It was a long journey. Not the journey to the Southwest, although that was one of 2400 miles which included everything from thunderstorms to, of all things, a late-April blizzard; but rather the journey through the audio book we brought with us, Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was, we can figure, bound to be long, given the plot: some 2000 volunteers in the year 2600 -something take off in a space ship made of a dozen-plus tubes several kilometers long, each containing a different biome, to terraform a planet, or its moon, some 12 light years away. Unfortunately, this book is “realistic” in the sense that Einstein’s law of matter and energy are maintained, thereby limiting the speed of the ship to below-light values, in this case, 1/10 C (speed of light). Adding in acceleration and deceleration time, this means that the volunteers must travel for 170 or so years before their final destination of Aurora. Which means that it will be their great and great-great grandchildren who will be the terraformers rather than themselves.
The book is not long only because of the length of the journey, though; rather, the author has an almost unnatural grasp of mathematics, astrophysics and micro-ecology, and she has many points to make, including: the nature of consciousness, given the complexity of the ships’ computer; the social problems faced by humans confined to an extremely limited environment, including the necessary loss of freedom extending even to reproduction; and the problem of environmental balance and of maintaining the human species itself.
It is to the latter that Robinson gives her all. She lets us know that to maintain a ship in environmental balance presents problems that, given time, are insurmountable; that humans in such an environment over time will themselves be plagued by illnesses and such phenomena as Island dwarfism, leading ultimately to their decline and demise; and that any biomass capable of supporting life will have some sort of native life that will be opportunistic or predatory – that is, which will be hostile and ultimately fatal to human life. We are also informed through the descendants of the volunteers that they resent the fact that their ancestors condemned them to this inadequate life that has separated them from that for which they were made, to face a fate not of hope and colonization, but of failure and death.
In short, the author tells us that this search for the last frontier is more than useless. Yes, Robinson concedes that, given the unlikely event that we can thwart the laws of physics and supersede light speed, we might be able to find some planets suitable for terraforming that are not hostile to human life, but that is a huge “if.” In this she effectively rains on our, us sci-fi nuts’, parade. In the Star Trek series, we boldly go where no (one) has gone before to, as Captain Piccard puts it, “evolve,” but that is only because they can travel at the unbelievable speed of 26 light years an hour (as told to me by my Trekky wife). In the real world, there will be no terraforming and no spreading of colonies throughout the galaxy, or at least not for the next thousand generations. So, she argues, instead of spending the billions we plan to spend on a Moon base and then on a voyage to Mars, we should simply spend that time and money on the social and environmental problems here on earth. We will, she claims - and probably rightly - never make back whatever we put into a space program, so why waste the time, the energy, and often-times the lives in doing so?
We even find hints in her writing of the anti – “Male Eurocentric conquest culture” so popular today, for to go boldly forth is a quest of both wasteful and thoughtless dominance. I disagree with the latter, but have little to argue against the premise that the space program is, for the present, probably a loser in terms of profit. I can say that the ruinous, Eurocentric male culture of the Roman Empire is what eventually led to our technologies today, including medicinal and horticultural advancements, although it took 1500 years. With this I can speculate that the technology of space might someday help us all in spectacular but now-unknown ways. It is a good counterargument, but still posits only an abstract possibility.
What is NOT speculation, however, is that, without an unlimited ultimate goal or final aspiration, we will perish more surely than those pioneers in the ship’s bio tubes. What Robinson offers us in the end is Gaia worship, a New Age-ey take on traditional nature worship. That sort of thing might have been fine for people from other ages where the world itself seemed infinite, but that would not do for us. We would feel as trapped as the descendants of the voyagers to Aurora. As a matter of fact, that is exactly WHY we are trying to go forth into the stars. For those of the Kennedy generation, this was not an effort to save humankind from environmental extinction, but to give a modern diverse nation – one with people of many religions or no religion at all – a shared goal that was greater than our imaginations and yet excluded no one based on race, creed, color and so on. It was seen, and correctly, as a broad unifying concept that cost a lot of money, yes, but cost far less than civil war, revolution, or foreign conquest. It was seen to be, and still is by many, (as) an antidote to a society devoid of basic universal truths and direction that does not force anyone into a theocratic or materialistic or, for that matter, naturalistic utopian vision. The vision of the stars, then, serves as a religion that does not conflict with those with a religion or those without one.
It works well: for those with religion, the exploration of the stars is a material form of exploring the extant of God’s works, of what He intended by his creation. In this way, it can be seen as a sacred challenge, a knightly quest in this world that augments our passage to the spirit world, something that challenges our courage and our belief in a creator, and increases it with this noble pilgrimage. For those without religion, it gives them most of what they need in this world, which is an ultimate challenge and vision. It does not give them a pathway into the land of the dead, but the awesome wonder of the galaxies can’t help but create the kind of wonder that leads to worship. Win/win for us and for society.
Except for the cost, both in money and, as she reminds us, in lives. For that, the book is a good lesson in ethics: should we sacrifice the lives of those yet to be born for the dreams of their parents and grandparents? Maybe not. But for the individual and for the society from which he comes, the monetary cost is much like the bill from the doctor’s – it might be large, but every sane billionaire knows that good health is worth every penny of his fortune. Space exploration, I believe, is our doctor. It needs ethicists and management, but not abandonment. Thanks, Kim Robinson (not Will, you Lost in Space fans) for bringing back an issue that sorely needs to be addressed.
