The Inner Reaches of Outer Space

A mythological perspective on why we need the James Webb Space Telescope

On July 6 it was announced that a House Appropriations Subcommittee cut JWST from their proposed budget. JWST is the next Hubble – except it will be bigger and better and more amazing! I won’t go into details about why we need this for science, or for education and public outreach, or for the U.S. position as a world leader in space science and technology, or for supporting innovative STEM research and education that will ensure future economic prosperity and national security for generations to come (!!!) .... because others will do that better. The cosmic variance blog had some very informative posts along with this amazing video:

The Top 5 Awesome Things about the Webb Telescope 

This video is awesome itself! And it sums up my point: we don’t need Webb because it will cure malaria or do anything else useful; we need it because it is “awesome in the truest sense of the word awesome.” Astronomy is a unique science in its broad ability to be awe-inspiring. The vastness of space puts our daily lives in a different – and sometimes frightening – perspective. Space is the “final frontier,” the last boundary between everything that is familiar and everything else. Space is amazingly empty, but of the 20% of matter that we can actually see, there are a wide variety of stars, planets, galaxies, nebulae, clusters, etc. that are simply beautiful.

The title of this post refers to the last book written by Joseph Campbell: “The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion,” of which the first chapter is called “Cosmology and the Mythic Imagination.” (Yea, I study cosmology. Word.) The contemplation of space provided us by the study of astronomy takes us out of ourselves into the great unknown. The feeling of awe is, in my opinion, exactly the feeling that we look for in religion: being a part of something “bigger” than ourselves. But what astronomy does is unite the “us” to be all of Earth and not one society, one religion, or one ethnicity. There’s nothing bigger than THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE! And it turns out we actually are a part of it because it actually exists. Campbell suggests that in Space lives a new mythology, able to invoke a sense of wonder and awe in a way that the old myths, founded in an obsolete 3-layer view of the world, cannot.

So yes, Virginia, we DO need the James Webb Space Telescope. Once Hubble dies for good, it is our best chance of keeping the awesome alive. We need to make a Webb 3D Imax that explores other worlds and their ability to support life, the first stars and first galaxies, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the new jewels in the vast emptiness that we have not yet imagined. We need to be reminded of our small and insignificant place in a universe that doesn’t care whether our planet survives. And we need more opportunities to be filled with the awe of being alive.