Stargazing Marles says science should be embraced
IT was one small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind — and a huge inspiration for a young scienceminded Richard Marles.
Now, just a week away from the moon landing’s 50th anniversary, Mr Marles, who turns 52 today, said Australia needed to celebrate science much more.
“We need to change our cultural relationship to science, I think it’s a really big challenge for Australia,” he said.
Mr Marles said students made the decision in Year 10 about whether they would study science.
“The peak of the graph of the percentage of kids choosing to study science was around 1982 when I was in Year 10,” he said.
“There has been a downward trend since then. I think there are a whole lot of reasons why people aren’t studying science, but we need to change this.”
Mr Marles, who went on to do a Bachelor of Science at Melbourne University and coconvenes the Parliamentary Friends of Science, said he almost saw himself as a “child of Apollo”.
“The moon landing loomed large as being the most exciting thing that you could do,” he said.
“While I don’t remember the landing as I was two years old — it’s possible I did watch it but I don’t remember it — that whole era loomed really large in my consciousness and imagination.
“And I’m sure it was a part of why I pursued science and why you look at the number of people who were choosing science in the early 1980s compared to what we now see.
“This was a scientific endeavour which was on the front page of newspapers across the world and here in Australia and the Geelong Advertiser.”
Mr Marles said the moon landing was a hugely significant event in history, a hugely significant event in his life, and the life of the country.
“When we think about who is alive today or has lived in our lifetime and will be remembered 500 years from now, I suspect the person who will be remembered most is Neil Armstrong,” he said.
“And it says something about the significance of that moment in the human story.
“It was an event of the epoch, one of the great scientific endeavours that humanity has engaged in.”
From a national perspective, Mr Marles said the event cemented Australia’s role in astronomy.
The Corio MP said Australia was again engaged in big science, but the country needed to celebrate it.
“It’s popular science that is a celebration of technical achievement which was really important to us as a nation and we need to rediscover that,” he said.
“Space excites — it really does.”