, articles, books, and the "Murmers of Earth : the Voyager Interstellar Record"; their activities in opposition to nuclear weapons, testing at the Nevada Test Site, and the Strategic Defense Initiative; and their support of Gary Hart and later Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 presidential campaign. Includes material pertaining to: Sagan's activities as co-founder and president of the Planetary Society and contributor to the society's publication, the Planetary Report; his work as a member of the imaging team that designed the system to photograph the surface of Mars, consultant for the GCA Corporation, and staff member of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; his student years at the University of Chicago and fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley; and the work of Carl Sagan Productions in the popularization of science. Also includes material pertaining to: Sagan's proposed biology briefing for the Apollo astronauts in 1967; participation in the Conference on the Long-Term Worldwide Biological Consequences of Nuclear War held in Cambridge, Mass., in 1983; debate before Congress in 1984 with Edward Teller, one of the inventors of the hydrogen bomb; and activities as a member and leader of scientific and astronomical organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Astronomical Society, American Geophysical Union, and International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life.

Subjects include Sagan's contributions to the planetary exploration of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Venus involving NASA projects such as the Galileo Project, Pioneer Project, Project Mariner (U.S), Viking Mars Program (U.S.), and the Voyager Project. Subjects also include creationism and evolution, interstellar communication, nuclear winter, planetary atmospheres, planetology, satellites including Titan, unidentified flying objects, and various political and social issues including abortion, drug policy, and the environment.

Correspondents include George O. Abell, Diane Ackerman, Jerome Agel, Isaac Asimov, Christopher F. Chyba, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank D. Drake, Timothy Ferris, Louis Friedman, Albert Gore, David Harry Grinspoon, Lester Grinspoon, Geoffrey Haines-Stiles, Bishun N. Khare, Joshua Lederberg, Gentry Lee, Jon Lomberg, Adrian Malone, Mikhail I A kovlevich Marov, David Morrison, Bruce C. Murray, Thomas A. Mutch, Lynda Rosen Obst, James B. Pollack, R.Z. Sagdeev, Steven Soter, Steven W. Squyres, Yervant Terzian, W. Reid Thompson, O.B. Toon, Richard P. Turco, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Joseph Veverka, and Timothy E. Wirth.

Includes drafts of Sagan's books: The Dragons of Eden : Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence (1977); Cosmos (1980); Contact : a Novel (1985); A Path Where No Man Thought : Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race (1990); Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors : A Search for Who We Are (1992); Pale Blue Dot : A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994); and "Nucleus," an unpublished book about the nuclear arms race.