Archives
Subject: Woah... I know Astronomy...
Time: 12:13:00 PM EDT
Author: stuartatk
*** Welcome to CARNIVAL OF SPACE #61 readers! ***
How many times have you read a piece in a paper or magazine, or seen a clip on a TV news programme, and been told how the world is "split into two kinds of people"... ? You know what I mean... the world is split into two kinds of people, i.e. "people who like cats and people who like dogs"... "people who have read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and people who haven't"... "people who love country music and people who don't"...
How about "people who 'get' our place in the universe, and people who don't..."?
I was set thinking about this the other day when I read a piece in The Space Review, an online space advocacy magazine, about Neil deGrasse Tyson, the US astronomer and broadcaster seen by many as the heir to Carl Sagan as the next great astronomy communicator. In the piece, Tyson was reported to have drawn comparisons between the popularity of "space exploration" in the US and the popularity of other interests and pursuits, and one of his comparisons both amazed and horrified me.
Advocacy groups like the NSS and The Planetary Society have, combined, fewer than 100,000 members, while the overall space community, counting those who work at NASA and in space companies, numbers only a few times greater, Tyson estimated. By comparison, the fan club for television character/pop star Hannah Montana has about one million members.
One million! Think about that for a moment. A fictional - fictional! - bubblegum cute kids pop star has a fan club a million strong, while the major space advocacy groups in the US combined have a tenth as many members... unbelievable...
But that statistic set me thinking about the bigger picture and asking a pretty big question: not just how many people support space exploration, and research, but how many people actually have an understanding - or even a clue, or a hint - of Earth's place in the universe? Or, for that matter, of mankind's place in the universe? How many people go about their daily lives in absolute total ignorance of their position in the great scheme of things?
How many people "get it"?
I run an astronomical society here in the UK, and we have, what, 45/50 members? That's in a town of maybe 10,000 (guessing there, don't quote me, ok?), so it's a pretty small number. But most major towns and cities have their own astronomical society, I think it's fair to say, not just here in the UK but across all the developed countries of the world, so there must be quite a few million amateur astronomers and skygazers on Earth. But that's out of a population of over 6 BILLION, so for every person like me who has a passion for the sky, and for space exploration, there must be millions of people who couldn't care less about the night sky, the exploration of the solar system - or Earth's place in the universe.
And I don't know about you, but I think that's really, really sad. I often go sky-watching up at the ruined castle that overlooks my town, and whenever I stand there, with my telescope, there's always a steady flow of "Traffic" past me - young couples out for a stroll, people walking dogs, etc etc - and I always offer to show them what I'm looking at. Some do, and are delighted by what they see, but many more either politely decline, or just ignore me and wander past, eyes fixed firmly on the ground. And to be honest I have to fight back the urge to run after them, grab them by their collars and shout at them "Look up! Just look at that! Isn't it beautiful?! Look at all those stars... and THAT's Jupiter over there... and THAT's Mars, the planet, Mars! Doesn't that just make you want to go 'WOOO-HOO!!!'?"
But I don't, because I came to realsie a long time ago that no, they don't want to shout "woo-hoo" when they look up at the sky, because it doesn't interest them like it does me; it doesn't move them like it does me; it doesn't fill them with the heady, intoxicating mixture of excitement, awe, fear, love and respect that crashes over me whenever I find myself outside under a clear sky.
I try to educate people, through Outreach talks, stargazing nights and writing pieces in magazines and newspapers, and on this blog too, but the bottom line is Most People Just Don't Care, and there's no getting away from that. It frustrates me to the point of screaming because they're missing out on so much - they've never seen the Moon's Appennine Mountains bathed in the silvery sunlight of a lunar dawn, or Saturn's rings shimmering in a telescope eyepiece on a balmy summer night, or the misty heart of the Orion Nebula glowing like a ghostly vision on a frostywinter's night... they've never stood under the airbrushed arch of the Milky Way and considered how unbelievable it is that the frothy vapour trail above them is made of stars, million upon million of them, each tiny pollen-grain speck a sun... they've never stood outside all night with an increasingly-painful neck, waiting for a meteor shower to really get into gear... they've never waited for the International Space Station or space shuttle to appear above the western horizon, then smiled with glee as it dashed across the sky... - but it doesn't bother them.
And they don't realise just how grand, how epic the universe is, or how we fit into it.
I pity them, to be honest, for having missed out on all those things, and not having that knowledge, that appreciation of Our Place.
But... and here's the question that's started bugging me... SHOULD I? Pity them, I mean. Is it for me to say that just because they don't see the same Big Picture that I do that their lives are any less fulfilled? Of course it isn't. Maybe it's a kind of scientific snobbery or arrogance to suppose that everyone should "get" space, and the universe, and I should just stop it, but I can't help it, I honestly don't know how people can fail to moved and astounded by the grandeur of the universe.
