Ann Druyan, co-producer and story contributor of Contact, co-wrote "Cosmos" and served as creative director of the Voyager Interstellar Recording. Druyan is the author or co-author of several books, including Comet and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which she wrote with her husband, Carl Sagan. She speaks here about making the Voyager Recording, the existence of other life in our universe, conflict and cooperation between science and religion, and making Contact.

Listen to the interview with RealAudio.

What the Voyager Recording is, how it was made, why it was made, and where it is going:
	"I was the creative director of the Voyager Interstellar Message, which are these two golden phonograph records affixed to Voyagers 1 and 2..." (4 mins.)
What is contained on the recording:
	"There were 19 pieces of music and 118 pictures..." (2 mins. 42 secs.)
How it was decided what music to include, and why they couldn't use the Beatles:
	"The world has such an enormous variety of great musical traditions and only a limited amount of space on the record..." (4 mins.)
On why people are so tantalized by the possibility of other life in the universe:
	"I think it's part of our coming of age in the Milky Way..." (2 mins. 22 secs.)
Whether there is common ground between science and religion:
	"I think so absolutely..." (4 mins. 23 secs.)
On the ambivalence of our culture toward science and scientists, and how this is portrayed in Contact:
	"One of the thrills of this movie is to see a scientist who is fully realized as a human being, not idealized..." (4 mins. 23 secs.)
About the long process of bringing Contact to the big screen:
	"Carl and I wrote the more than 100-page treatment in November of 1980..." (2 mins. 31 secs.)
The common ground of what religion and science can both offer:
	"To me that's what science is; it's another way to look for what some people call God, other people say the truth..." (4 mins. 45 secs.)

©1997 Warner Bros.