GEORGE W. BUSH was to announce a major space initiative this week, including building a base on the moon with the ultimate objective of sending explorers to Mars. It’s an attempt to recapture the magic of the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era, which was the last time a president successfully played politics with the stars. John F. Kennedy’s “New Frontier” goal of putting an American on the moon, achieved in 1969, was all about the Cold War. Seattle’s world’s fair in 1962 was a tangible public expression of that New Frontierism, with a “space-age” theme that included a Space Needle pointing to the heavens. More than four decades later, it’s still pointing.
While our imaginings about space have often outstripped our actual accomplishments even the amazing feats of NASA’s new Mars Spirit rover seem clunky compared to what we’ve been seeing on Star Trek since the mid-1960sthere’s no doubt space exploration offers tangible rewards.
It’s hard not to be cynical about what Bush wants by expanding the space program. Political bounce, certainly. But one also imagines Karl Rove and Rep. Tom DeLay drooling over the prospect of new Republican congressional districts on the Red Planet. And, of course, there are the contracts. Colonizing the solar system? Call Halliburton’s interplanetary division. Or Boeing’s.
Even so, 500 years of post-Columbus exploration teaches that our motives for going into the unknown are never pure. Humans leave a muddy footprint wherever we wander, wonder, and plunder. Searching the heavens will never be limited to high-minded, scientific interests. Nor military ones. Nor commercial ones. Nor even spiritual ones. Our forays will continue to be a mixture of the good, bad, and ugly.
A CASE STUDY of the messy politics of exploration is Nathaniel Philbrick’s timely new book on the Wilkes expedition, Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-42. Its relevance is that it was the first major publicly funded scientific expedition undertaken by our nation. The so-called “Ex Ex” did more for discovery and science than Lewis and Clark. Among other things, it discovered an entire continent, Antarctica, and the mission’s scientific collections formed the foundation of the Smithsonian. Its local connection is that it surveyed large parts of the Pacific Northwest, including Puget Sound. We were commercially valuable territory then, claimed by both Britain and the U.S. (It was expedition leader Charles Wilkes, by the way, who voiced the opinion on where the U.S. border should be that became the expansionist slogan, “54-40 or fight!”)
Like most government projects, the Ex Ex was a mess. The victim of political skirmishes in Washington, budget cuts, and confused objectives, it ran afoul of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and military protocol. Commercial interests played a heavy role, too: Surveying the Antarctic for the other oil industrywhalingwas a major goal; so, too, mapping Pacific islands for a Manifest Destiny-driven future. Though operated by the U.S. Navy, the Wilkes expedition was not a military operation, but it featured strategic gamesmanship with older colonial powers and a few ugly battles with natives just the same.
Its travails were extraordinary, but not uncommon: lost ships, storms, near mutiny, and a cruel, driven “captain” (actually a lieutenant) who flogged his crew around the world. Upon its return, spats among politicians, sponsors, and expedition members (Wilkes was court-martialed) contributed to the public’s view that the entire enterprise was a boondoggle, which it was. But we now know that it was a glorious and valuable boondoggle.
WHEN SPIRIT LANDED on Mars on Jan. 3, NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe announced, “We’re back.” His agency has taken a pummeling in the wake of the Columbia disaster. Cutting corners, squabbling, political pressureall are present in modern exploration. So, too, are competing agendas. Do we venture forth for science or colonization? For peace or new weapons platforms? Do we search the heavens or spy on Earth?
The answer is: all of the above. While political rhetoric might call us to a noble purpose, not everything done in response will be noble, or clear. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Part of the cost of expanding knowledge is seeing our imperfections played out in new worlds.
This brings to mind another recent book, Trial of the Cannibal Dog: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook’s Encounters in the South Seas, by Anne Salmond. We all know that explorer Cook was the 18th-century equivalent of Capt. Kirk, boldly going where no (white) man had gone before. He redrew the map of the world. But Salmond contends Cook and his crew were also changed by the worlds they encountered. We know Cook was worshipped by the Hawaiians, which he used to his advantage until (oops: hubris alert!) they hacked him to death. As they lived among the Polynesians, Cook and his men changed their clothes, speech, tattoos, even their views of leadership and justice. Over time, Cook morphed from naval captain to Polynesian chief to demigod.
This case study offers an intriguing prospect. Instead of worrying about how earthlings might colonize Mars by turning it into an Earth-like habitat, we can look forward to the fact that our journeys to the planets and the stars will shape the human experience, as certainly as tobacco, spices, and encounters with remote tribes changed our civilization. The challengesperhaps even life formsthat we encounter offer an opportunity to grow in unimagined ways. It won’t always be pretty, but it’s a trip worth taking.
