A newly unearthed essay has opened a fresh window on the curiosity of the loquacious, prolific Winston Churchill. Even as the second world war loomed, the man who was poised to lead Britain in the Allied fight against Nazi Germany, still found time to contemplate the possibility of planets beyond our solar system as well as other questions that dominate astrobiology today.
We know Churchill, who became prime minister in 1940, supplemented his politician鈥檚 salary with articles for London newspapers and magazines. So the discovery of the essay Are We Alone in Space? is not a complete surprise.
Written in 1939 and revised in the 1950s, the 11-page article was found last year by Timothy Riley, director and chief curator of the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, where the cigar-smoking leader made a famous speech about the 鈥淚ron Curtain鈥� in 1946. Riley set the essay aside, but remembered it during a visit by astrophysicist Mario Livio, and handed it to him to review.
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In it, Churchill speculates about whether intelligent beings live elsewhere in the cosmos, and what they might be like. 鈥淚 am not sufficiently conceited to think that my sun is the only one with a family of planets,鈥� he writes. Today, thanks to recent advances in astronomy, we know most stars do have planets in orbit and have found thousands of them, some Earth-like.
But why put pen to paper on this in 1939? These were the months after the 1938 US radio broadcast of H. G. Wells鈥檚 The War of the Worlds, when excitement about the possibility of alien life on Mars or elsewhere was at fever pitch. But, as Riley points out, the winds of war were surely on his mind, too, as he speculates in the essay about peaceful civilisations elsewhere.
On space and time
鈥淚, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures,鈥� Churchill writes, 鈥渙r that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time.鈥�
This is the essay鈥檚 last line, and is a favourite of Riley鈥檚, and of mine.
鈥淗e is hopeful that there are perhaps others that are living, thinking creatures that might set better examples, perhaps,鈥� Riley says. 鈥淗e is saying we, as a society, could have some work to do of our own.鈥�
For the later revision, Churchill changed the title to Are We Alone in the Universe?, reflecting not only the linguistic differences between the 1930s and the 1950s, but perhaps also a more expansive, post-war view of humanity鈥檚 place in the cosmos.
Beyond contemplating the existence of other civilisations, the essay discusses the importance of water, which, as Livio points out, still guides the search for extraterrestrial life. Churchill points out that liquid water can only survive in what scientists now call a habitable zone: regions 鈥渂etween a few degrees of frost and the boiling point of water鈥�.
Venus or Mars
He also muses on interstellar travel and solar system exploration. 鈥淥ne day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the moon, or even to Venus or Mars,鈥� he writes.
That he was interested in all this reflects the fact that Churchill was always curious about the natural world and technological advances. This was seen in his order to convert the Royal Navy from coal-burning ships to an oil-powered fleet, the funding of laboratories and government research facilities, and becoming the first prime minister to employ a science adviser, the physicist Frederick Lindemann, in the early 1940s.
There was also a darker side to his embrace of science. In March 1942, Lindemann issued an infamous memo advocating the large-scale bombing of German towns and cities as a statistically proven means to maximise use of military resources to lower morale. Churchill also ordered the firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, following Lindemann鈥檚 recommendations.
And in the post-war, atomic era, Churchill realised the power of science to determine the outcome of conflicts. In his Fulton speech, he thought he was warning against a third world war, which would be the last, because of science. 鈥淗e understood its great power. I think that鈥檚 quite profound,鈥� Riley told me.
Churchill lived through an era of immense technological advance. As a 23-year-old army lieutenant in 1898, he participated in the last cavalry charge in British military history. By the end of his career he was in charge of nuclear weapons and saw the first humans go into space.
The 20th century saw the fastest expansion of knowledge in human history; it is only fitting that one of its most iconic leaders anticipated the issues at the forefront of planetary science in the 21st.
For today鈥檚 political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, his newly discovered words are a reminder of the importance of intellectual curiosity, the ability to contemplate the future, and the significance of these to human values.
Nature
is a science writer based in Missouri
