The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries
is not 'Eureka' but 'That's funny . . .'
Isaac Asimov¹

Inspiration Assist by Gary Flandro

A conversation on math,  
engineering and anonymous mentors

Note: Gary Flandro is the engineer of JPL and NASA who conceived the idea of the twin VOYAGER space probes missions. As of 2023 the two crafts are the only man-made objects that left the Solar System.

QUESTION #1
Please tell me the most inspiring story you know which could be a guide for a teenager who wants to be a scientist.

During my several decades of university teaching, I was frequently asked to make presentations to groups including college and high school students, as well as elementary school children. The objective was always to show them the beauty as well as the utility of science. I often used my own experiences as examples of how I was inspired to choose science as my primary passion in life.

One experience, which I still find inspiring, took place while I was a freshman student at the University of Utah in 1952.I had always wanted to become a scientist or astronomer, but found that my math capabilities were limited, so I registered in a trigonometry class. The instructor teaching his first class was Dr. Eugene Parker, a recent graduate of the California Institute of Technology.

His teaching ability proved to be far superior to anything I had ever experienced, even though he was only seven years older than me. Later, his outstanding Astronomy course was just what I needed to get me started in the right direction. I decided at that early age that I would later attempt to study at his alma mater (Caltech), an institution that clearly taught not only the principles of science and mathematics, but also their exceptional beauty.

You may recognize Parker from his work on the theory of the supersonic solar wind and the solar magnetic field. NASA named its solar orbiter (now in a close orbit around the Sun) the Parker Solar Probe, the first time a living person was honored in this way. He witnessed the launch of the spacecraft in 2018 almost at the same time I was being honored as a Distinguished Caltech Alumni. I used my story of Parker’s inspirational role in my own career in the short talk I gave at the award ceremony.

PP: So the answer would be: the inspiring factor was the teacher’s personality and vision?

To me the most inspiring factor was his deep understanding and love of science, as well as his commitment to passing on this love to his students. Very few of my other teachers did this as well as Dr. Parker.

QUESTION #2
Is there a particular book, event or idea which put you on a path to science and math? A childhood inspiration, maybe? (Example: for me, a book to push a young person toward science is James P. Hogan’s Inherit the stars.

When I was six years old, my father took me one evening to the small observatory at the University of Utah campus, where they had a beautiful six-inch refractor telescope. This was my first good look at the moon, and I at once made the decision that I would be an astronomer.

I found an advertisement in a Popular Science magazine stating that for $1.00 I could buy a book, Wonders of Science Simplified, and a kit for construction of a telescope like the one used by Galileo. The book and kit arrived shortly, butI was disappointed to find that it consisted merely of a three-inch lens and an eyepiece. I still have the book, which was an extremely good introduction to science and set me on the way to becoming a spaceflight engineer. My father helped me build the telescope and it worked quite well.

PP: Sounds just like the story from the movie Contact (1997), where the small girl is inspired in almost the same way. Coincidence?

Not exactly a coincidence.  Fortunately there have been many such books written that had this effect on the minds of young people with the a natural curiosity and interest in the real world.

 Another book, presented to me as a Christmas present in 1940, Wonders of the Heavens (Astronomy for Young People), had a profound effect on my life. On the inside cover appeared a picture of the solar system, Although I am quite certain the artist did not intend it, the outer planets are all shown in a pattern that suggested to me that it would be possible to fly from Earth to Jupiter and on to Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. I was astonished when in 1965, I discovered this same alignment of planets that led to the Voyager “Grand Tour” mission.

I envy what you felt in that moment. And to sum up your words of inspiration, I’ll quote Henry Adams’ insight, one of my favorite guiding thoughts:

“A teacher touches eternity. He can never tell
where his influence ends.”

What remains for teachers is vague feeling of satisfaction, directed toward unknown future. It's a pity, but still something.

QUESTION #3
Do you have any documentary memorabilia from the time the idea of a probe mission came to NASA?

I do have a copy of the first sketch I made of the four-planet mission opportunity.  However I made the mistake of giving my original calculations and computer studies to individuals who showed interest in the ideas long before an actual mission plan existed. Although I was promised that they would be returned, they have been lost.

 I do have a copy of the original JPL memorandum written by me and Dr. Roger Bourke that started the first serious detailed mission study that led directly to the actual Voyager mission.

QUESTION #4
Your favorite SF novel or story. Why?

Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” This image of a 1788 Australian, Botany Bay style penal colony on the Moon in 2075 fascinated me. I first read the book in 1980 when I was teaching Aeronautical Engineering at Georgia Tech. The realistic science portrayed in the story inspired me. A few choice examples illustrating Heinlein’s grasp of the future of technologies are:

The notion that the “Loonies”² could gain independence from the Earth by threatening to bombard target cities with large rocks. Due to the high impact speed, the energy release would be equivalent to an atomic bomb detonation.

