xi
Paros: on their right was already Lebinthus and Calimnus, rich of honey,
when the young man began to enjoy the daring flight and abandoned his
guide; attracted by the desire of heaven, he took a higher and higher path.
The proximity to the burning sky softened the perfumed wax that held his
feathers together, and he, flapping his bare arms, found no foothold that
could sustain him in the air. His mouth, while he invoked his father’s name,
was permanently closed by the blue sea was named after him.
The comparison between the myth of Icarus and space exploration has in my
opinion its origin in the intrinsic relationship between human beings and their own
limitations. Every human has lived through some form of physical or intellectual
limitations with profound conflict. This is a universal condition, dating as far back
as the Greek myth of Icarus up to today’s literary, artistic and even industrial
production.
The search for what lies beyond these limits has taken on political characteristics throughout history. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner used in his book The
Significance of the Frontier in American History the term “frontier” to define an
ideal place sought after in the colonization of the US. The frontier was not simply
physical in nature, but also philosophical and social, and it became a distinctive
element of American national identity. In 1961, that concept was taken up by
President John F. Kennedy and his efforts to explore the Moon, as he compared
space to a new frontier. The Apollo lunar program of that decade was just the tip
of the spear in a geopolitical confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union.
The desire to overcome human limits has been a fundamental engine for the
evolution of civilizations and the pursuit of knowledge. Space exploration in the
twentieth century was no exception to this historical reality, and it is no different
in the twenty-first. For this reason, the myth of Icarus is still important, as we must
remember to continually reflect upon our actual and our perceived limits.
From the first spaceflight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to Neil
Armstrong’s lunar landing, from the rover missions on Martian soil to today’s
astronaut trips to the International Space Station (ISS), space exploration has been
presented to the public as an exceptional and inspirational event, at the same time
it is quite a routine enterprise in our daily lives. We have grown accustomed to
women and men living aboard the ISS; with social networks has come a sort of
normalization of space missions. Even receiving a tweet or a message from an
astronaut in orbit has become commonplace, and this has made space a seemingly
familiar realm. But as routine as it may seem, space is still far from being
ordinary.
On July 16, 2013 astronauts Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano went outside
the ISS for a so-called Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), which was a spacewalk
needed to perform some maintenance work on external components of the orbital
outpost. EVAs are a usual practice for NASA. For fifty years many astronauts have
Preface
Paros: on their right was already Lebinthus and Calimnus, rich of honey,
when the young man began to enjoy the daring flight and abandoned his
guide; attracted by the desire of heaven, he took a higher and higher path.
The proximity to the burning sky softened the perfumed wax that held his
feathers together, and he, flapping his bare arms, found no foothold that
could sustain him in the air. His mouth, while he invoked his father’s name,
was permanently closed by the blue sea was named after him.
The comparison between the myth of Icarus and space exploration has in my
opinion its origin in the intrinsic relationship between human beings and their own
limitations. Every human has lived through some form of physical or intellectual
limitations with profound conflict. This is a universal condition, dating as far back
as the Greek myth of Icarus up to today’s literary, artistic and even industrial
production.
The search for what lies beyond these limits has taken on political characteristics throughout history. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner used in his book The
Significance of the Frontier in American History the term “frontier” to define an
ideal place sought after in the colonization of the US. The frontier was not simply
physical in nature, but also philosophical and social, and it became a distinctive
element of American national identity. In 1961, that concept was taken up by
President John F. Kennedy and his efforts to explore the Moon, as he compared
space to a new frontier. The Apollo lunar program of that decade was just the tip
of the spear in a geopolitical confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union.
The desire to overcome human limits has been a fundamental engine for the
evolution of civilizations and the pursuit of knowledge. Space exploration in the
twentieth century was no exception to this historical reality, and it is no different
in the twenty-first. For this reason, the myth of Icarus is still important, as we must
remember to continually reflect upon our actual and our perceived limits.
From the first spaceflight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to Neil
Armstrong’s lunar landing, from the rover missions on Martian soil to today’s
astronaut trips to the International Space Station (ISS), space exploration has been
presented to the public as an exceptional and inspirational event, at the same time
it is quite a routine enterprise in our daily lives. We have grown accustomed to
women and men living aboard the ISS; with social networks has come a sort of
normalization of space missions. Even receiving a tweet or a message from an
astronaut in orbit has become commonplace, and this has made space a seemingly
familiar realm. But as routine as it may seem, space is still far from being
ordinary.
On July 16, 2013 astronauts Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano went outside
the ISS for a so-called Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), which was a spacewalk
needed to perform some maintenance work on external components of the orbital
outpost. EVAs are a usual practice for NASA. For fifty years many astronauts have
Preface