It was a long journey. Not the journey to the Southwest, although that was one of 2400 miles which included everything from thunderstorms to, of all things, a late-April blizzard; but rather the journey through the audio book we brought with us, Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was, we can figure, bound to be long, given the plot: some 2000 volunteers in the year 2600 -something take off in a space ship made of a dozen-plus tubes several kilometers long, each containing a different biome, to terraform a planet, or its moon, some 12 light years away. Unfortunately, this book is “realistic” in the sense that Einstein’s law of matter and energy are maintained, thereby limiting the speed of the ship to below-light values, in this case, 1/10 C (speed of light). Adding in acceleration and deceleration time, this means that the volunteers must travel for 170 or so years before their final destination of Aurora. Which means that it will be their great and great-great grandchildren who will be the terraformers rather than themselves.
The book is not long only because of the length of the journey, though; rather, the author has an almost unnatural grasp of mathematics, astrophysics and micro-ecology, and she has many points to make, including: the nature of consciousness, given the complexity of the ships’ computer; the social problems faced by humans confined to an extremely limited environment, including the necessary loss of freedom extending even to reproduction; and the problem of environmental balance and of maintaining the human species itself.
It is to the latter that Robinson gives her all. She lets us know that to maintain a ship in environmental balance presents problems that, given time, are insurmountable; that humans in such an environment over time will themselves be plagued by illnesses and such phenomena as Island dwarfism, leading ultimately to their decline and demise; and that any biomass capable of supporting life will have some sort of native life that will be opportunistic or predatory – that is, which will be hostile and ultimately fatal to human life. We are also informed through the descendants of the volunteers that they resent the fact that their ancestors condemned them to this inadequate life that has separated them from that for which they were made, to face a fate not of hope and colonization, but of failure and death.
In short, the author tells us that this search for the last frontier is more than useless. Yes, Robinson concedes that, given the unlikely event that we can thwart the laws of physics and supersede light speed, we might be able to find some planets suitable for terraforming that are not hostile to human life, but that is a huge “if.” In this she effectively rains on our, us sci-fi nuts’, parade. In the Star Trek series, we boldly go where no (one) has gone before to, as Captain Piccard puts it, “evolve,” but that is only because they can travel at the unbelievable speed of 26 light years an hour (as told to me by my Trekky wife). In the real world, there will be no terraforming and no spreading of colonies throughout the galaxy, or at least not for the next thousand generations. So, she argues, instead of spending the billions we plan to spend on a Moon base and then on a voyage to Mars, we should simply spend that time and money on the social and environmental problems here on earth. We will, she claims - and probably rightly - never make back whatever we put into a space program, so why waste the time, the energy, and often-times the lives in doing so?
We even find hints in her writing of the anti – “Male Eurocentric conquest culture” so popular today, for to go boldly forth is a quest of both wasteful and thoughtless dominance. I disagree with the latter, but have little to argue against the premise that the space program is, for the present, probably a loser in terms of profit. I can say that the ruinous, Eurocentric male culture of the Roman Empire is what eventually led to our technologies today, including medicinal and horticultural advancements, although it took 1500 years. With this I can speculate that the technology of space might someday help us all in spectacular but now-unknown ways. It is a good counterargument, but still posits only an abstract possibility.
What is NOT speculation, however, is that, without an unlimited ultimate goal or final aspiration, we will perish more surely than those pioneers in the ship’s bio tubes. What Robinson offers us in the end is Gaia worship, a New Age-ey take on traditional nature worship. That sort of thing might have been fine for people from other ages where the world itself seemed infinite, but that would not do for us. We would feel as trapped as the descendants of the voyagers to Aurora. As a matter of fact, that is exactly WHY we are trying to go forth into the stars. For those of the Kennedy generation, this was not an effort to save humankind from environmental extinction, but to give a modern diverse nation – one with people of many religions or no religion at all – a shared goal that was greater than our imaginations and yet excluded no one based on race, creed, color and so on. It was seen, and correctly, as a broad unifying concept that cost a lot of money, yes, but cost far less than civil war, revolution, or foreign conquest. It was seen to be, and still is by many, (as) an antidote to a society devoid of basic universal truths and direction that does not force anyone into a theocratic or materialistic or, for that matter, naturalistic utopian vision. The vision of the stars, then, serves as a religion that does not conflict with those with a religion or those without one.
It works well: for those with religion, the exploration of the stars is a material form of exploring the extant of God’s works, of what He intended by his creation. In this way, it can be seen as a sacred challenge, a knightly quest in this world that augments our passage to the spirit world, something that challenges our courage and our belief in a creator, and increases it with this noble pilgrimage. For those without religion, it gives them most of what they need in this world, which is an ultimate challenge and vision. It does not give them a pathway into the land of the dead, but the awesome wonder of the galaxies can’t help but create the kind of wonder that leads to worship. Win/win for us and for society.
Except for the cost, both in money and, as she reminds us, in lives. For that, the book is a good lesson in ethics: should we sacrifice the lives of those yet to be born for the dreams of their parents and grandparents? Maybe not. But for the individual and for the society from which he comes, the monetary cost is much like the bill from the doctor’s – it might be large, but every sane billionaire knows that good health is worth every penny of his fortune. Space exploration, I believe, is our doctor. It needs ethicists and management, but not abandonment. Thanks, Kim Robinson (not Will, you Lost in Space fans) for bringing back an issue that sorely needs to be addressed.
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