The idea that lunar colonists (“Loonies”) could readily catapult much needed water and hydroponic grain from the Moon to the Earth without the use of rockets.

The Lunar Authority’s super computer HOLMES IV (“High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV”) that managed the entire Lunar infrastructure including the operation and targeting of the catapult system. The main character (a “Loonie”) is a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has developed a sense of humor and self-awareness.

I used some ideas in the book for a final exam I gave to students in my Astrodynamics course at Georgia Tech. The students were required to carry out a detailed mission analysis of the catapult launch from the Lunar surface, transfer trajectory to Earth impact, and an estimate of the kinetic energy at impact.

PP: Dear professor, just to let you know. I’ve read the novel more than 30 times. Lost the count long ago.

I have also read it many times, but I am truly impressed by the number of times that you have done so.

QUESTION #5
Can you share with us a personal anecdote or story related to the Voyager missions?

When I first realized in 1964 that I had discovered a planetary configuration that could open up the outer solar system to exploration using what Krafft Ehricke called “instrumented comets,” my first move was to introduce this mission opportunity to the JPL Chief Scientist, Dr. Homer Joe Stewart. Accompanied by my supervisor, Joe Cutting, leader of the advanced missions group, I presented my research results by means of slides detailing the trajectory and the planetary encounter configurations at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

He evinced great interest in the idea, and recalled the multiplanet (Earth-Mars-Venus-Earth) mission proposed by Dr. Gaetano Crocco in 1956. Crocco called this the “Grand Tour,” and Stewart suggested that this would be a good name for our outer planet mission. The next day, a newspaper article appeared describing the mission and suggesting that it was the work of Dr. Stewart. My name was not mentioned. A cartoon later appeared in a national publication showing a bespectacled impression of Homer Joe Stewart in his office holding up a drawing of the trajectory. My JPL coworkers and I had a great laugh over this.

A group of students noted that the Stewart’s article mentioned that the “free” energy for the mission came at the expense of Jupiter’s orbital energy loss during the gravity-assist flyby. That is, the planet would slow down to balance the velocity increase of the spacecraft. They therefore organized the “Pasadena Society for the Preservation of Jupiter’s Orbit” and marched through the streets of downtown Pasadena carrying signs calling for a cancellation of this mission and similar threats to Jupiter’s orbit. This was all great fun, and was typical of the infamous Caltech student pranks.

I undertook to describe the Grand Tour outer planet mission to selected experts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I wanted to see if they could identify practical difficulties that might make such a mission impractical or impossible. I was dismayed to find that they showed scant support for the idea. Problems most often identified (in addition to the probable high price tag and competition with ongoing programs) were:

Data handling and communications over interplanetary distances.

Difficulty of achieving sufficiently accurate guidance.

Probability of collisions with objects when passing through the asteroid belt.

Survivability of electronic devices in passage through Jupiter’s magnetic field.

Inadequate reliability and longevity of required electronic and mechanical components in 10-15 year flights.

Probable lack of political support (the mission would last through several presidential administrations).

A perceived lack of scientific interest in the outer planets.

The negative responses might have discouraged a less determined guy. Of course, in the event, none of these dire predictions came to pass.

In 2011, my son-in-law called to tell me that I had appeared in the December issue of Playboy. “You mean I was the centerfold?” I quipped. I was mentioned by name in an article entitled “Dark Was the Night” by Richard Powers. He wrote, “The guy who realized that humanity had a once-in-176-year chance staring it in the face was named Flandro, Gary. Another damn summer intern; half the contributions to the third great age of exploration came from 20-somethings. In ’65 Flandro pointed out that in another dozen years, all the outer planets would line up.

Humans had one fleeting shot to put together a Grand Tour that would pay a visit to every stop between here and the edge of the solar system.” This is a great science fiction story, which traces the Voyager mission carrying its Golden Record with mankind’s music and pictures to its final destination in the year 577256880 where the record recovered and is decoded playing: “A Balinese dancer, Monument Valley, Jaat Kahan Ho, Old Man With Dog and Flowers, C Major Prelude, an hour of human brain waves (belonging to Ann Druyan), and blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.”

QUESTION #6
Once I read a book titled What We Believe but Cannot Prove by John Brockman. In it the author asks scientists about the ideas at the cutting edge of human science. Anything in your field?

I have had numerous experiences in my engineering work, where it was necessary to proceed with my work by working with unproved conceptual models. Many of my best ideas came to me without any firm foundation as a starting point. What amounted to intuition led the way. In proceeding in this way, one must always avoid becoming too attached to his own ideas.

