To his surprise, the project discovers a signal containing a series of prime numbers coming from the Vega system 26 light years away. This puts her at odds with most of the scientific community, including Drumlin, who tries to have the funding to SETI cut off. She eventually becomes the director of 'Project Argus', a radiotelescope array in New Mexico dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Ellie refuses to accept him as a family member and concludes that her mother only remarried out of weakness.Īfter graduating from Harvard University, Ellie receives a doctorate from Caltech supervised by David Drumlin, a well-known radio astronomer. A man named John Staughton becomes her stepfather and does not show as much support for her interests. In sixth grade, her father and role-model Theodore ('Ted') dies. Dissatisfied with a school lesson, she goes to the library to convince herself that π is transcendental. The film concept was subsequently revived and eventually released in 1997 as the film Contact starring Jodie Foster.Īs a child, Eleanor 'Ellie' Arroway displays a strong aptitude for science and mathematics. The only full work of fiction published by Sagan, the novel originated as a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan (whom he later married) in 1979 when development of the film stalled, Sagan decided to convert the stalled film into a novel.

It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. Contact is a 1985 hard science fiction novel by American scientist Carl Sagan.

Contact sagan