June 18, 2010
By Jacob Keaton
The ocean is big. Really, really, big. Like really, really mind-bogglingly big. You may think it's a long walk down the road to the pharmacist, but that's just peanuts to the sea. I'm writing this onboard a first-class sailing vessel that (with the exception of Bermuda) is more than 800 miles from the nearest land – and that's the blink-and-you'll-miss-it group of islands called the Azores, off the coast of Europe.
Traveling at a stately six knots, the ship and her crew are using every instrument available – from microscopes to fishing nets to human eyes – in an effort to understand the way humanity's abundant use of plastic is affecting the two thirds of the world most of us rarely think about. In one sense, we are completely self-sufficient out here, having provisioned on land everything we might need – we have every test tube we'll need for the duration of our cruise, as well as (we hope) every gallon of fuel and (we hope even more) every bag of chocolate chips for cookies.
In another sense, we are actually living off the land – while the ship has plenty of water storage, the onboard watermakers are constantly converting the seawater we're floating on into fresh water for drinking, showering, and cooking. We are making liberal, even extravagant use of the fresh air over the ocean's surface for such trivial purposes as propulsion and respiration. As the ship rolls beneath us, we are re-acquainted with gravity and its role in keeping the sails above us and the keel below. Without these "free" resources that we take for granted, this expedition would be considerably more difficult, expensive, and dangerous.
There are many parallels between this cruise and humanity's forays into outer space. As a member of NASA's International Space Station (ISS) program team, I see this daily in my regular on-shore life, and as a member of this expedition, I'm experiencing it firsthand around the clock. Onboard the Space Station right now, there are six people living in low Earth orbit some 200 miles above us, conducting scientific research into the effects the unique environment of microgravity has on biological and physical processes.
The similarities are many – both sailors and astronauts frequently experience motion sickness in the first part of their cruise. We are both separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from our friends and loved ones. We are both in an environment our bodies were not necessarily intended to survive in, though our human ingenuity has ensured that we can indeed flourish in these places.
However, there are some stark differences as well – in addition to the food, fuel, and scientific supplies we both stocked onboard our ships, the crew of the ISS has to provide their own breathing atmosphere as well. Complex systems onboard recycle water vapor from the cabin air as well as the actual waste of the crew back into drinkable water, to minimize the amount needed to be shipped up from Earth. While our sailors' bodies are constantly exercised (and occasionally battered) by the roll of the boat, the on-orbit crew must exercise for several hours a day to counteract the effect the lack of gravity has on their bones and muscles. These environments are unique in their own ways. (Also, the astronauts have internet access – hint, hint, SEA!)
It is a mistake to think of science and exploration as inevitable. While a reading of history can make it seem this way – of course Columbus sailed West, of course Magellan circumnavigated the globe, of course Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon – these things happened only through the extreme tenacity and ingenuity of those involved, both on the expeditions themselves and in their support back home. Exploration is neither easy nor cheap, and good exploration never will be. Today, we – both the personnel onboard the SSV
(Author's note: Apologies to DNA and Greetings to BSK)
