Analog SFF, June 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  If Sigismondo Gioioso had expected him to risk a heretical statement or an outright blasphemy, the prelate gave no sign. He ate a couple of olives, then said, “Have you given me all your reasons for—hypothetically—preferring the Copernican world system?”

  “I have not.” With Gioioso's pledge in hand, Galileo was on safe ground here—or ground as safe as any in quicksand-laden Rome. “Yesterday, in fact, I briefly alluded to that which may be the most important: the motion of the four Medicean stars around Jupiter.”

  “Yes, you did mention them yesterday,” Gioioso said. “Will you do me the honor of explaining why you find them so significant?”

  “Certainly,” Galileo said. “First, the Ptolemaic world system is founded on the view that there can be only one center of motion—that is, the Earth. By moving around Jupiter, the Medicean stars contradict this.”

  “But they cannot be seen without your spyglass,” Gioioso said.

  “That does not mean they are not there,” Galileo replied. “Clerics and laymen have observed them for twenty years now, and unanimously attest that they do exist. And we must presume they existed for all the ages before the spyglass first rendered them visible. Surely God would not have popped them into place the day before I first turned the instrument toward Jupiter.”

  “Had He so desired, He could have,” Cardinal Gioioso said. When Galileo failed to rise to that, the prelate added, “I must admit, it seems unlikely. You said that was your first reason. This means you have more?”

  “Si. Here you have these stars, performing their evolutions in periods ranging from forty-two hours to sixteen days, all on the sphere of Jupiter, which in the Ptolemaic world system takes twelve years to revolve around the earth. And beyond that is the sphere of Saturn, which takes thirty years. And beyond that is the sphere of the fixed stars. And it revolves in what? Only a day! Where is the logic in that? Whereas if the Earth rotates, as the Copernican world system postulates—”

  “You falsify Holy Scripture,” Cardinal Gioioso broke in.

  “Not necessarily, as I have tried to show in my writings on the Book of Joshua,” Galileo said.

  “Those writings have been weighed in the balance and found wanting,” Sigismondo Gioioso said. “You are an admirable astronomer, but you make a less than admirable theologian. I have spoken of this before.”

  “Yes, your Eminence,” Galileo said resignedly. “As I have said before, I might be less inclined to meddle in theology if the Church were less inclined to meddle in astronomy.”

  “But astronomy and its truths connect to the Scriptures,” Gioioso said. “How can the holy Catholic Church not concern itself with the heavens as well as the Earth?”

  “If the Church does, then its learned theologians risk being called less than admirable astronomers,” Galileo said.

  “How does this follow?” Gioioso asked.

  “How?” Galileo yelped. “Surely it must be obvious—”

  “No.” The cardinal held up a hand. “What is obvious, Signor, is that the world stands still and the heavens revolve around it. Otherwise this would not have been believed by everyone since the days of the Old Testament. It would not have been set down in writing in the unerring Holy Scriptures. What your spyglass shows may be there, but it is not obvious.”

  “It is true,” Galileo maintained.

  “In a sense, perhaps,” Gioioso said. “But it is also disruptive of good order all over Europe. Is that not true as well?”

  “In a sense, perhaps,” Galileo echoed slyly.

  He won a small smile from Gioioso. “So the question is, does your loud, aggressive espousal of the truths your spyglass has shown about Venus and the Medicean stars—places to which we can never hope to go, even in dreams—justify the chaos you unleash on this world? Why do you imagine that these magnified images are more important than wars and uprisings and rebellions against longstanding authority?”

  “I intend no such thing, your Eminence,” Galileo protested.

  “Nor do I claim you intend it,” the cardinal said. “If I did, the matter would be far more serious. An evil will, a malicious will...” He shook his head. “But I claim no such thing. Neither does any other cleric, to my knowledge. Still, do you not see that the result of an unintended act can be as dreadful as that which springs from an intended one?”

