Researching a book about Mars means learning a fair bit about the American
West. That鈥檚 because many of the scientists studying what some regard as the
next American frontier live and work in the remains of the previous one, the
backdrop of plateaux, canyons and deserts no doubt feeding their would-be
Martian imaginations.
Since I don鈥檛 drive, my research in this area has relied on the good offices
of the Greyhound Bus company. 鈥淩iding the dog鈥� is both an economical form of
transport and a fascinating social lottery. You never know who you might end up
sitting next to: a German exchange student with an intriguing if over-elaborate
philosophy of life; a Hopi man and a Cheyenne woman chatting amiably; a lout
from Chicago boasting of his sexual intentions. Sometimes you suffer, sometimes
you hit the jackpot.
The old man sitting next to me last January looked and sounded like a
Marlboro man in his twilight years. For a fair part of our trip south from
Flagstaff鈥攚here Percival Lowell first saw the canals of Mars鈥攖hat
was more or less all I knew of him. But in the end we got to talking. He was a
ranch hand by trade, or had been until age and emphysema had their way with him.
He had lived a pretty nomadic life, picking up work and skills here and there.
In the air force he had become a pretty good mechanic, overhauling jets for
Korea. And for a couple of years, he鈥檇 been a rocket wrangler.
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In the early 1960s, he was out in the Mojave desert working for Rocketdyne on
the F1 rocket engine. He helped build them and he watched as they exploded. He
went back to the test rigs to find steel plates blown apart like Puff the Magic
Dragon鈥檚 paper tissues. He learned a respect for cryogenic fuels that matched
his respect for recalcitrant bulls. Before I was born, he鈥檇 played a small role
in putting the first men on the Moon.
At the time, Apollo was meant to be more than a highlight in a ranch-hand鈥檚
life. It was meant to be a highlight of human history, but as a symbol of
technological reach the Moon programme backfired, overshadowed by the decision
to abandon it. In representing what can be achieved when a nation directs the
force of a fair-sized army at a problem, Apollo鈥檚 abiding rhetorical legacy has
been as the measure of human impotence in other fields. 鈥淚f we can put a man on
the Moon鈥︹�� is always followed not by a 鈥渨hy don鈥檛 we . . .鈥� but by a sigh of
defeat and a 鈥�. . . why can鈥檛 we?鈥�.
People still expect technological wonders in the 21st century鈥擨 do,
anyway. But we do not expect them to be brought about by massive, centrally
organised programmes like Apollo. We have learned that the technological changes
that matter tend to arrive by stealth, like the Internet, rather than because a
president asks for them. We expect developments to come from thousands of small
teams competing as much as they cooperate, not great armies ordered about in the
national interest. We have little patience for the centralised power of a
military-industrial complex. Technocratic command and control are out;
creativity and democratic oversight over expertise are in.
And that鈥檚 fine. But as the Sun sets on Sedona, there鈥檚 no denying a sort of
greatness to a century in which an old cowboy can look at the Moon and know that
he helped a nation to get there.