{"id":362,"date":"2008-12-28T14:13:24","date_gmt":"2008-12-28T14:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2008\/12\/28\/imagine_there_s_no_earth\/"},"modified":"2012-09-28T16:55:43","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T16:55:43","slug":"imagine_there_s_no_earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2008\/12\/28\/imagine_there_s_no_earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagine there\u2019s no Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy if you try. I\u2019ve never much cared for John Lennon\u2019s song: despite the wistful melody and admirable sentiment, the scientific precisionist in me could never quite get past the poor grammar. \u201cAnd no religion too, Mr Lennon? And no religion either<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

But the song does at least draw attention to a very important human attribute: imagination. And, if I might swivel alarmingly to another, distant point on the pop cultural spectrum, the value of imagination has also been heartily endorsed by Spongebob Squarepants. In Idiot Box<\/em><\/a>, one of the show\u2019s best ever episodes, Spongebob and his starfish pal Patrick are awaiting delivery of a new television. When it arrives their sour-faced neighbour Squidward is aghast to see them toss away the TV so that they can play with the huge cardboard box that it came in, using just their imaginations<\/em>! Squidward purloins the TV but is driven to distraction because he simply cannot fathom how Spongebob and Patrick can have so much fun with their box-imagination combo.<\/p>\n

Most parents will recognise in this the small child\u2019s delight with the fantastic play value of a large cardboard box. But many of us, caught up\u2014like Squidward\u2014in our preoccupation with the daily grind, may have lost something of that capacity for imaginative leaps.<\/p>\n

I was struck by this thought a few days ago when watching a film about another imaginative leap, Neil Armstrong\u2019s famous \u201cgiant leap for mankind\u201d. This was recalled in a brilliant and thoughtful documentary about the Apollo moon landings, In the Shadow of the Moon<\/em><\/a>, which was broadcast in the UK by Film4 (yes, I was watching TV!). The film\u2019s makers scored a double coup in their production for not only did they dig out some very rarely seen footage of the Apollo program, but they also conducted lengthy and thoroughly researched interviews with ten of the surviving astronauts. Although Armstrong himself\u2014apparently a bit of a recluse\u2014did not participate, the other astronauts reflect candidly, often with wit and intelligence, on their remarkable experiences. It\u2019s a wonderful piece of work.<\/p>\n

The film appealed enormously to the star-struck child in me; I saw it as soon as it came out in the cinema late last year. Many years previously, as a twelve year old responding to a competition run by the Belfast Telegraph<\/a> I\u2019d won the chance to visit the Armagh Planetarium<\/a> to put a question to Jim Irwin, an astronaut who had landed on the moon as part of Apollo 15 in 1971. Concerned for the poor soul who was left behind in the command module and never made it to the moon\u2019s surface, I asked him how they decided which member of the crew should miss out. The answer\u2014that this was simply decided early in the training program\u2014was rather banal but the event nonetheless shines in my memory, touched by lunar magic. When I saw In the Shadow of the Moon<\/em> again recently I recalled some of that magic. But I was also even more impressed than on my first viewing by the drama of the story and the humanity of the astronauts. The short trailer on the film\u2019s website<\/a> gives a good idea of the content.<\/p>\n

One of the most interesting aspects of the Apollo program, as pointed out recently in The Guardian<\/a>, is that in setting out to explore the moon the astronauts also made entirely unexpected discoveries about the Earth. The moon missions were the first to thrust men so far into space that they could see the planet in its entirety. One of the most resonant photographs taken by the astronauts of Apollo 8, the first to reach lunar orbit (on Christmas Eve 1968), was of the Earth rising slowly above the lunar horizon. I guess everyone has now seen the famous \u2018Earthrise\u2019 image of the blue-white globe ascending over the dusty, lifeless surface of the moon.<\/p>\n

\"Earthrise<\/a>
\nEarthrise \u2013 spot the difference<\/em><\/p>\n


\nOf course it had been known for centuries that the spherical earth floated in the blackness of space, orbiting the sun and orbited by the moon. The idea of an Earthrise viewed from the moon could easily have been imagined<\/em> in all that time, couldn\u2019t it? But it was not (except perhaps by Fred Hoyle<\/a>). When the excited astronauts first caught a glimpse of the Earth, as their craft returned from the dark side of the moon, they scrambled to grab their cameras and shouted to each other for some colour film. In the m\u00eal\u00e9e, as they snapped through the tiny windows, the mission schedule was abandoned\u2014the photo-shoot had not been anticipated.<\/p>\n

That happened because, I believe, our capacity for imagination is more limited that we care to admit. But it\u2019s something that we would do well to cultivate\u2014however that can best be done. It\u2019s a commonplace here on Nature Network that imagination is a powerful tool in the creative conduct of science. No hypothesis can be formulated without the consultation of our mind\u2019s eye. But of course, imagination has an importance far beyond mere science. Without it there is no empathy. And perhaps no future.<\/p>\n

But at least we once had the imagination<\/em> to conceive of travelling to the moon. When the initial frenzy of photography had subsided the crew of Apollo 8 resumed their duties but, on the long journey home, they\u2014and the astronauts who followed in later missions\u2014still had plenty of time to gaze at their home planet. Those that spoke of it in the film all mentioned being affected by the evident fragility of that tiny heavenly body. Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 8 (and later of the ill-fated Apollo 13) recalled that, viewed from the moon, he could blot out the earth with just his thumb and imagine a universe without<\/em> the Earth.<\/p>\n

The fragility and preciousness of the Earth and its inhabitants struck the astronauts in other ways too. Michael Collins (command module pilot on Apollo 11) reflected on the unifying power of their historic first landing that had captured the imagination of the world. It had given us a new perspective on humanity, on what we could achieve but also on where we stood in history. Alan Bean (Apollo 12), appalled by the utter loneliness and emptiness of the moon, spent time on his return just sitting in shopping malls watching the world go by\u2014re-immersing himself in the flow of human life, savouring it.<\/p>\n

But now, forty years later, we are realising that we have imperilled our fragile planet, or at least our own continued existence on it. The technological superfluity that slung men all the way to the moon has also given rise to a high-powered way of life that we cannot sustain. Our over-heated economies (cooling off briefly now) are over-heating the world we live in. Or so some<\/em> of us believe. Others cannot imagine<\/em> that humanity could possibly have had such an impact on the earth. Indeed it seems hard to do: viewed from an airplane, the world seems immeasurably vast; even humankind\u2019s greatest constructions shrink to ant-size. But viewed from space, as our astronaut friends have told us, the good Earth itself shrinks to a delicate globe, one that might all too easily be extinguished.<\/p>\n

There is much to be despondent about. But as the Earth swings round to the start of another orbit around the sun I find myself wanting to grasp at the imaginative optimism that created and sustained the Apollo program (stimulated, I have to say, by the new arrival in the White House). I can\u2019t do much by myself but, since this is a time for looking ahead<\/a> and making new resolutions<\/a>, I will resolve to do more. First, to inform myself, for I am sadly ignorant of the main strands of evidence for global warming, and then to reduce my contribution to it. I fear it will make little real difference but perhaps I should have more of Spongebob’s confidence in the transformative power of imagination!<\/p>\n

Happy New Year everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy if you try. I\u2019ve never much cared for John Lennon\u2019s song: despite the wistful melody and admirable sentiment, the scientific precisionist in me could never quite get past the poor grammar. \u201cAnd no religion too, Mr Lennon? And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}