Once in a blue moon I'll read something so spectacular that it'll sit with me for months and years to come.
The piece is usually short — a short article, simply written, where each paragraph is both a pleasure to read in itself and builds towards the greater piece. I'm left wondering how it was possible for someone to put words together in a way that evokes in me this quality of gratitude and awe for the human spirit.
I believe I encountered such a piece tonight: a letter written in 1970 from Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then the director of science at NASA, to Sister Mary Jucunda, a nun based in Zambia, titled Why Explore Space.
The letter was a response to Sister Mary Jucunda's query as to how it could possibly be conscionable to spend billions of dollars on space travel when so many children on earth were going hungry.
In an incredibly well-articulated response, Dr. Stuhlinger began by describing a story about a benevolent German count in the 1600s. This count frequently gave his income away to help the poor in his village. One day, he came across a man who was fascinated with creating magnifying lenses from glass that he would grind up. The count decided to sponsor this man and his experiments, inviting him to live in his castle.
The count faced many angry remarks from the townspeople, who accused him of wasting resources on this man when he could have given more to the poor. It is very fortunate for all of us that he was steadfast in his decision. The result of the work of this glass-grinder was the modern microscope, which helped to eliminate countless numbers of devastating diseases, like the plague.
Dr. Stuhlinger gently explained that the case with space travel was similar. First, the NASA missions were helping us learn extensively about living on Earth — and, pertaining to the nun's question, about growing food on Earth. Even a modest satellite orbiting the Earth could increase the efficiency of our existing crop yields significantly.
Second, space travel brought us together as a species. The animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union at the time was well-known. But that didn't stop the Russians from deploying every effort in order to aid the Americans in recovering the Apollo 13 capsule on landing — the mission that nearly ended tragically.
In what is possibly my favourite line in the entire piece — Dr. Stuhlinger explains why impractical, ambitious projects like a life-support system for astronauts ought to be developed before more practical endeavours, like medical devices:
The answer is simple: significant progress in the solutions of technical problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work, which fires the imagination and spurs men to expend their best efforts, and which acts as a catalyst by including chains of other reactions.
In other words, the high hanging fruit often is the low hanging fruit. The moonshot projects, the seemingly out-of-reach experiments, are the very things that motivate us as humans and as scientists to push the boundaries of what we already know.
I think therein lies the argument in favour of pursuing things for curiosity's sake, even with the lack of obvious utility — in one's life, in organizations, as the scientists and the artists that we are. Curiosity fuels imagination, imagination unlocks creativity, and creativity spurs intelligence.
In the case of the pursuit of space travel, the trickle down benefits have been incredible. It is because of the work of Dr. Stuhlinger and his peers that entire swaths of students chose to pursue the sciences and engineering where they otherwise wouldn't have. People everywhere became enamoured with technology and what was possible when groups of talented, motivated people came together towards a common goal.
Beyond that, space travel has forced us to confront the uniqueness and fragility of our own home here on Earth. If that isn't a source of gratitude and awe, then I'm not sure what is.
The space age not only holds out a mirror in which we can see ourselves, it also provides us with the technologies, the challenge, the motivation, and even the optimism to attack these tasks with confidence. What we learn in our space program, I believe, is fully supporting what Albert Schweitzer had in mind when he said: “I am looking at the future with concern, but with good hope."
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