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Oh, the places we shall go


I have said, for quite some time, that if we hairless apes can get over our tribalism, can survive the extinction events which litter our road, we will be able to create the kind of paradise imagined by our greatest writers. (I do not truck in dystopias. They have their uses, and I may entertain them, but ultimately they're a dead end.) The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope is one signpost on that road to a world we can only imagine now.

The Webb is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. And for those of us of a Star Trek bent, it is the Enterprise from The Original Series as compared to the first Enterprise. It is orders of magnitude more advanced, more sensitive. It will be able to peer back to almost the beginning of our Universe.

Of course, that's not its only function. Its instruments are so subtle, so precise, that it should be able to detect life on other worlds. But I'm not talking about mere life. Not mere, say, microbial life. Not even multicellular life, like plants and animals. But life as we hairless apes adhere to ourselves. Sentient life. Intelligent life. The traces of civilization.

NASA knows this. NASA is aware of the earth-shattering discoveries which Webb might make. And thus:
As space agencies launch new telescopes, rovers and probes to look for habitable planets and alien life beyond Earth, a British priest has been helping Nasa to understand how the discovery of extraterrestrials would change the way we see the universe.

The Rev Dr Andrew Davison, a priest and theologian at the University of Cambridge with a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford, is among 24 theologians to have taken part in a Nasa-sponsored programme at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton in the US to assess how the world’s major religions would react to news that life exists on worlds beyond our own.

The Times has seen a copy of his book, Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine, due to be published next year, which was based on his research at Princeton. As Davison points out, the prospect of finding alien life is becoming ever more real.
Now, let's be clear: this is NASA. It doesn't have loads of funding laying around to spend on fripperies. The fact that it went to these lengths indicates the seriousness with which it takes this possibility. (It also sheds light on what it thinks of ET having visited the Earth. Which is: not much.)

It is inconceivable, as some quoted in the article state, that life, in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars, in a universe of a hundred billion galaxies, is relegated to his corner of the edge of the Milky Way. Merely the law of averages argues against that. Religious figures throughout history have posited the possibility of life beyond our surly bonds. If God is the Life-Giver, then They would give life all over Their creation, not just on this one rock. If God is the Life-Giver, They would want life seeded all over Their cosmos. 

But, because many take humanity's religious texts as literal, they will have trouble with the revelation from Webb, if it's to come, that life exists beyond our planet. That we are not a unique bauble in God's crown, but one of many jewels to be found in the universe. It will be a shock, and this shock must be managed.

I read The Times story a few days ago, and I had this to say:
The universe is billions of years old. It has had billions of years to develop advanced civilizations. To think that these civilizations are mired in our own tribal wars is, well, silly. A civilization which can span the stars has no material needs it can't satisfy. And perhaps they seek out life, and are waiting for we primitives to discover them. And perhaps they're waiting to see how we react. And then? Who knows? We are on a journey as momentous as when the first Europeans set out on rickety boats. As momentous as when Polynesians set out on catamarans, guided by the stars. We are going into the unknown, but our advances in technology promise to make the unknown known.

But ignore my science-fictional musings. They will be proven either right or wrong. Focus on the marvel which is the telescope. Focus on the need we as humans have to explore, to push the limits of what we know further and further out. That is the true story of Webb. As we wonder if our civilization is in decline, we do something like this. I truly believe we'll discover life. But it's the journey, not the destination, which is the meaning of all our yearnings. 

We can do amazing things. That is the marvel of our lives.
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