  “What am I do, then? I truly believed I was but speaking hypothetically when I wrote the Dialogue, as the way I ended it shows.” That was Galileo's story, and he was sticking to it. If he'd let what he actually believed show through to excess as he wrote ... well, how surprising was it?

  Sigismondo Gioioso's left eyebrow couldn't have risen more than an eighth of an inch. That was all he needed to show he didn't believe a word of it. Had Galileo entered the priesthood, were he now interrogating some enthusiastic Copernican, he wouldn't have believed a word of it, either. Perspective did have something to do with deciding what truth was—at least some truths. Gioioso hid all sorts of interesting notions under his crimson cassock.

  He didn't come right out and call Galileo a liar, as some of the other inquisitors had done. Instead, he said, “And so, in scandalizing your father, you aim not merely to turn the world upside down but to set it spinning as well?”

  “Imagining that it does spin does the best job of explaining the phenomena we observe,” Galileo said.

  “The phenomena you observe with a fancy spyglass.” Cardinal Gioioso's snort was a distillation of scorn. “You say many people have seen these things. How many is many? Hundreds? A few thousand at most?”

  “Something on that order, yes,” Galileo agreed. “For matters of this import, that is a great many.”

  “It could be. But what is it when set against the number of souls in Christendom?” Gioioso asked. “How many millions dwell in Italy? In Germany? In France? In Spain? In Portugal? In their new lands beyond the sea? In Poland, out of which your precious Copernicus came? Against all those souls, these hundreds have not even the weight of a mustard seed. Is this so, or is it not?”

  “It is, your Eminence. But—”

  “No, Signor. No buts here. When the farmer goes home after a day in the fields, what does he see? When the miller leaves off grinding grain at day's end, what does he see? When the monk finishes his evening prayer, what does he see? The sun going down. Not the earth spinning, but the Sun setting. He sees no hills and valleys on the Moon, no phases on Venus, no new stars attending Jupiter. He sees what the Bible says he sees, what the God-inspired men who wrote the Bible saw, what our Lord saw during the Incarnation, and what Ptolemy saw not long after. Is this so, or is it not?”

  “They saw incompletely,” Galileo said. “They saw inaccurately. They saw, if you will, through a glass, darkly.”

  “You are the one seeing darkly through your glass, Signor,” Gioioso answered. “For you do not see the chaos and confusion you cause here on Earth with your phases of Venus and your Jovian stars. Truly I wonder if it is not Satan's work associating these marvels with the planets named for two of the most licentious pagan gods.”

  “Sometimes a planet is only a planet, your Eminence!” Galileo exclaimed.

  “You think so, do you?” But a twinkle in Cardinal Gioioso's gray eyes betrayed him. “Well, possibly not, not about that. Nevertheless, though, I am altogether in earnest when I say you forget about this Earth when you keep your eyes ever to the heavens. For what is the effect when your hundreds start shouting about what their spyglasses show?”

  “They spread the truth?” the astronomer suggested.

  “What they spread is doubt,” Sigismondo Gioioso said in a voice as hard and cold as stone. “And doubt corrodes faith as surely as salt water corrodes iron. The farmer, the miller, the monk—they hear of these marvels they cannot see. They hear these men who imagine themselves to be clever defaming the Scriptures and the holy Catholic Church. So many people, sadly, are like magpies, like jackdaws: they imitate everything they see, everything they hear. And faith, and faith
's community, and peace itself, are torn to bits. Is this so, or is it not?”

  “It ... could be,” Galileo said. “But you cannot blame me for the rise of Protestantism, which began before I was born, nor for the war now raging in Germany.”

  “The Protestants sowed the seed of disbelief in the mother Church's authority,” Gioioso said. “They have yet to reap the thorny harvest, for disbelief, once sown, will grow and eat them up, too. You mark my words, Signor—that day will come. I do not blame you for Luther or Calvin, no, nor for the accursed German war, which seems to go on forever. Still, is it better to spread more disorder through a world that already has too much, or to work toward restoring peace and unity of purpose?”

