big science and the transits of venus 143
was strong enough in Britain, France, the United States, Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy, Egypt, Mexico, Australia, and Russia to generate over
sixty expeditions for the 1874 TOV (Sheehan and Westfall 2004 , 236 – 39 ).
The list of participants reflects dramatic geopolitical changes that had oc-
curred since 1769. New actors joined the system, and with them the transit
race became a global endeavor. Participation in transit observations was
perceived as a membership fee for the club of “civilized nations.” This sym-
bolic importance is demonstrated by the significance that both Germany
and Italy assigned to participating in the 1874 effort, shortly after both en-
tered the international stage. Similarly, Mexico, Egypt, and Brazil funded
expeditions in an attempt to become bona fide members of the “civilized
world.” It would be very hard to conceive of any technological or strategic
value that these countries could have gained through transit observations.
Moreover, even the interest in improved navigation and geographic explo-
ration was gone by the second half of the nineteenth century. There was
little to be gained from lengthy sea voyages to distant locales.
Despite these developments, the patterns governing the transit race
hardly changed at all. States were still willing to pour large sums of money
into globetrotting expeditions, scientists still used national prestige argu-
ments in order to anchor their pleas for funding, and the precise value of the
astronomical unit still eluded the tireless astronomers. The persistence
of the transit race is especially striking in face of the advance of new and
more convenient methods for calculating the astronomical unit: “Given
the proliferation of other methods for obtaining its value, the question
remains why such effort was to be expended to observe the transit of
Venus” (Sheehan and Westfall 2004 , 225 ).
The media’s role in turning the transits into public spectacles is the most
noticeable novelty of nineteenth- century races, bringing them closer to the
modern specter of Big Science. The emerging popular and populist fea-
tures of transit observations led the editors of the New York Times to com-
ment sarcastically, “This is the first time within the memory of man that
the unlearned common people have been permitted to observe a transit,
and it is the first revelation of the fact that a transit can be seen through
smoked glass” (December 6 , 1882 ). While members of the public were
observing the transits through smoked glass, scientists were experimenting
with the use of photography and spectroscopy for astronomical observa-
tions. Transit expeditions also benefitted from more mundane technologi-
cal advancements such as better clocks, the telegraph, and faster ships.^19
The main engine behind British preparations for the 1874 transit was
Astronomer Royal George Airy. Airy started to formulate ambitious plans
