From Earth Analogs to Space: Getting There from HereBen Finney, Professor Emeritus in Anthropology at the University of Hawai’i
and noted for his work on applying anthropological perspectives to humankind’s
expansion into space, has argued that from the earliest voyages to have scientific
goals, “cultural” differences between scientists and seamen have led to conflict and
that this inherent conflict of cultures is similarly reflected in our space program’s
structural differentiation between pilots and astronaut-scientists.^27 Voyages of scien-
tific discovery began in the late 18th century, an age, Finney points out, that many
have argued foreshadowed the space race of the 1960s.^28 The first exploratory voy-
age to include scientists as crew and mission goals with explicit scientific objec-
tives instead of commercial goals that serendipitously collected science data was
the three-year-long English expedition of the Endeavour to Tahiti, 1768–71, led by
Captain James Cook. The on-board scientists were tasked to observe the transit of
Venus across the face of the Sun to provide data needed to calculate the distance
between Earth and the Sun. The success of the Endeavour’s expedition led to a sec-
ond expedition, which sailed with a number of scientists, two astronomers, and a
naturalist, an expedition that, in contrast to the first expedition, was rife with con-
tentious relationships between the seamen and the scientists. Subsequent voyages
with scientists on board were similarly plagued by conflicts between those pursu-
ing scientific goals and those tasked with the piloting and maintenance of the ship.
Historically, the English naval command eventually imposed an unofficial mora-
torium on the inclusion of non-naval scientists on board and pursued a policy of
assigning any scientific duties to members of the crew. Not until a hundred years
after Cook, in 1872, would the Royal Navy’s Challenger, a three-masted, square-
rigged, wooden vessel with a steam engine, sail around the world with six marine
scientists and a crew and captain who were totally dedicated to the research.^29
Vessel,” Social Science Research 2 (1973): 145; H. R. Bernard and P. Killworth, “Scientist at Sea:
A Case Study in Communications at Sea,” Report BK-103-74, Code 452, Contract N00014-73-
4-0417-0001, prepared for the Office of Naval Research (Springfield, VA: National Technical
Information Service, 1974); M. M. Mallis and C. W. DeRoshia, “Circadian Rhythms, Sleep, and
Performance in Space,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76 (2005): B94.
- B. Finney, “Scientists and Seamen,” in From Antarctica to Outer Space: Life in Isolation and
Confinement, ed. Harrison, Clearwater, and McKay, p. 89. - W. H. Goetzmann, New Lands, New Men (New York: Viking, 1986); J. Dunmore, French
Explorers of the Pacific, vol. 2 (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1969). - E. Linklater, The Voyage of the Challenger (London: John Murray, 1972).