  “Surely working for peace is better,” Galileo said. The cardinal's questions took the discussion to a level he had never considered when he grinned and cackled as his pen made Salviati flay Simplicio—made Copernicanism flay Ptolemy's outmoded views. That astronomy could concern the ordinary world as well as the rarefied atmosphere of the heavens and of scholarship hadn't crossed his mind ... till now.

  Gioioso found one more mild-sounding question: “Will you say now from your heart that you were working toward peace and unity when you composed the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems?”

  “Your Eminence, looking into my heart, I find I cannot say that and mean it,” Galileo answered. Not for the first time, he wondered if the prelate from Vienna was some sort of he-witch. Gioioso certainly had a knack for making anyone he talked to feel as if his head were as transparent as glass.

  “Are you sure of what you tell me?” Sigismondo Gioioso asked.

  “Before God, I am. That I am surprises me, but it is so. You have done what I would have thought to be impossible: you have made me look at myself, look within myself, in a whole new way,” Galileo said.

  “That is the goal of analysis of this kind, Signor.” Was the smallest hint of smugness in Gioioso's voice? Did he himself exhibit once more, if only for a moment, the sin of pride? If he did, Galileo didn't call him on it.

  * * * *

  Proud or not, Cardinal Gioioso was not the man who pronounced sentence on Galileo. Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, with the title of Santa Maria del Popolo, read out the Inquisition's decree on the day after the summer solstice.

  Galileo listened to the words wash over him. He was convicted of vehement suspicion of heresy. He had held and promoted a false belief—that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of things and that the Earth, not the Sun, moved. The Dialogue was to be prohibited. He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the Inquisition's pleasure, and would be required to recite penitential hymns weekly for the next three years. And he had to abjure all his heretical beliefs, there in public before Cardinal Bentivoglio and his inquisitorial colleagues.

  He had to make the abjuration on his knees, which pained him physically as well as spiritually. Still, he said what they required of him, reading from a statement he'd drafted in advance. When he looked up from the words, he tried to look at Cardinal Gioioso rather than any of the others. He would have abjured whether he'd spoken with Gioioso or not. Whether he would have abjured so sincerely and with such authentic faith, as the Inquisition's decree required of him, might have been a different story.

  At last, it was done. He struggled back to his feet, which also hurt. Some of the inquisitors came forward to congratulate him. He could have done without that. Gioioso, who had helped shape his thoughts, had the sense to leave him alone with them.

  “But it does move,” Galileo muttered under his breath. It was one last protest, which he answered with the insight he'd gained from the Viennese cardinal: “But so what?”

  Copyright © 2009 Harry Turtledove

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  * * *

  Science Fact: FUTUROPOLIS: HOW NASA PLANS TO CREATE A PERMANENT PRESENCE ON THE MOON

  by Michael Carroll

  Sir Thomas More has his Utopia. The book of Matthew has its “shining city on a hill.” Now, NASA has its own plans for a community, and this one will be the first on another world. Engineers are planning how to set up the first permanent human presence on the Moon. It's all part of the grand scheme to replace the aging space shuttle fleet with an entirely new transportation system and spacecraft.

  The plan is called the “Constellation architecture,” and hardware is already under construction. Designers are hard at work on a new family of Ares launch vehicles, the most powerful in history. These advanced launchers borrow the best technology from the space shuttle, Saturn V, and other launch vehicle programs. Atop Ares rides the Orion spacecraft, backbone of the program. Orion will carry four to six people, and is capable of cislunar travel (from the Earth to the Moon). Another craft, called Altair, will ferry crews to and from the lunar surface from Moon orbit, supplying the infrastructure for permanent settlements.

  NASA's Constellation program is a long-term, methodical approach to exploration and settlement of the Moon and Mars. The Orion spacecraft, replacement for the venerable shuttle program, is estimated to cost less to build and launch than either the shuttles or the proposed craft in earlier scenarios. The new blueprint to the stars spreads costs while building, step-by-step, a permanent human outpost on Earth's nearest neighbor.