An example of this pitfall is Kepler’s original theory of planetary orbits that was based on fitting the orbits into three-dimensional Platonic solids. He never gave up on this concept even after his discovery of the three laws of motion that correctly modeled the motion of planets in a gravity field. Kepler had no knowledge of the gravitational force as the prime mover. It should be noted that his laws, which later inspired Isaac Newton, were based on careful use of the experimental observations of planetary orbits.

QUESTION #7
Can you comment on the two ways of obtaining data about the laws of nature: analytical and experimental? Let me quote my favorite inspirational passage from Stanislaw Lem’s book Summa Technologiae:

Let us consider the equation 4 + x = 7. A not very bright pupil does not know how to find the value of x, although this result is already “sitting” in the equation, only that it is hidden from his foggy eye and it will “appear” by itself after making an elementary transformation.

Let us ask, then, as true heresiarchs, is it not the same with Nature? Doesn’t matter sometimes have all its potential transformations “written into itself” (so, for example, that it is possible to build stars, quantum dots, sewing machines, roses, silkworms and comets)? Then, taking the basic brick of Nature, the hydrogen atom, one could “deductively derive” from it all these possibilities (modestly beginning with the possibility of synthesizing all hundred elements and ending with the possibility of building systems a trillion times more spiritual than humans).

Maybe theories and models of phenomena are only needed today. Maybe, when asked, a wise man from another planet would silently hand us a shred of a rusted cast iron lying on the ground, letting us know that all the truth of the Universe can be read from this piece of matter?”

Any comments?

It is of course true that we employ two ways of learning the workings of nature. First by experimentation to uncover its hidden features, and then using analysis in the attempt to connect those features with previous views of them and to continually strive for better models. This is the very essence of the scientific method, which also requires that any model or theory is always open to continued refinement.

The truth of this idea is right before our eyes as we behold the diversity of living creatures, whose very existence is built on fundamental building blocks such as DNA. This is nicely put in Lem’s writing that nature is fundamentally capable of all of the “transformations” required to produce what we observe in the universe.

QUESTION #8
Can you please comment on Albert Einstein’s quote: “God does not  care about our mathematical difficulties; He integrates empirically.”

As always, Einstein goes right to the truth about the human limitations in understanding nature. These limitations often appear in our difficulties in reducing our observations to mathematical form. We are frequently unable to complete (that is “integrate”) a theoretical model because of the limitations of our mathematical tools and physical understanding. We have not yet reached the ability to integrate (as God does) empirically. But if we keep trying, we may in some remote future approximate this ability.

PP: There is a “crazy” theory which says that we live in a simulation run by an infinitely more advanced civilization. Humans can design such simulations (of course very simple), the famous “Game of life” is an example. Question: can you see any advantages or disadvantages of the two ways of discovering laws of nature: by designing mathematical models to test or running simulations.

This is, of course, the most powerful tool we have of discovering how nature (God) really works.  A nice fictional version of this process can be found in Dan Brown’s novel Origin, which describes the manner in which a computational algorithm can duplicate the processes leading to DNA and also (in the novel) find realistic answers to question such as “where do we come from” and “where are we headed.”  I’m interested to know if you have read this book.

THE LAST QUESTION, #9
Yes, I have read it. This one, let me add in, only once. Our final question. Are there other people in the Universe?

The real question should be “Are there any other molecular structures in the universe capable of self-replication.” I am indeed an admirer of Carl Sagan’s (and Ann Druyan’s) movie adaptation of his Contact book manuscript. Due to the enormous number of planetary systems in the universe with physical conditions capable of supporting some form of replicating molecules (these do not need to resemble DNA), there can be no doubt that there exists an endless variety of living forms in the universe.

Certainly there exist other creatures we might call “people.” Of course the element of time must enter the picture. It seems clear that due to the sensitivity of life forms to their environment and the continual changes in those environments, life forms are subjected to evolutionary changes and to extinction.

But of course I know the movie Contact well, and I also know what the answer to your question should be. Here it is: “If it were just us, it would be a terrible waste of space.”

PP: Thank you so much for your time. 

If we manage to steer even a single young person towards a career in engineering or science with our conversation, our effort would not have been wasted.

We would never know whether we have succeed in creating the next way-point in the relay run of inspiration, as probably was the case with Arthur Draper.

But such is the fate of teachers. While, according to a beautiful aphorism quoted above, they their influence reach toward eternity, they themselves would never know the expanses their apprentices & listeners would be slingshot to.

¹                This is a paraphrase of the famous Archimedes saying. The original was “Eureka! (I have found it!)” The ancient sage was to exclaim the word when, lying in a bathtub, conceived the idea of his most important scientific discovery.

²                In the original English version, the inhabitants of the Moon call themselves "Loonies". In the outstanding Polish translation by Przemyslaw Znaniecki (Rebis, 1992) we have lunatycy, crazies.