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Freeman Dyson’s Ecology of Science
By Sally Morem
Freeman Dyson came to St. Paul in April of 1988. He gave a lecture atMacalester College titled “The Ecology of Science,” on how scientific projects must compete for survival in an environment of scarce fundingresources.He began with three stories:1.A small Central African village was in need of water. Should a well bedrilled 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 SpaceShuttle, or should it build numerous smaller, Explorer-class telescopesand 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 turningdown the smaller projects, which would have worked better.Dyson did give an example of a large project that worked well - the VeryLarge 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 plainsdesert. All the telescopes are linked by computer, which enables them towork as one large telescope. VLA worked so well because costs were keptdown. This kept VLA from crowding smaller astronomy projects out of theFederal 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 developingtechnologies for identifying and mapping genes would be instituted. Acentralized storage facility for genetic materials would also be built.Researchers could then visit these facilities to improve their researchtechniques, 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 largeand small scientific projects could be applied to the proposed space station.He answered that the space station was an example of a poorly thought outlarge project - at least as far as space science was concerned.In response to another question, Dyson said that he did believe thathumanity 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 nowaddress these issues in a larger context: How do we get to where we all wantto go?If people of substance like Dyson have not yet fully considered the manysteps it will take to get from where we are now to a Solar Systemcivilization, 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, evenenergizing one another, is attractive. One of the reasons VLA worked sosplendidly 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 existingfunding. Additional telescopes were added when new funding becameavailable. As the array grew, the overall telescope grew in its ability toacquire 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 probesand sent them to the other planets in the Solar System, instead of sendinglarge, complex probes. Like the Colt revolver of Western lore, these could bedesigned with interchangeable parts and be mass produced to cut costsfurther.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 thathave never been seen before. But, these probes are quite massive and wedon’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 wouldconsist of thousands of small spacecraft with engines powerful enough to letthem get anywhere in the Solar System and stay there.Each probe would contain a different scientific instrument and would do adifferent job. The following instruments were housed aboard the Voyager IIspacecraft:Magnetometer Radio astronomy antennaePlasma-wave antennaeHigh resolution cameraPhotopolarimetersInfrared and ultraviolet spectrometersAnd yet, with all this hardware, Voyager II could only perform ten differentscientific experiments during its voyage.The basic structure of space probes would be standardized. Each wouldserve as a framework on which to hang different instruments. Small space
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