The Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 10, 2007 has an awe-inspiring picture of Iapetus from a recent Cassini flyby.
The APOD write-up emphasizes how strange Iapetus is and how much we still don’t know about its formation and history.
Every time I come across things that we don’t know, I get excited. And we know so little about the universe that there’s a lot to be excited about!
Today, NPR’s Morning Edition had a story on Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth, because today marks the 50th anniversary of its launch and the start of the space-race.
As something of a space geek, I’ve been thinking about Sputnik all morning. NPR had an interview with Boris Chertok, the deputy to the principle designer of the satellite. He said, “…it took us four or five days to realize that from then on, the history of civilization could be divided into before the launch and after.” Does anyone but me still believe this?
The exact same problems we had 51 years ago still plague us today. People still starve to death. There are still wars and famines. People live, work, and die in squalid sweatshops around the globe. There are vicious wars over which imaginary friend is telling people to things. We still live in a world where “genocide” is a word that regularly appears in the news and not just in history books. It seems that the biggest difference between then and now is this: “Then”, Congress eagerly funded space exploration. “Now”, every mission has to fight for the rest of the government’s table scraps.
I honestly and truly don’t understand this. We did something great. We turned weapons research into a shining star in the night sky. We sent men to the moon. We created space stations where men and women could live for the first time un-tethered from our pale blue dot. We turned our eyes to the heavens and saw just how small we were in a universe that defies imagination.
I see all of this and my first response is amazement. Every time, my response is amazement. I still haven’t grown used to the idea that we sent men to the moon, even though it happened decades before I was born. My second response is, “Ok. It’s time for everyone to band together, get over our petty bickering, and realize that the only way we’re going to make it in this universe is to realize that we’re all humans. Our similarities outweigh our differences so completely that we might as well be the same. So let’s just all get along, okay?”
Of course, that doesn’t happen. We’re the only known species that’s able to recognize its own evolution and, in so recognizing it, better itself in ways that natural selection never could…but we can’t get past our tribalism. My country is better than your country because I was born in this one. My religion is better than your religion because I was born into it. All religions are better than no religion because we were born into it. I’d really like that guy if he just weren’t so different.
Look at the launch of Sputnik. In my country, whatever awe we felt at the achievement was quickly replaced with, “We can’t let the Russians be better than we are.” Only in the minds of science fiction writers did anyone even consider a better world for all mankind. As a quick trip through international headlines will demonstrate, that better world has basically stayed fiction, too.
In case you’re curious, here’s a list of visible stars that are within 50 light years of our planet. That page says that there are 2000 stars that we know about within that distance. Today, if anyone out there is listening (probably not) and has very sensitive equipment (almost certainly not), they’ll hear a very quiet “beep…beep…beep…”. It was us. We sent that little satellite up and announced to the universe, “We’re here.”
And perhaps, just perhaps, that alien listener will look up from his equipment and say, “A new species has awoken in our galaxy. Let us go see what they are like.” When they get here, what will they find?
I’ll put money on it. They’ll find people starving to death. They’ll find wars and famine. They’ll find people living, working, and dying in squalid sweatshops around the globe. They’ll find religious wars and genocide. They’ll find a species that decided it’s better to stay in our sandbox than to meet the rest of existence head on. On that day, I’ll be ashamed to be human.
Hell, I already am.
Maybe we’ll figure it out in the next fifty years. I’m not holding my breath.