In which I worry over response to concentration camp

To Berlin last week with my friend Vincent, and to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Pronounced Saxon-hausen, a common placename in Germany. I would fain have avoided this visit but Vincent was keen. I'm glad we went, and I may have more to say about it in due course. But for now I just want to relate my own feelings as I went round.  The point is, I had none.  It was as if I were visiting any other archaeological site, a castle say with medieval dungeons, or a cathedral.  I was bothered about this. Some inadequacy of sensitivity on my part.

Members of our Sachsenhausen tour group inspect a hut charred by an arson attack in 1992

Only two original huts remain. The compound has been vandalized several times by Neo-Nazis. In 1992 they set fire to a hut now used as Jewish museum. And the foundation that runs the camp, instead of restoring the burnt beams, has preserved them in their charred state. This is good. The arson attack is itself part of the site’s history.  But what is not good, is that here I am again harping on about archaeology rather than concentrating on the misery and suffering that occurred there.

Quiz: what is the oldest manmade object in space?

Answer: this copper Lincoln penny, a 1909 US one-cent coin, launched into space on November 26, 2011, aboard the Curiosity Mars rover.

American geologists have long used Lincoln pennies as scale indicators in photographs. In homage to tradition, a 1909 one-cent coin is attached to Curiosity’s camera calibration target.

The second oldest human-made object in space, and until 2011 the oldest, is Vanguard 1, a satellite launched in 1958. It functioned until 1964, and is predicted to remain orbiting the Earth until the year 2198, when its orbit will have degraded so much that it falls in. It will presumably burn up in the atmosphere. But supposing any part reaches the ground and is picked up, by whom? Someone so technologically advanced we wouldn't recognise them, or by a cave dweller?

Came across this little nugget when researching space archaeology as part of a lecture I am due to give to an astronomy club next month.

I anx over wrong response to Syria pictures

The Umayyad mosque in Aleppo dates from 11th to 14th centuries.
The minaret, disappeared on the second picture, was built in 1090.

Martin Chulov’s recent article in The Guardian “Syria's heritage in ruins: before-and-after pictures” is a must-read. The pictures reveal how the seemingly unstoppable war in Syria is laying waste to a world heritage built over 5,000 years.

But stop! The war has claimed more than 130,000 lives. Which is more important?

And here's what makes me queasy: that the pictures that impact me most are those of the Umayyad mosque in Aleppo. The same Guardian article has a before and after of a hospital, even more comprehensively destroyed than the mosque; and then what of the pictures of the dead and refugees that we have seen so many of?

So what's wrong with me, that out of all this, when I seem to most mourn is the loss of the historic buildings???

Mars One is OK, I suppose

The pains of emigration are seared into the Irish soul, and this week I've listened on the radio to Dr Joseph Roche contemplating it in its most extreme form. He's a Trinity College Dublin astrophysicist who’s signed up for Mars One - a privately funded venture to send colonists to Mars in 2023 on a one-way only ticket. 

The first time I wrote about it, I queried whether a no-return crewed mission to Mars was acceptable.  Perhaps those who send these colonists will be colluding in their suicide?  This question of its acceptability was, I have to agree, a woolly one, as I forgot to ask acceptable to whom, and if not, who could stop it. 

Asked by the presenter if it's suicide, Joseph Roche recognises that due to radiation his life expectancy will be “drastically reduced”.  But since there can be very few people who understand the risks better than he does,  I suppose I have to abandon my pretensions to opine on the rightness of the thing. 

You can hear his two interviews here, on RTÉ radio last Thursday and Sunday. They make extraordinary listening. 

Morning Ireland, Thurs 9 January search for “The Irishman who hopes to go to Mars” (5 minutes)

Marian Finucane Show, Sunday 12 January search for “Life on Mars” (18 minutes)

Dr Roche was interviewed after reaching a longlist of 1,058 volunteers, selected from over 200,000.   He says that to be chosen for the mission would be like a dream come true.

 “I definitely wouldn't be coming back, it's not up for debate. As soon as I get there I would have to live out the rest of my days there. Because you would be exposed to conditions that no human has experienced before, and there's not enough atmosphere on Mars to protect you from radiation, even with a space suit, my life expectancy would be drastically reduced. The way I look at it, even with a shorter life on Mars, for every day I live on that planet, I would be taking a leap forward for the scientific endeavour of human kind. For me it would be a dream come true.”

That’s the Morning Ireland clip, the shorter of the two. In the longer interview with Marian Finucane, a fellow hopeful Steve Menaa joins Joe Roche and so does his sister Deirdre. She says the family would be devastated if he was selected and he had to go, but on the other hand Joe was always ambitious and he likes to see through the things he starts, and if this is what he wants we'll support him in it.   Steve says “I like my life on Earth but I like a challenge as well. We humans are explorers.”

Greenhouse for growing plants and insects on Mars. As envisioned by the Mars Society.

Asked what they will do for food, Joe says they will grow plants. And for protein, breed insects. Yummy.

