The Price of Prestige

138 chapter five

that by the next TOV scientists would finally be able to measure the astro-

nomical unit (Sheehan and Westfall 2004 ).

Halley’s plans required sending scientific expeditions to the far corners

of the earth to observe the TOV. All this effort could be thwarted by a

few cloudy hours. A missed opportunity could result in more than a cen-

tury of delay before the next transit offered another chance to calculate

the astronomical unit. Increasing the number of expeditions improved the

probability of having successful observations. This opened the door to

international competition: Which country would support the largest num-

bers of expeditions to the most distant and inhospitable locations? Which

country would be the first to solve “the noblest problem in astronomy”?

The calculation of the astronomical unit is an example of pure basic

research. Within the context of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

such measurement had no technological implications. A Times editorial

(September 22 , 1883 ) states this point explicitly.

The determination of the precise distance which separates the sun from the

earth would be an achievement which nearly every one would admit to be sur-

prising, but which would scarcely impress the mind of the average man with

the idea of eminent practical utility.... The business therefore is one which

States alone can undertake, and probably all the principal civilized nations of

the world will take their share in it.

Since this calculation had little primary utility, only states could ad-

dress the inevitable market failure. Only through Big Science could the ex-

peditions get the required funding. Following the collective-action logic,

the TOV should have generated an observable preference for interna-

tional free riding. Instead, in all four transits we see states competing over

the right to contribute more to the collective effort.

The four TOVs took place over the course of more than a century,

in times of war and peace, under varying geostrategic and sociopolitical

conditions, and under the aegis of different leaders and scientific lumi-

naries. These transits, therefore, offer structured case studies in which

the same scientific puzzle is tackled at four different points in time by

a changing set of actors. Since TOV observations had no clear practical

implications, they help us in isolating the role played by prestige in cases

of Big Science — a role that is often obscured by primary utility in more

recent, technology- driven examples. The following provides a description

of each transit race. As this review demonstrates, there is little change in