Freeman Dyson’s Ecology of Science

By Sally Morem

Freeman Dyson came to St. Paul in April of 1988. He gave a lecture at

Macalester College titled “The Ecology of Science,” on how scientific
projects must compete for survival in an environment of scarce funding
resources.

He began with three stories:

1. A small Central African village was in need of water. Should a well be

drilled or should the village apply to the national government for
funds to build an elaborate water system?

2. A new astronomical observatory was to be built in the Soviet Union.

Should one large observatory be built in a convenient location for
visitors from Moscow, but with poor visibility due to bad weather, or
should several smaller observatories be built in more inaccessible
places, but with good visibility?

3. Should America build four large, elaborate, space-based observatories

(including the Hubble Space Telescope) to be launched by the Space
Shuttle, or should it build numerous smaller, Explorer-class telescopes
and launch them with expendable rockets?

The people in charge chose the larger, more expensive projects in each of
these cases in order to achieve village or national prestige, while turning
down the smaller projects, which would have worked better.

Dyson did give an example of a large project that worked well - the Very
Large Array radio telescope (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico. It consists of
a number of smaller radio telescopes arranged in a Y shape on a high plains
desert. All the telescopes are linked by computer, which enables them to
work as one large telescope. VLA worked so well because costs were kept
down. This kept VLA from crowding smaller astronomy projects out of the
Federal science budget.
Dyson believes that large and small science projects can be designed to work
well together. He cited genetic research as an example. Many small,
decentralized projects would continue, while a center for developing
technologies for identifying and mapping genes would be instituted. A
centralized storage facility for genetic materials would also be built.
Researchers could then visit these facilities to improve their research
techniques, but would not have to abandon their own creativity to huge
bureaucratic institutions. (As we know now, genetic research became far
more decentralized than Dyson envisioned.)

Near the end of the presentation, I asked Dyson how his analysis of large
and small scientific projects could be applied to the proposed space station.
He answered that the space station was an example of a poorly thought out
large project - at least as far as space science was concerned.

In response to another question, Dyson said that he did believe that

humanity would spread out into the Solar System and beyond one day.

Problems with the design, development, and coordination of a variety of

scientific projects should be addressed more fully by space activists. I thank
Freeman Dyson for his insights on these issues and hope that he will now
address these issues in a larger context: How do we get to where we all want
to go?

If people of substance like Dyson have not yet fully considered the many
steps it will take to get from where we are now to a Solar System
civilization, and consider the plain fact that a permanent space station must
play a key part in this process, we have our work cut out for us. I believe if
we do develop a detailed and wide-ranging scenario for space development,
we will have a much easier time discovering the common needs of science,
exploration, industry, and human habitation in space. We will then be able to
present a united front to potential funders and be that much closer to our
dream.

Dyson’s vision of large and small scientific projects co-existing, even

energizing one another, is attractive. One of the reasons VLA worked so
splendidly is the fact that it combined the best features of one very large
project (the overall telescope) with those of a collection of many smaller
projects (many small telescopes), forming a kind of “fractal” telescope, if
you will. Each small telescope was built and put into place with existing
funding. Additional telescopes were added when new funding became
available. As the array grew, the overall telescope grew in its ability to
acquire and process radio signals.

We could do space science in a similar manner. There have been several

projects proposed that call for NASA to build small, simple space probes
and sent them to the other planets in the Solar System, instead of sending
large, complex probes. Like the Colt revolver of Western lore, these could be
designed with interchangeable parts and be mass produced to cut costs
further.

Current plans for unmanned spacecraft call for the construction of large,
elaborate, custom-crafted space probes, such as Voyager and Galileo.
Voyager performed admirably, capturing images of the outer gas giants that
have never been seen before. But, these probes are quite massive and we
don’t have the engines or the fuel that would allow them to maneuver into
parking orbits around the planets. So, they fly by and are gone forever.

Contrast this with a VLA-style small space probe program. This would
consist of thousands of small spacecraft with engines powerful enough to let
them get anywhere in the Solar System and stay there.

Each probe would contain a different scientific instrument and would do a

different job. The following instruments were housed aboard the Voyager II
spacecraft:

Magnetometer
Radio astronomy antennae
Plasma-wave antennae
High resolution camera
Photopolarimeters
Infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers

And yet, with all this hardware, Voyager II could only perform ten different
scientific experiments during its voyage.

The basic structure of space probes would be standardized. Each would

serve as a framework on which to hang different instruments. Small space
probes would be able to do any number of experiments and scientists could
tailor all feasible experiments to the requisite instrument.

The advantages of this system are obvious. We could start out by launching
a few probes at a time fairly quickly at modest cost while building up an
inventory, which would eventually give us a truly massive space science
capability. Since all the probes would be compatible, as soon as one broke
down, another could take its place.

The funding of space probes would no longer be restricted to governments.

A company or a university could finance the construction and launching of
one or more for its own experiments. Decentralization of funding sources
would end the boom-bust cycles of Congressional space budgeting.

Imagine the many and varied missions out on which we could send such a
fleet. Detailed LANDSAT-quality surveys of every planet. Continual
monitoring of weather systems of all planets with atmospheres. Very long
baseline astronomy made up of clouds of probes with telescopes spreading
out for billions of miles, allowing astronomers to pinpoint the positions of
distant planets, stars and galaxies with much greater precision. A detailed
measurement of the size and shape of the heliosphere, tracking the ebb and
flow of ionized particles streaming out of the Sun.

All this and more, much more could be done. These probes would be linked
together in a Solar System-wide information network supported by more
powerful and accurate TDRS satellites than those that exist today.

We could, in effect, wire the Solar System for sound (and sight) with these
probes as we send them out into space over a period of decades. They would orbit
every planet and moon, monitor the Sun, and selected asteroids and comets. We would
then be receiving a flood of information every second of the day, a wealth of information
our scientists could never begin to exhaust.

With more advanced technology, such as nanotechnology, we could “grow” far more
advance probes by the millions, sending many out to the Oort Cloud surrounding the
Solar System, and beyond to the stars.

If we wish to develop a Solar System civilization, it’s time we begin taking full measure
of our future home. The development of small space probes may be the way to go.

Freeman Dyson is most famous for developing a concept called the Dyson Sphere, an
enormous sphere the size of Earth’s Solar orbit, encasing the Sun and capturing all of its
radiation for human use. How fitting would it be if a real, non-solid Dyson sphere grew
around our Solar System over the centuries, one composed of trillions of tiny space
probes? I think this would be the most fitting future memorial to a great scientist
imaginable.