Science, space, colonialism and God BOBSON GBINIJE Man in his natural quest to conquer, explore, exploit and understand a complex world, has applied fundamentally radical researches, trials and errors, and analyses to build blocks of facts and discoveries that have eviscerated him from the bowels of “mental Erebus”. In 1860, Anthony Trollope, British novelist, said: “All mankind has heard much of ‘M. Lesseps’ and his Suez Canal …. I have a very strong opinion that such canal will not and cannot be made, and that steam navigation by land will and ought to be the means of transit through Egypt”. The Suez Canal was opened only nine years later and proved to be one of the most heavily-used shipping lanes in the world. In his book the “Admired of the Ocean Sea”, Samuel E. Morrison, cited the impossibilities highlighted by the Royal Committee appointed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1490 on the great impracticability of voyage to the New World, much more the discovery of a shorter route to India. But to their uttermost surprise, this became a reality that changed the Americas. In 1610, some group of Aristotelian professors, who were contemporaries of Galileo, made a pronouncement on his discovery of Jupiter’s moons thus: “Jupiter’s moon are invisible to the naked eye and, therefore, can have no influence on the earth and, therefore, would be useless and, therefore , do not exist.” They have ever since been proved wrong. In 1873, Sir Erickson, a British surgeon, doubted the possibility of surgery on the chest, abdomen and brain. He was proved wrong in 1881 by Dr. Albert Christian Theodore Billroth, who performed the first successful operation for stomach cancer. This penumbra of vagueness and doubts also predated the invention of the radio, television, aircraft, submarine, automobiles, the atomic bomb, atomic fuels, landing on the moon, rockets, locomotives, etc. However, mention must be made of the doubts and controversy that engulfed the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). The United States Senate set up committees to look into the invention. In one of the reports submitted in 1945 by Dr. Vannever Bush, he stated: “There has been a great deal said about a 3, 000- miles high angled rocket shot from one continent to another carrying atomic bomb and so direct as to be a precise weapon which could hit a city. I say technically, I don’t think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing. I wish the American people would leave that out of our thinking”. Today, assorted ranges of the ICBMs litter the nooks and crannies of the world. The desire to unravel the mystery of the universe initially gave rise to the terrestrial telescope that revealed the planets of the solar system. Astronomers and space technologist have continued to discover new things hitherto thought non-existent. They have discovered a 10th planet and more. Instead of the former nine which were Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The joint development effort by the old Soviet Union and America led to the building of the Sotyuz-Salyut spaceship as predicted by Sir Bernard Hovell. This has evinced the establishment of permanent robot manned and unmanned spaceship in orbit around the earth and other planets. Robots now man the asteroids. Unmanned interplanetary investigation has gained currency amongst technologically advanced nations. China, France and Britain are making great strides in these regards. The discovery of fossils: recognizable part, trace or imprint of a prehistoric animal or plant in the Planet Mars has latently accentuated the drive and search for extraterrestrial life. The mystery of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) has also done same. All these have tended to revitalize space exploration with a view to its exploitation. Nearly all the stars in the galaxy are being tagged with breakthrough in physics and biophysics, larger space stations, permanent scientific communities on the moon and manned exploration of all stars are being projected. With all these breakthroughs Man is on the threshold of planetary colonization through robotics and manned spacecraft. It is the thematic thrust and scientific motive of man in the 21st century, with America through NASA and Russia through its Space Science Association, taking the lead. The launching into orbit of the Voyager, the Challenger and the Viking by the American Space Shuttle, the landing on the moon of Russian Cosmonauts and setting up of a permanent Lunar Base for exploration and scientific research, Japan’s sending inter-planetary probes to Venus, with virtually all developed nations having satellites in space and China putting an astronaut into orbit around the earth point to a burning desire of man to colonize space. Where does God stand in this quest? He cannot be an author of confusion. He has created all of these for Man to extend and exploit the contours of His creation! Chief Gbinije is founder of Mandate against Poverty, Warri, Delta State
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 03:56:04 +0000
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