Sending Icarus into Space
(and Getting Him Safely Back Home Again)
Excerpted from Gender and the Genome
Volume 1, Number 2
‘‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings; if you fly too low or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. The boy began to delight in his daring flight, and drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted. He flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air.¹
Apparently, the insatiable urge to explore new frontiers is built into our DNA. In fact, given what was available at the time, the ingenious equipment Icarus’ brilliant engineer father, Daedalus, fashioned for his son was a bold first step in space flight. Furthermore, if the aviator had listened to his father’s warning, he might, in fact, have ‘‘traveled between the extremes’’ and returned safely to earth. Ovid’s story is a warning that overweening ambition and human hubris end in disaster. It’s a theme that permeates the history of space flight: often the wildest, most extravagant notions of how to tackle impossible conundrums shut down all but the most intrepid and confident explorer scientists. The most successful of them—who made the strides that brought us to 2017, where journeys to distant planets are within our reach—had an unshakable conviction that all problems are solvable. Sharon Weinberger’s new book, The Imagineers of War, paints a vivid personal picture of these first architects of the space program accelerated by the launch of Sputnik 70 years ago.insert[1] Each man was unique. To name only two: William Godel, the charismatic ex-Marine and wildly creative visionary who helped initiate the first steps in the space program in the early 1960s, and the aristocratic Wernher von Braun, part of the spoils of the Second World War, who developed the rockets that launched Explorer 1 and powered the Apollo program moon landings. With every piece of new information revealed by our evermore creative and elegant technology, it is apparent that the size, scope, and complexity of the universe are essentially beyond anything we could have even imagined, much less expected. The data about the distances between ourselves and the our neighbors even within our own galaxy, the size of celestial bodies, the intricate configurations in which they are grouped, and the ceaseless activity in which they are all involved make the imagination reel. The rapid expansion of our knowledge underscores futurist Ray Kurzweil’s profound observation: ‘‘A serious assessment of the history of technology reveals that technological change is exponential.’’³ Many of our precise estimates are brand new. For example, according to 2016 data from the Hubble Space Telescope, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is only one of an estimated 2000 billion others in the observable universe— 10 times as many as our recent estimates had suggested!⁴ As the cornucopia of new information about the number of planets that populate the universe expands, our intense interest in exploring those distant worlds increases with each new revelation. There is a growing conviction that the universe almost certainly harbors planets on which there may be intelligent life and even civilizations equal to or more complex than our own. Galileo first described the planet Jupiter’s moon, Europa in 1610, but over the past 30 years, NASA’S Voyager 1 and 2 and the Hubble eye have detailed what Britney Schmidt describes as the ‘‘complex geology (of Europa) which belies an active, maybe habitable, ice shell and ocean.’’ 5
1. Ovid. Daedalus and Icarus. In Metamorphoses (Kline) 8. The Ovid Collection. University of Virginia Etext Center. Bk vii, pp. 183–235.
2. Weinberger S. The Imagineers of War (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY), 2017. p. 475.
3. Kurzweil R. The Singularity Is Near. (Viking Penguin, New York, NY), 2005. p. 12.
4. NASA. Hubble reveals observable universe contains 10 times more galaxies than previously thought. Available at www.nasa.gov/features/goddard/2016/hubblereveals-observable-universe-contains-10-times-moregalaxies-than-previously-thought. Last accessed April 30, 2017.
5. Hubblesite. Hubble spots possible venting activity on Europa. Available at http://hubblesite.org/news_release/2017- 17. Last accessed April 30, 2017.