WORLDSAPART.INFO
WRITER MICA JAY'S NEWSLETTERS
Newsletter 1
Posted 28/12/2017
WHY SPACE TRAVEL CHANGES ASTRONAUTS FOREVER
The extraordinary feat of travelling to and landing on the moon left many astronauts struggling to understand their role in a vast universe of billions of stars.
Trying to come to terms with their new fame at a time when there was none of the celebrity cult and social media attention of the 21st century left them all the more unprepared for their return to earth.
Some were so transformed by their experience they never fully recovered.
When British astronaut Tim Peake returned from his European Space Agency (ESA) mission on the International Space Station he described the stark contrast of arriving home shortly after descending from space without time to acclimatize.
In answer to a question on whether his 186 days experience in space affected him spiritually, Tim Peake said:
"I don't know anyone who has come back from looking at the earth from space without having a different perspective on the planet, on life."
This was the dilemma facing Fergus in "Worlds Apart". To try to figure your role in a vast universe is as much a question of philosophy as astronomy. It is a subject that nobody at the time of the last Apollo mission had studied and even today it is given little attention.
The last Apollo astronaut, Gene Cernan who flew with Jack Schmitt and pilot Ron Evans, was still awed by his experience 35 years after Apollo 17 in 1972. When interviewed for the BBC Programme Sky at Night with Patrick Moore, he said:
"If I could have had every human being of the earth standing next to me at that moment, I truly believe the world would be a different place from what it is today."
Considering it took centuries to accept that the sun and not the earth is the centre of our universe, the
advance in our understanding of the solar system that enabled the Apollo missions is a wonder in itself.
The very notion that the sun and not the earth was at its centre was heretical to the Church and rejected
by medaeival and Islamic scholars for centuries.
Greek philospher Aristarchus (310-230BC) discovered that the earth was just one of several planets orbiting the sun while he studied a lunar eclipse. Unfortunately his findings were rejected in favour of those of
another Greek, Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolomeus 100 - 170 AD) which suited the beliefs of the Church.
It was 2000 years ago but Aristarchus had made his deductions by simply studying the night sky and measuring the shadow of the earth on the moon during the eclipse.
By simple geometric deductions he worked out that the sun was much bigger than the earth and much further away from the earth than the moon.
It was the simple observations of a philosopher rather than the scientific finding of an astronomer based on mathematics and astrology which were later proven to be right. No wonder even today people have difficulty working out whether the earth revolves around the sun or the other way round.
Even 700 years after Aristarchus when the Italian astronomer Galileo (1546-1642) confirmed that the sun and not the earth was the centre of our solar system, he was condemned for heresy by the Pope and sentenced to house arrest till the end of his life.
Now we know that we are not even the centre, but just a tiny speck in a vast universe of billions of stars in which even our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies.
No wonder astronauts feel themselves in another dimension of time and space .
www.britannica.com>biography Aristarchus of Samos
www.britannica.com/biographer/Ptolemy
www.biography.com>scientist Galileo
another Greek, Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolomeus 100 - 170 AD) which suited the beliefs of the Church.
It was 2000 years ago but Aristarchus had made his deductions by simply studying the night sky and measuring the shadow of the earth on the moon during the eclipse.
By simple geometric deductions he worked out that the sun was much bigger than the earth and much further away from the earth than the moon.
It was the simple observations of a philosopher rather than the scientific finding of an astronomer based on mathematics and astrology which were later proven to be right. No wonder even today people have difficulty working out whether the earth revolves around the sun or the other way round.
Even 700 years after Aristarchus when the Italian astronomer Galileo (1546-1642) confirmed that the sun and not the earth was the centre of our solar system, he was condemned for heresy by the Pope and sentenced to house arrest till the end of his life.
Now we know that we are not even the centre, but just a tiny speck in a vast universe of billions of stars in which even our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies.
No wonder astronauts feel themselves in another dimension of time and space .
www.britannica.com>biography Aristarchus of Samos
www.britannica.com/biographer/Ptolemy
www.biography.com>scientist Galileo
Copyright Mica Jay