Power of science in the Information Age
WHEN the Cassini space orbiter hurtled into Saturn last night, it got me thinking about the power of science and knowledge.
Cassini’s component parts, which had hurtled through our solar system in gargantuan looping orbits for 20 years, are now utterly melted and indistinguishable from the ringed planet itself. Cassini is gone. But the information the orbiter beamed back to Earth since its launch in 1997 will underpin the march of scientific discovery and our understanding of the miracle of life and the universe.
For my mind, the kind of collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, with the critical assistance of Australian astronomers and a giant dish in Canberra, that sent Cassini on its way, charted its astronomical course and directed its final plunge into the planet, is the epitome of what is most admirable about our species.
The wonderment and fascination with our own existence and our place in the natural world, and our pursuit of understanding and enlightenment, are humankind’s most endearing traits.
The advances in rocket technology in the past seven or eight decades have been immense.
Our species has walked on the moon, sent messengers to the outer reaches of our solar system and mapped the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and other neighbouring planets.
Our species’ comprehension of the workings of communications technology, robotics and radioisotopes enabled Cassini to fly through the twinkling stars in the heavens of the night sky like the fabled messengers of the gods.
Cassini discovered seven new moons around Saturn and landed its Huygens probe on one of them, Titan, from where it returned data to Earth, using the orbiter as a relay.
Cassini was powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which used heat from the natural decay of about 33kg of plutonium-238 to generate electricity.
This power enabled it to travel so far from Earth that the final seconds of data it beamed back to us last night arrived here almost an hour and a half after the probe had been obliterated above the ammonia ice of Saturn’s clouds.
It is humbling and unnerving to consider, however, that the pursuit of science and the knowledge it has delivered humanity conversely threatens our very existence.
Without the lessons learned from the rocket technology of the Titan IVB/Centaur that punched Cassini out of Earth’s atmosphere into outer space, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would not be able to threaten the world with intercontinental missiles.
Without an intimate understanding of radioactivity, Kim’s regime would not be able to arm those missiles with nuclear warheads.
On Thursday night, as Cassini was on its final orbit, North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan. The day before, the dictatorship threatened to “sink” Japan and reduce the US to “ashes” and “darkness”.
A few years ago, a Hobart taxi driver, who told me he was a Muslim from northern India, said in all sincerity that humankind should stop science because we were about to “touch the face of God” and that was wrong. Science, he said, was bad. As much as I disagree, I understand his fear of science and the application of rational thought to create hypotheses that are then subjected to logical analysis.
Past generations of humanity have valued things such as gold, gemstones, spices, ochre, cowry shells, iron ore and silk. Civilisations have traded and developed complex economies, trade routes and stratified cultures around the shared understanding of the value of these resources.
We may not be able to touch or see knowledge as we can a gleaming nugget of gold or the way we can smell the heady aroma of frankincense, but information has the power to create a metaphysical leap in civilisation.
The Information Age has the power to transform civilisation. Its transformative power could be far more dramatic than the Industrial Revolution or humankind’s cultural leap from hunting and gathering to agriculture — if we do not blow ourselves to kingdom come first.
It was appropriate the orbiter that crashed into Saturn last night was named after Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
The 17th-century Italian philosopher started his career as an astrologist and was versed in the myths and fantasies that had driven humanity for centuries. He served as astronomer/astrologer to the Sun King, Louis XIV, in France.
The Pope apparently requested Cassini take Holy Orders and work with him permanently, but Cassini turned him down because the science of astronomy was increasingly drawing his fascination.
By the end of his life, Cassini was entirely committed to science. I am sure he would have marvelled at the grand achievements of the orbiter that took his name into the heavens in the 21st century, because it was all possible due to the scientific method germinated by his generation of thinkers 400 years ago.