INSTINCT FOR ORDEAL

The last transit of Venus occurred on the 6th of June—that’s when our charming sister planet last passed visibly across the face of the sun. The 6 hour and 40 minute trip went largely uncelebrated around the world, generating a fraction, I guess, of the hype surrounding a relatively mundane lunar eclipse. The downplay is understandable—though it has nearly the same mass as Earth, our oft-underestimated interplanetary distance renders Venus a little more than an ink dot in the sky. It may be hard to believe, then, that this puny astronomical curiosity once set the stage for one of my favorite stories in history of human achievement.

It has been called mankind’s first international, cooperative, scientific effort. In 1761 hundreds of star-searchers departed to exotic locales from ports all around the world, and all because of a paper written by the great Edmund Halley (a super-genius whose litany of brilliant accomplishments does not include discovering the comet that today bears his name) 45 years prior. This paper described how measurements of the transit could be used to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Unfortunately, transits of Venus occur less than frequently—there were none in Haley’s lifetime. But, when the occasion came, the world’s scientific community responded, including many future luminaries who would find greater fame in later pursuits, the likes of James Cook and the duo of Mason & Dixon.

What makes the story so fascinating is what happens next. This unprecedented, global scientific effort was also an unmitigated failure—at least partially due to foul weather, hostile natives, and the fact that while the scientific world was in a cooperative mood, their respective monarchies were decidedly not. The personal tales of these men, tales of optimism, calamity and woe, characterize the 1700s as an age of scientific adventure and ordeal the likes of which would go unrivaled until we started sending men into space.

The instinct for adventure and ordeal feels lost, sometimes, to my own age. Modern convenience is a luxury, but very much the sin of our fathers. I’m too lazy to google what “generation” I belong to.

For me, there will always be a romantic significance to the transit of 1761 as I picture the hundreds of scientists and staff setting sail, leaving behind their homes for years, fully culturally aware that they were pioneers in a bold age of discovery—that through their efforts and the efforts of their contemporaries, the human race changes the way that it sees itself and the universe.

I don’t know if we have that anymore. I have seen the best minds of my generation too pussified to risk destruction by madness, take jobs as waiters, and forget about the subjects that once captivated them in their youths until one night they comes up at a bar and we realize we have nothing left to say. I look around and see us frightening on the verge of a social-intellectual revolution, of discovery and innovation that could change forever the ways we see and treat one another and ourselves. I wonder if we have the same instinct for adventure and ordeal as those giants that risked their wealth, reputations and lives in 1761 to find our place in the solar system.

On the other hand, at least we’re building space-drones.