NASA Chief Historian Roger Launius kicked off this year's Senior Symposium last night by telling about 80 people in Collis Common Ground that almost nothing is impossible.
Someday, we may ourselves journey to the moon, he said.
Launius's remarks were part of the opening ceremony for the Class of 1996 Senior Symposium, titled "They Said It Couldn't Be Done."
The symposium will feature eight more speakers who have demonstrated persistence "through criticism and doubt, disturbing the equilibrium and ultimately contributing to the common good," according to the Senior Symposium Committee.
"This year's symposium is an intellectual gift to the College from this year's senior class," remarked Leslie Jennings '96, a member of the symposium committee, prior to the opening remarks.
If something can be conceived in our society, it can be done, Launius said last night.
"When someone of importance says that something couldn't be done, it almost inevitably will be," Launius said.
"Perhaps what we're doing today is paving the way for a future Columbus to set sail," he said.
Because predictions about future advances have so frequently been wrong, skepticism is not always appropriate, Launius said.
"It's probably not a great idea to make a lot of sweeping anecdotes about what the future will hold," he said.
For example, he said, people who doubted the possibility of space travel, mass communication and the computer have all been proven wrong.
Perhaps no scientific advancement was more doubted than the possibility of traveling to the moon.
Science Digest printed in 1948 that "landing and moving around the moon offers so many serious problems for human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them," Launius said.
Fifty percent of Americans in 1949 believed nothing would ever be sent to space during their lifetimes, he said.
Launius said attitudes toward space travel began to change only a few years later.
"In the 20th century people began to realize that we did have the potential to fly beyond the Earth's atmosphere," he said.
"The rocket technology was coupled with a public relations campaign to convince individuals that it could be done," Launius said.
Changes in missile technology, namely the creation of the "V2" missile in Nazi Germany, showed the public rocket travel might be possible.
"Because of the V2's success, people began to talk about the capabilities inherent in this type of technology," Launius said.
Launius said Wernher von Braun, the German engineer who defected to the United States after World War II, was instrumental in changing American perception of space flight.
In 1952, von Braun "articulated a broad-based sweeping plan of space exploration," Launius said.
A "wheel-space-station" that appeared in Collier's Magazine in the late 1950s catapulted von Braun into the spotlight, where he was a vocal advocate of space travel.
Launius said space travel became a household concern for Americans in the 1960s. Walt Disney produced a three-part "Man in Space" documentary that aired on Sunday nights.
Launius said political leaders helped make space travel seem a reality. He showed a 1961 slide of President John Kennedy making his "man on the moon" speech.
The speech announced Kennedy's determination to have a man travel to the moon and return safely within a decade.
Another barrier to the moon mission that was overcome was the tremendous expense.
"At one point in the 1960s, there was an estimate that one in 20 Americans was working on Apollo in one way or another," he said.
Launius noted that the total cost of the project was $23 billion, a price tag that would equal nearly $150 billion today.
"There's no way that the government would or could approve such a budget for space exploration," he said. He said the government now spends only one-half of 1 percent of its budget on space exploration.
Before Launius's speech, English Chair William Cook gave a spirited rendition of the Edward Guest poem "It Couldn't Be Done."
The poem suggests that determination can always overcome skepticism.
Tomorrow night, Peter Behr, involved in the Chunnel project from 1986 until 1990, will be speaking tonight at 8 p.m. in 105 Dartmouth. Behr will be replacing speaker Jack Lemley who will not be able to attend.
His speech will be entitled, "Linking England and France: The Chunnel."
