Whither Space Exploration: Foot Print or Boot Print

Roger F Malina

NASA

Roger F Malina

My culture is space culture. My father, Frank Malina, was a rocket and astronautics pioneer; Yuri Gagarin visited our house. I have worked as an astrophysicist and space scientist, led a team that built space telescopes for NASA.

My father was also a successful professional artist; he believed deeply that artists should appropriate the science and technology of their times to create truly contemporary arts.

I have worked as an arts journal editor ( Leonardo at MIT Press www.leonardo.info ) and am now collaborating with artists on data science projects at UT Dallas ( http://artscilab.utdallas.edu ). In 1989 I wrote ( 1) “ space exploration will ultimately be unsuccessful if artists are not deeply involved and engaged in space activities” For thirty years I have found ways to help artists get access to space data, space assets and space systems. In 2003 the Arts Catalyst organization and Leonardo/OLATS obtained funding to fly 20 artists in zero gravity on the Russian cosmonaut training Ilyushin (http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/detail/mir_cornerhouse/) . Nicola Triscott and I established the International Astronautics Technical Activities Committee ( ITACCUS http://www.iafastro.org/comites/committee-for-the-cultural-utilisation-of-space-itaccus/ ) for the Cultural Utilisation of Space. I deeply believe that space exploration is a cultural activity and is desirable as part of the future of our species.

But whose space culture? What space culture?

In 2007 I attended the International Astronautics Congress in Hyderabad, India. It was a wonderful gathering of the space professionals. The Chinese had recently launched their first Taikonauts. India was

getting ready to launch their Chandrayan mission to the moon. The first commercial space companies and space tourism were nascent.

After Hyderabad we went to Bangalore where we had organized a “Space and Culture” workshop with Indian philosopher of science Sundar Sarukkai, of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, and Geetha Naranajan, founder and director of the Srishti School of Art and Design (http://srishti.ac.in/ ). Researchers from the Institute and Faculty and students from Srishti attended.

I was one of the keynote speakers and I gave an enthusiastic talk advocating the work of artists involved in space exploration.

One of the slides I showed was the famous photograph of one of the Astronaut’s foot prints on the surface of the moon. I waxed eloquently about this iconic photograph and compared it to the drawings in prehistoric caves, Galileo’s drawings of mountains on the moon, or the paintings by Leonardo during the Renaissance.

As I paused for breath, a student in the back of the room raised their hand. I asked for the question. She said quietly: “But sir, that’s not a foot print it’s a boot print”.

I think I heard the whole room hold their breath in sudden agreement. No one could deny that this was a boot print not a foot print. So why had I, and my colleagues, always described it as a foot print?

That simple observation has de-stabilized me ever since, and made be more self-critical and self-aware about the space culture I am helping to build and am part of, and its heritage from the space faring nations that have started the space age, and the new ones now participating.

The trip to Bangalore turned out to be a trigger moment. I have since collaborated with Sundar Sarukkai and he has influenced be greatly with his writing on “the ethics of curiosity’ (http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/44774333/science-ethics-curiosity ). He explains that in Christian cultures the history of curiosity is very different than in many Indian cultures. After all Saint Augustine explained that curiosity was a sin that led him astray from the true way; Francis Bacon claimed to be motivated not by curiosity, but by charity; yet today governments fund curiosity driven research, declaring it innocent and childlike and good for economic development. In some Indian cultures, Sundar points out that ‘doubt’ rather than ‘curiosity’ is the great motivator.

And one need not unpack with post-colonial analysis much the US’s desire to open up the space ’frontier’ as part of its manifest destiny. But more deeply the question asks whether humans are fit for outer space; they will never be able to walk barefoot on the moon, because the process of human evolution made us fundamentally ill adapted to the conditions beyond the earth. The moon is not just further than the frontier of the earth, it is elsewhere. The deep debates between robotic and human exploration of outer space are embedded with the dialectic of the footprint vs the bootprint.

Geetha Narayana had once explained to me that in Bangalore the head of the Indian Space Agency and the head of an Art school were in different cultures; after all a President of India had been a physicist, and space exploration was a ‘regal’ function whereas the arts were ‘outside’ the walls, irrelevant to the economic boom in India and never invited in. Sundar Sarukkai wrote a report describing how in many of the new Indian Universities there are no Schools of Social Science of Art and Humanities. But in fact in the years following the workshop Srishti and the Indian Space Agency were able to collaborate on a

project with students and children called “moon vehicle’ which went on to receive a Microsoft design award. http://srishti.ac.in/content/narrative-driver ).

So what space culture will we build? At the International Astronautics Congress there had been a panel with the heads of all the space agencies present. Each had been asked to give an ‘elevator’ pitch describing their vision for the future of space exploration. Dan Goldin, then the head of NASA, had, true to form, enthusiastic talked about exploring space to exploit space resources economically and pushing back the frontier. Rao, the head of the Indian space agency, said simply that he hoped that space exploration would help humanity live in balance with its planet. I forget exactly what the head of the Russian, Chinese and Japanese space agencies said, but they also could not see what was in the photograph.

So whenever I listen to my space colleagues argue about the future of space exploration, I remember the simple observation of that student in Bangalore: “But sir that’s a boot print not a foot print.”

There will never be footprints elsewhere in the solar system except on planet earth.Ft

Refs

In Defense of Space Art: The Role of the Artist in Space ExplorationR Malina, IAU Colloq. 112: Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris 17, 145