Ad Astra Per Aspera

 

On Wednesday, September 15, 2021, the first all-civilian trip to space will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.  Inspiration4 is the next step in a journey humans have followed for thousands of years.

I have written twice about my experience as an educator taking part in International Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama (here and here).  In those posts, I wrote a bit about why a Latin teacher would have any interest in a science program such as Space Camp, and now I want to go a bit further.

Pythagoras, who lived from c. 570-c. 495 B.C., is credited with being the first person to posit the idea that the earth is round.  He also developed the idea that has come to be known as the "music of the spheres," a theory about mathematical relationships among the heavenly bodies.  Plato (c. 428-c. 348 B.C.) touched on this in Republic VII, as did Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in On The Heavens, II.9.  The Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero (106-43 B.C.) wrote of astronomical things in Book VII of his On the Republic, which has come to be known by its own title, "The Dream of Scipio."  There he wrote,

Ex quo omnia mihi contemplanti praeclara cetera et mirabilia videbantur.  Erant autem eae stellae, quas numquam ex hoc loco vidimus, et eae magnitudines omnium, quas esse numquam suspicati sumus.  (De Re Publica, VI.16)

"As I gazed at them from this point, all the other heavenly bodies seemed brilliant and amazing.  And there were stars that we have never seen from earth, and the sheer numbers of them all were such as we have never imagined."

The Roman poet Vergil (70-19 B.C.) has the title character of the Aeneid meet his father in the underworld, and the old man tells Aeneas of what is to come, going so far as to note that there will be those who,

...caelique meatus/describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent  (Aeneis, VI.849-850)

"will mark out the movements of the sky with a rod and will tell of the rising stars."

Even science fiction found its start in the ancient world with Lucian of Samosata (c. 125-c. 180 A.D.), whose True History contains scenes of outer space travel, aliens, and war between planets.

What will hopefully happen on the 15th of September in the twenty-first year of the twenty-first century since the birth of Christ, is the next step on a journey going back at least as far as Pythagoras.  It is why I was proud to join educators from across the United States and around the world at Space Camp and why I will be talking about space exploration with my Latin classes on Wednesday.  I think the ancients would be pleased.