Space science for poets—or the poetry of space science for citizens?
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0259
Does style in science popularization matter? If so, then it would be merely technically accurate to report that a 2 October New York Times commentary expresses support for future NASA science and exploration. In fact the commentary tries to express more than plain support.
As seen in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, scientists have already deeply appreciated the commentary author’s deep appreciation of science. “The major volatile component in the paracloacal glandular secretion of the adult African dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis),” begins the paper’s abstract, “was isolated and characterized as a 19-carbon aromatic ketone, dianeackerone.”
“Dianeackerone”? The PNAS paper’s title hinges on that word: “Reptilian chemistry: Characterization of dianeackerone, a secretory product from a crocodile .” Only at the end does the paper explain, “We have named compound 1 to honor Diane Ackerman, author and poet, whose exquisite writings in the field of natural history have increased our awareness of the value of biodiversity and of the urgent need to protect endangered species.”
Exquisite writings? Others can decide whether that phrase aptly characterizes Ackerman’s Times commentary. But most readers will surely agree that Ackerman has tried to bring at least a bit of the poet’s approach to her effort to increase our awareness of the value of space science and of the urgent need, as she sees it, to protect and nurture NASA.
Here, for example, is her version of a recurring theme in big-picture space-science advocacy, the it’s-in-our-very-nature argument:
This is not a new goal, but one of humanity’s oldest yearnings. Every society has been tantalized by the great loom of the sky with its flowing quilt of stars. The Egyptian pyramids may have been arranged like the belt stars of Orion, pointing to Sirius, so that the pharaoh’s soul would be launched into the heavens where he’d shimmer as a star. To the San people in the Kalahari, the Milky Way is the “backbone of night.”
But in the end, a newspaper commentary isn’t a poem. An opinion-page editor doesn’t want beautiful ambiguity and intriguing resonances. She just wants a contributor to make a case. And in the end, that’s what the poet-commentator Ackerman tries to do:
If we want to explore in fine detail, we’ll need better eyes in the sky and faster robotic spaceships. I’m for both. Despite all the problems that beset us, we’re on the threshold of a new era of exploration and discovery. Scientists are asking thrilling questions, like: what existed before the universe? How did we get from the Big Bang to the whole shebang? Can we design spaceships that fly faster than the speed of light? Do other planetarians haunt the wilderness of space, or are we alone? I hope we’ll continue sending scouts around our solar system, and use the planets as stepping stones to the stars.
On the other hand, maybe that mainly literal-minded paragraph shows that what’s intentionally prosaic can usefully involve a bit of poetry too. When it comes to space science, maybe sometimes the poetry inheres in the substance.
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. His reports to AIP are published in ‘Science and the media.’ He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.