When after 5 years the colony reaches full strength, there will be 20 of them, men and women. Will there be children produced? No. Joe says sterilising all the astronauts should be considered, and it's exciting that there is that ethical discussion. Sacrifice in the cause of science is mentioned, but Joe says it's easy to sign up for this if you're passionate about it, he's not sure sacrifice is the word; it could actually be called selfish, he admits. 

It would be good to work with NASA or ESA and have a return trip, but those agencies’ plans are 30 years in the future. “I'm 30, and if I go, I go now”.

Mental illness?

There will be no Skype. Radio waves will take over 3 minutes to travel in each direction.  (Up to 20 minutes in each direction, I would say, depending on the two planets’ relative positions.)

In neither of these interviews is anything said about the psychology of isolation. According to this Guardian blog, those sent to live and die on the red planet face untold risk of mental illness.

And the 24-hour Big Brother show that’s going to fund the project will heap more pressures on. 

Will it be reality TV, or a horror movie, is my question. And which will bring in the bigger bucks?

Space - maybe we can but should we?

Artist's conception of the process of terraforming Mars (Wikipedia).
The question is, should it be done?

Am now working on a lecture I have to give in March to Galway Astronomy Club. It's about the ethics of space exploration.

Is the Mars One project (a no-return mission of Mars colonists) a suicide trip, and if so does it matter? Is colonising Mars a good thing in principle, and if so, does it signify what the motives are? Is preserving the human race a good motive?  In order to hasten exploration of Mars, is it OK to cut corners thereby risking planetary protection .. risking polluting Mars with Earth microbes, which could stymie all future investigation into life on Mars?  Is it OK to terraform Mars … schemes have been devised that, within a few centuries, would turn Mars into a replica of the Earth with an Earthlike atmosphere.  But is it right?

How is the demilitarization of space to be policed? How can we preserve archaeology in space and on the Moon?  Who is allowed to mine asteroids and who should be?

Have a lot of work to do on this in the next 6 weeks, so this blog may be a bit quiet on other matters. Any comments or pointers welcome.  In particular I have to research the international law of space, I was hoping to find someone to help me on that, but I have to do it all by hand. Moreover at the end of February am off to Berlin again with my friend Vincent.

Links:

On this blog
        The Mars One mission
        Preserving the human race on Mars
        Archaeology on the Moon

Elsewhere
        The debate on the so-called over-protection of Mars
        NASA on how to terraform Mars
        Wikipedia on whether to terraform Mars

Celebrating Isaac Newton's birthday

Which world changing person’s birth have you been celebrating today? On Christmas Day 1642 Isaac Newton was born. His work laid much of the foundation for our modern understanding of the universe by uncovering the force that keeps it together, and showing it’s the same as what makes an apple fall. He formulated what are known as Newton’s three Laws of Motion. He may have been the greatest scientist ever.

To divert you from the day’s excesses may I tempt you to Deborah Byrd’s Earth Sky blog where you'll find links to the laws of motion as well as Newton’s revelations about gravity.

But the most extraordinary revelation about Newton is this: that according to some, science wasn’t the biggest thing in his life. What was even more important to him was biblical textual criticism, in which he excelled, and his unitarian belief (no trinity) which he had to keep to himself, for fear of being expelled from Cambridge University.  A couple of years ago I attend a fascinating lecture on this.

An apology the world will little note nor long remember

Something I missed recently, but I'll include it here in case you missed it too:  coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address on 19th November, a retraction of an 1863 newspaper editorial dismissing the speech as “silly remarks”.

“We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them and that they shall be no more repeated or thought of.” With these stinging words did the Patriot & Union of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania achieve infamy in the annals of journalism, by panning the presidential speech that lives as one of the most treasured orations in the English language.

Three weeks ago, the successor paper Patriot-News revisited this unkind judgement, suggesting that their predecessors were perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink - whilst wittily observing that “the world will little note nor long remember” the paper's apology.

This is all good fun, but ahistorical, of which more below.

Lincoln at Gettysburg (unknown date)

First, here's the full text of the Gettysburg address. [1]

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Now to the question of how the Patriot & Union came to overlook history being made that day. It's worth reading “Living on the wrong side of history? The Harrisburg Patriot & Union's notorious 'review' of the Gettysburg Address”  from Patriot-News website.

This deals with the issue historically, and discounts the playful suggestion that their 1863 predecessors were under the influence of strong drink. In the first place, the newspaper's own reporter described the President's speech in Gettysburg like this: "The President then arose and delivered the dedicatory address, which was brief and calculated to arouse deep feeling."  But the crux is that the Patriot & Union supported the Democratic party, and was hostile to Lincoln, his conduct of the war, and his war aims. Moreover, the paper’s editors had been in put in jail for sedition a year before. So there was stuff going on.

As a final thought, I've often wondered if Lincoln really believed that the world would little note, nor long remember, what he said that day.  He well knew he had crafted a masterpiece … surely he entertained the hope that the world would recognise this?

[1] This is the text most often reproduced. There are others, see Abraham Lincoln Online.