Renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking will go to Iran on a visit that could lead to "Big Bang Diplomacy," just like "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" that gave the U. S. and China a point around which to begin closer ties in the 1970s.
The paralyzed and wheelchair-bound Hawking, the co-author of the Big Bang theory, will lecture in July at an Iranian student physics competition. While there he will have the opportunity to open another chapter on the use of "space" to bridge international differences -- just as space fostered closer ties between the U. S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disease that has confined him to a wheelchair for 40 of his 65 years and prevents him from speaking without the aid of a computer. He, however, remains active as one of the great minds in the history of science.
If no one in the U. S. or British governments has considered the potential for Hawking to act as a catalyst for the opening of more cordial ties between Iran, Britain and the U. S., then perhaps this humble Aviation Week blog might serve to get that ball rolling.
Aviation Week & Space Technology reported in an article headlined "Iran's Sputnik" how the country is modifying a ballistic missiles into a satellite launch vehicles (AWST Jan. 29 pg. 24 -- subscription required). The Aviation Week story made global headlines in late January.
The military implications of the missile modifications will always be a sticky point, but the U. S., Russia, India and China all did the same thing decades ago.
The point is Hawking will create a sensation in Iran, just like he creates excitement about space wherever he goes.
The Iranian middle class is a scientifically literate society. Student exchanges stemming from the Hawking visit can move the Iranian/U. S.-British interaction to a higher plane. It can help put both sides on more neutral ground for early discussions.
Neither the British nor U. S. governments should discuss this with Hawking in any way. All they have to do is let nature take its course. Let Hawking do what only Hawking can do, then watch for positive signals from Iran resulting from the visit, with perhaps a little student or scientific encouragement.
Hawking is very much in the news these days, having just logged four minutes of zero-gravity at the Kennedy Space Center in the Zero Gravity Corp. Boeing 727 flying eight parabolic maneuvers.
Hawking used the opportunity to experience the absence of gravity, a key element in all his cosmological equations. He also used it as an experience to illustrate how disabled individuals can do extraordinary things, helping Zero-G Corp. in the process raise nearly $200,000 for medical charities. Zero-G also hopes to fly 2,000 teachers this year on educational flights. (Photo credit: Zero-G Corp. Click on image for full size.)
A hint of this trip to Iran arose among Hawking's inner circle during a dinner I attended last week with the great physicist and space officials on the eve of his zero-g flight at Kennedy. It was hosted by Space Florida and Zero-G Corp.
Space Florida is chartered by the state to advance aerospace economic development through both space tourism and more traditional uses of the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center infrastructure. Zero-G is marketing its parabolic flights at $3,675 per person, with some of those flights, like Hawking's, departing from the space shuttle runway at Kennedy.
I did zero-g in a U. S. Air Force KC-135 decades ago, 35 parabolas in all -- logging 17 min. of weightlessness -- a record at the time for any single zero-g aircraft flight. It is a wonderful experience, but I was concerned Hawking's preflight dinner would turn into the "hawking of Hawking" for marketing purposes. I was pleasantly surprised it did not.
Zero-g made its short pitch. But then Hawking took over, and through his computerized voice synthesizer delivered a 40 min. presentation on his experiences in science.
Although it contained cosmological equations projected by PowerPoint, it was more about the "sausage making" that goes on within the scientific process as experienced by Hawking at Cambridge University in the U.K.
That process is centered on stringent peer review where there are winners and losers -- at least vanquished. But "science" almost always wins, through the winnowing out of weak arguments -- based more on argument than real fact.
Hawking noted that like he, the losers use every angle in the book to win their cases -- but ultimately the peer review process separates out the best path.
And Hawking named names -- the colleagues who had gone down the correct path, and those that had taken losing sides in various cosmological arguments. He especially cited the losers in the now discredited Steady State Theory, where everything in the universe was supposed to be "equal".
Hawking and colleague Roger Penrose dispatched the Steady State Theory with the Big Bang theory, which, supported by data, posits that the universe formed from a single release of matter nearly 14 billion years ago and has been in constant motion and change since.
At Aviation Week I have observed this same sausage making process of debate and the winnowing to the correct scientific course by doing my space operations homework -- then sitting in directly on many space mission science teams as they weighed findings going all the way back to the Skylab station missions 35 years ago. I have done it in Washington, at the Marshall and Johnson Space Centers, the Naval Research Laboratory and MIT. Most recently I have done it with the Mars rover Spirit and Opportunity science teams at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Cornell University.
The same week of the Hawking dinner, it was gratifying to have that in depth Aviation Week approach to journalism recognized during a Mars rover presentation at the Explorers Club in New York during a lecture by Kenneth Kremer a PhD chemist and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Ambassador. He also leads astronomy outreach in the Princeton University area.
Founded in 1904 the Explorers Club serves as a meeting point and unifying force of sorts for explorers and scientists worldwide, including astronauts who have been on the Moon, and Arctic and Antarctic researchers. It also counts a fair number of investment bankers as members.
Kremer's presentation, before about 130 people, described not only the rover missions, but also the Aviation Week rover coverage in detail. He used special rover images that he himself had helped to prepare and specific Aviation Week Mars rover front covers and layouts projected on a large screen. He also showed rover 3D imagery, placing the Explorers Club members "on Mars." (Photo credit: Kenneth Kremer. Click on image for full size.)
The Explorers Club is a major New York institution and as a result of the presentation, senior members raised the idea of other space events in specific connection with Aviation Week & Space Technology. Watch "this space."
-- Craig Covault
I hope him a good trip!
Posted by: yashar | May 07, 2007 at 06:42 PM