The Two Challenger Expeditions: Sea and Sky

Congratulations – you are now ocean literate! That is, if you’ve been reading along with me these past 7 weeks about the 7 Principles of Ocean Literacy, you (and I) know a tiny bit more about the ocean than we did before. This last Principle, # 7, simply reminds us how illiterate we still are, and encourages us to keep working on our ocean literacy: “The Ocean is Largely Unexplored.” One last dive…..

I was driving my young son to kindergarten on Jan. 28, 1986 when we heard on the radio that the Challenger Space Shuttle had exploded after lift-off and all on board had died, including Christie McAuliffe, the public school teacher chosen from a national competition to embody the idea that space is a place to learn and teach. My son’s class had been following the build-up to this day, learned about McAuliffe and planned to hear her reports from space. The news devastated kids and teachers and citizens across the nation. I remember even preaching about it in order to name our common grief. Many people remember where they were when they heard the news.

HMS Challenger
I assumed NASA called the ship Challenger (which had taken nine successful voyages before that fateful day) as a way to embody the great “challenge” it accomplished on those flights – to boldly go into space. It wasn’t until 1997 that I first learned, in a marine biology class I had to take to become a volunteer guide at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, that the Challenger space shuttle was named after another famous research vessel, the English ship, HMS Challenger, first launched in 1858.

First built for military action off Mexico and Australia, this 200 ft. steam-assisted full sail corvette made history when over 200 scientists and crew spent 4 years (1872-6) studying the ocean from this ship, sailing over 70,000 nautical miles throughout the world’s ocean. The goals of this groundbreaking (wave breaking?) scientific expedition, sponsored by the Royal Society and University of Edinburgh were, in their words:

• To investigate the physical conditions of the deep sea in the great ocean basins (as far as the neighborhood of the Great Southern Ice Barrier) in regard to depth, temperature, circulation, specific gravity and penetration of light.
• To determine the chemical composition of seawater at various depths from the surface to the bottom, the organic matter in solution and the particles in suspension.
• To ascertain the physical and chemical character of deep-sea deposits and the sources of these deposits.
• To investigate the distribution of organic life at different depths and on the deep seafloor.

Up until then the ocean had only been studied a few fathoms deep. The Challenger’s crew, using long ropes, nets and other instruments, stopped at 360 stations throughout the world and measured the bottom depth, temperature at different depths, observed weather and surface ocean conditions, and collected seafloor, water, and biota samples, amassing vast numbers of ocean specimens and data. You can read their 50 volume report on line or at the British Natural History Museum.

Like their namesakes a century later, some of the scientists and crew died during the dangerous and long ocean voyage. But the ships and crew of both Challengers rose to the “challenge” of seeking knowledge, by going high and deep into uncharted depths. And like much science, they learned as much what they didn’t know, as what they did. Even though we now, 150 years after that Challenger ocean expedition, explore the ocean with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and collect data by satellite, Principle #7 is still true: The Ocean is largely unexplored. We know more about the moon’s surface than the ocean’s, and scientists estimate that we have explored only 5% of the ocean’s huge volume and biomass.

**********

Remotely Operated Vehicles Nations study ocean or space for all kinds of reasons – international power, commerce, pride. I sometimes think NASA has a small identity crisis - is space exploration for science or conquest? But for our purposes let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that one function of a nation is to further knowledge and science. Where did this idea come from, that governments should encourage and fund the teaching and doing of science?

Our nation’s founders were Enlightenment men, endorsing the idea that all people should have access to knowledge and self-improvement. Thomas Jefferson famously said that democracy only works if citizens are educated. But it took almost a century for the states to require and fund public education, and the US seems to have long been ambivalent about the value and content of what our kids should learn. Long before Betsy Devos, current Secretary for (the dismantling of) Education, legislators and leaders appear to prefer an uneducated citizenry, so much easier to manipulate or ignore.

So in 1996 (Bill Clinton was President, fairly pro-science) the Department of Education issued new Science Standards for what should be taught in public schools K-12. To the surprise and chagrin of of ocean scientists and educators, there was barely a mention of ocean, coastal or wetland issues. Maybe they shouldn’t have been surprised. The federal ocean agency NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) had only been formed from a variety of smaller agencies in the 1970’s and then was curiously located in the Commerce Department; the ocean is simply a place of trade and source of wealth, not a source of knowledge or deserving of study. Indeed you can see how our government prioritizes space exploration and ignores ocean issues simply by comparing budgets: even with no more shuttle flights, NASA last year received 18 billion dollars. NOAA - 4 billion dollars.

But as sometimes happens, from bad comes good, an oversight or error motivates people to get to work. When they realized the oceans had been ignored, a coalition of ocean scientists, science educators, and policy makers came together and within a year agreed on the 7 Principles of Ocean Literacy. Next they set about developing what marine science students should learn at each grade level. Since then there has been an explosion of interest in marine science majors and jobs, which might be credited to this happy response to ignorance or unfortunate oversight.

After 6 Principles describing what we do know, inn this last principle these educators and scientists stressed how much we don’t know, and how much more we need to study and learn about the ocean. As with the previous six principles, this last one has multiple sub points, which point in the direction of future study. Ocean Literacy Principle # 7: The Ocean is Largely Unexplored

1. The ocean is the largest unexplored place on Earth—less than 5% of it has been explored. The next generation of explorers and researchers will find great opportunities for discovery, innovation and investigation.

2. Understanding the ocean is more than a matter of curiosity. Exploration, experimentation, and discovery are required to better understand ocean systems and processes.

3. Over the last 50 years, use of ocean resources has increased significantly, the future sustainability of ocean resources depends on our understanding of those resources and their potential.

4. New technologies, sensors and tools are expanding our ability to explore the ocean system. Scientists are relying more and more on satellites, drifters, buoys, subsea observatories and unmanned submersibles.

5. Use of mathematical models is an essential part of the ocean systems. Models help us understand the complexity of the ocean and of its interaction with Earth’s interior, atmosphere, climate and land masses.

6. Ocean exploration is truly interdisciplinary. It requires close collaboration among biologists, chemists, climatologists, computer programmers, engineers, geologists, meteorologists, meteorologists, physicists, animators and illustrators. And these interactions foster new ideas and new perspectives for inquiries.

Nature is often compared to a book that teaches us all we need to know. Augustine said, “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the appearance of created things, nature. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it!” If nature is a book, 75% of the pages are about the ocean. Lots of good reading.

This and the previous 6 columns have given you a lot of information about the ocean and information about what more we need to know. Note it! Read it! Become ocean literate. That’s the “Challenge.” Let’s get on board this ship.

Copyright © 2017 Deborah Streeter