This will sound very grand, I know, and I'm sorry, but every time I walk up into town for some shopping, or to get a library book out, or pay a bill, I can sense I am surrounded by people who just don't see reality the same way I do, you know? I can't help feeling like Neo from the Matrix films, walking in slow motion through a crowd of people who are really asleep, and living a life that's really an endlessly repeating dream, but I'm awake, and aware, and see things as they really are, and looking out through my dark sunglasses, as I cut through the masses of people, my long black leather coat swirling and swishing around me as I walk, I know that beyond their Matrix is the real world... MY world... the Truth...
How did this amazing revelation come about? Well, there was no discussion with an astronomical Morpheus in a badly-lit, seedy sitting room. I wasn't offered a choice of pills, and took the one that opened my eyes. No, my story is pretty familiar. At school I was a "space mad kid", always hiding in the library reading when other kids were outside playing football. My mother encouraged my interest, bought me my first astronomy books and telescope, drove me to the meetings of my "nearest" astronomy club, almost 30 miles away... and here I am now. And now, whether I’m squelching my way to the shops on a rainy day in Auld Grey Kendal, or basking in Spring sunshine whilst walking quietly in Wordsworth’s footsteps along the scrunchy shingle shore at Windermere, I “feel” my true place. I "get" it. After almost four decades of loyal stargazing, after almost 40 years of bathing my upturned face in starlight, burying my face in books and trawling the internet I know my... our... place in the universe. I can mentally "zoom out" from wherever I am standing, or sitting, or laying, and 'see' Earth shrink, see stars zooming in from all sides, see the grand spiral of the Milky Way appear, then more galaxies and more and more...
I'm sure I can even sense, physically, at some level, that I’m standing on a small rocky world that is spinning around a golden Sun, and that that Sun is a star, just one of hundreds of billions of stars embedded in a galaxy, an ash-smoke whirl, catherine wheel of suns called the Milky Way, and that that galaxy is just one of countless billions of galaxies that drift through the universe like snowflakes in a blizzard, great waves and billows of them stretching away to infinity… And I look up at a starry sky on a clear night and feel an overwhelming sense of wonder! There's so much beauty, so much light…
... and so many millions - no, billions - of people completely unaware of it.
The thing is, they seem happy enough...? They have, and live, full lives, they don't seem to be missing something, they don't walk around with jigsaw piece edges, incomplete... they manage pefectly well without feeling the need to watch a lunar eclipse, or count meteors, or try and see a faint display of the northern lights, don't they? While I'm stood on my own - or with my astronomy group - up at the castle most other people are down in the town below, watching TV, eating their teas, talking about the day at work, listening to their kids talk about what they did at school... and all the time they are blissfully unaware that they are atoms in a gargantuan universe, a universe of exploding and collapsing stars, whirling and whorling galaxies and ravenous black holes. They live their lives in absolute ignorance of the fact that they live in a solar system of 8 / 9 planets, hundreds of moons and millions of asteroids and comets. They have no idea, but don't care, that each of the stars they see glittering in the sky when they put the cat out for the night is an enormous ball of gas, a sun, like our own, reduced to a point of light because it's so very, very far away...
I'll be honest, I can't imagine living like that. I can't imagine what it would be like to stand in the middle of a field on a cold and frosty night, look up at the stars glittering above me like diamond dust and feel... nothing. It would be like having my very soul cut away...
So, to everyone who's ever helped me learn about astronomy - everyone who's ever loaned me a book or a magazine, who's let me borrow a video, who explained something to me, or let me travel with them to a talk... to everyone who's ever encouraged me to follow this amazing hobby and passion of mine... thank you. Because I can't imagine what my life would have been like without it.
Written by stuartatk Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | 
digg this
-
I can relate to what you are saying. I don't pity people for having different interests, I just think that if they gave the universe a chance they might find it interesting. I don't know why some people aren't inspired by science. I don't understand them anymore than they understand me. But like you, I think we must keep trying to popularize scientific matters. If we can foster an interest in science in one or two people, especially young people, than we have made a positive change in the world, and the effort is worth it. Thank you for doing your part to popularize our interests. May I do the same.
John
http://journals.aol.com/johneknox/too-stubborn-to-die
7/5/08 8:37 PM
The only way I have been "successful" about getting people's attention about space is either through competitive nationalism and unfortunately, greed (example: Hey! China's going to mine the Moon! Too bad NASA is not!).
I imagine however that even if we did get to the Moon, Mars, etc., people would only see it as "another place," and not be amazed by the fact that they are on it.
~Darnell
http://www.colonyworlds.com/