Let our curiosity lead the way

QUEST FOR ANSWERS: Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover is seen here in the Marias Pass area of lower Mount Sharp. Picture: EPA via NASA

QUEST FOR ANSWERS: Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover is seen here in the Marias Pass area of lower Mount Sharp. Picture: EPA via NASA

Published Dec 10, 2015

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Adam Small

I write this for today. I speak of wonderful ingenuity, of wisdom and forward-looking hopefulness. However, this should not leave us overly starry-eyed, since we must also remain aware of what is happening mundanely around us.

I begin light-heartedly. Wisdom takes in, among other things, the Gautama Buddha. I have a little statue of the great man, about ten centimetres high, on a bookshelf where I sit writing. Our grandson Max, doing his homework, sitting with me, suddenly asked me, “Who is the fat man sitting up there?” I tried to explain. He looked puzzled, but did not pursue the question. Despite my thoughts, at that moment, being on the other side of the world – with our neighbouring planet Mars, in fact – I tried to accommodate his question, quite aware of his presence.

My thoughts about Mars related to Prof Japie van Zyl of Nasa’s “Curiosity Mission” – this being the central theme of my writing today. In praise of Curiosity, we also must salute another mission by other Nasa researchers. The “New Horizon” Mission’s probe flew by Pluto recently (but did not land), on July 14, and produced “breathtaking high-resolution images” of Pluto’s geology. All of this advances our knowledge of the universe – at least the small corner of it where we live.

The Curiosity Mission adds handsomely to this fund of our knowledge. Of course, we realise (and this is nothing to feel despondent about) that we will never know “enough” about the vast universe in which we find ourselves: this is just the kind of place and time we have been cast into (by Whom or What?).

Before returning to the Mars Mission, I mention – apropos of my remark about the necessity for awareness of our down-to-earth surrounds – a number of happenings of the moment (quite mundane as they may be), unrelated to elevated thinking.

There was the saddening report on radio, about the 39-year-old man who apparently murdered his wife and teenage son and daughter. What could have gone wrong in that house? And – I have said this before – in my worst moments I wish capital punishment back for this kind of hideous act: but then, on re-thinking, what could have gone wrong in such a person’s life? Secondly, there’s the tiring whine around the legal principle of “dolus eventualis” and Mr Oscar Pistorius. Thirdly, England’s prince Harry, who was visiting here, has expressed himself on the legacy of Nelson Mandela.

He puts forward for us to consider: we should treasure the late Madiba’s efforts. Well, I thought, perhaps one of the young man’s lady friends could advise him to keep his royal mouth shut about topics outside the reach of his wisdom! Fourthly, there is the unpalatable interview, reported in the Afrikaans press, with a personage (of Dutch gold quality), Mr Mark Barnes, described as “the rich man in the white shirt”, a “blue-chip maverick”, who, when “checking”, finds that he is “really well-to-do”!

He will, from now on, head our Post Office: a lowly job for him, used to high banking. Concerning this new work of his, he has put up on the wall of his office the motto: “Do shit that matters”. Also, he says, that people who always say “they” (maintain this) and “they” (assert that), count with him as “k*k! I cannot use language like this , but agree. Only, I have the same feeling about his pronouncements.

He says, for instance, that the government of the moment “impresses him”, there being “a will to get things done”. Furthermore, this “blue chip maverick” believes that “marriages should be revised every twenty-five years, with the option of “separation”. He tells God God’s business!

I return to the incomparably more important theme of the Curiosity Mission. Prof van Zyl is one of South Africa’s most noteworthy scientists, and is being honoured today by the University of Stellenbosch (US) with an honorary doctorate. This alone makes the graduation a significant event. It is my privilege to receive the same honour of an honorary doctorate in his company – and that of Justices Cameron and O’Regan; the statistician Mr Lehohla; Professor Sampie Terreblanche; and Prof Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate (who will receive his award at another ceremony).

Prof Japie Van Zyl is one of South Africa’s most noteworthy scientists, but, because of his modesty, is not well-known in circles outside of the engineering and space exploration community.

The US’s announcement reads that Prof. Van Zyl “has distinguished himself as one of the world’s foremost space scientists. With his internationally acknowledged contribution to space research programmes, he has forwarded our knowledge of outer space and in the process inspired many young scientists in Africa”. The University further commends him as “an ambassador for the continent, in what probably is the vanguard of technology on the globe”. Prof. Van Zyl is being awarded the degree of D. Ing (Doctor in Engineering).

As a tribute to Prof. van Zyl, these lines of poetry (extracted from a full verse), pay homage to his engineering acumen:

(I) toast you and your scientific

ingenuity: deep thinking of a kind

(as Van Wyk Louw so wisely wrote)

obliterating every trace of empty

pride in us, with only the modesty

harboured in us rising up God’s sky,

déép into the World of our sun and

others, and planets too – like Mars…

Specifically mentioned in the US’s announcement, is Prof. Van Zyl’s work on the Curiosity Mission, a project aimed at finding out “whether there are any signs that life, as we understand it here on Earth, could have been supported on Mars. According to the scientist, “There are many similarities between Earth and Mars. There are sand dunes, canyons, volcanoes and deserts”. He says Mars “reminds him of Namibia”. (He would know, since he was born and grew up in Namibia.)

The lander he designed reached and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 (South African dating), “a roving chemical laboratory about the size of a Mini Cooper. To land the vehicle, he recounts, was “very, very difficult”, and he provides the following illuminating analogy: It was “a little like asking Ernie Els (the golfer) to tee off here in Cape Town and hit (the) ball into the cup at St Andrews in Scotland. And to make Ernie’s life a little more difficult he doesn’t know what the weather is like in Scotland. And if that’s not enough, the cup is moving at 100 000 kilometres per hour”.

The small vehicle will not only be roving Mars. Its first mission will be a quite formidable task – to climb up a mountain almost four miles high. Said Van Zyl, “… we will climb that mountain slowly and deliberately”. He might have added, “And with great confidence”.

Prof Van Zyl has this message for us: “The aim of a mission like this is to learn”. He himself was learning, as he built the lander, how to land the vehicle on Mars, so we can all “learn about the history of Mars”. Everyone “will be able to benefit from this “information”. He is thinking forward, “excited about South Africa’s progress in space science”. He considers that his work at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will “help new engineers and physicists” – and although he “doesn’t believe it will be possible for humans to travel to Mars within the next 20 years”, this, he thinks, is no reason for lapsing on the possibility.

Nasa could well use South African expertise in future, and he depends on US’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (headed by Prof Herman Steyn) “to keep a number of micro-satellites ready, as JPL could use them in future missions, specifically to Jupiter’s moon Europa: Stellenbosch’s “foundation” in engineering “is unparalleled in the world”.

Prof Van Zyl’s recountal turned my mind to my experience, many years ago, of the Grand Canyon in Arizona – which also is a Mars-like landscape, one that has gripped my emotion over all the years. And all of this speaks of Life, as it was founded at the Creation of the Universe, and Light – the same flooding in softly through my window at this moment.

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