  * * * *

  An Altair lander on final approach to the growing international community at the lunar south pole. Visible below are various habitats. In the distance lies a field of solar power collectors. (art by the author)

  * * * *

  Establishing the first foothold on another world is a daunting task. Like nineteenth-century arctic explorers, lunar architects face the challenges of laying supply lines, setting up living and working areas, providing power and communications, and building transportation infrastructure, not only from terra firma to the Moon, but across the lunar landscape itself. And the first order of business is where to put it. The location must have access to nearly constant sunlight for power, a fact complicated by the Moon's two weeks of night each month. The site must be in a spot visible to Earth almost continuously for safe communication. The three main considerations, as any realtor will tell you, are location, location, location.

  NASA is considering several areas on the lunar surface for a base of operations, but one has been selected as a baseline. Shackleton Crater provides a realistic framework within which engineers and designers can study various architectures. A vast amphitheater 19 kilometers across, the crater sprawls like a bulls-eye across the Moon's South Pole. It's a place of stunning bleakness, a pockmarked landscape in eternal dusk. But to lunar base architects, it's the perfect site for an outpost. From this location, the Sun seldom dips below the horizon. Over the leisurely course of a lunar day—lasting some 28 Earth days—the Sun bobs along the horizon, peering over the rolling hills of the Moon's southern highlands. Shackleton's raised rim, standing above all but the longest southern shadows, assures almost uninterrupted contact with Earth, and a near-constant flow of solar energy. NASA scientist James Garvin comments, “As for the poles, there are regions of nearly continuous sunlight, well suited for solar power at the 10's of kilowatt level we need for human exploration.”

  Constellation designers believe the strategy of setting up a durable outpost on the Moon is a financially and logistically sound one, and one that hearkens back to the early days of Antarctic exploration. Planetary scientist Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory has twice explored the southern continent. He likens the opportunities of a lunar outpost to those afforded by McMurdo Station in Antarctica. “If all the science on the Antarctic continent had to be done carrying everything from New Zealand, no one would get much science done. But because we have McMurdo as a logistical base, expeditions can stage from there and do a lot more. Similarly, the outpost on the Moon will be a stepping stone into the solar system.”

  * * * *

  Mockup of a horizontal lunar habitat. The rudimentary construction allows engineers to m
ake quick changes in the design as studies progress. (photo by the author)

  * * * *

  Setting up camp in the extreme lunar environment is a challenge, both technologically and psychologically. What physical space do people need to remain healthy? What volumes are most efficient for working in 1/6th the gravity of Earth? How does a person living on the Moon deal with the equipment-choking dust? How many habitats will a permanent human presence require? NASA's Larry Toups has been studying the problem for some time. The answer is complex, Toups explains. “The number of habitats depends on not only the number of crew, but also length of surface stay. With four members, you get a break at 30 days. Up until that, you are in camping mode. You hit 30 days up to six months, and you start having to provide additional volume, resources, food, clothing, consumable gases and so forth.” Each habitat must house subsystems for life support and power management. The first modules might have small laboratory areas for sample analysis. But these evolve to an outpost by adding additional volume, enabling functions to be moved from the cramped initial area to dedicated areas for research, exercise, etcetera.

  Some early modules might initially be packed with consumables. “The notion is that you deliver a core hab and logistics (supply) modules which plug into that,” says Toups. “In essence, the crew eats their way into a habitable volume.”

  * * * *

  Mockup of a tuna-can habitat. (photo by the author)

  * * * *

  But for a skeleton crew of four on a 180-day expedition, at least three habitats will be required for safety and health. Toups suggests that, “our initial footholds will probably use systems and technologies that we are comfortable with. Growth will come from that, evolving from construction shacks to more complex structures.”

  What will those structures look like? Building B220 of the Johnson Space Center gives us a glimpse of a future lunar city. In the high-ceilinged warehouselike structure, engineers are busy fabricating low-tech mockups of habitats that could comprise the international outpost at Shackleton. The newest mockups consist of Styrofoam and plywood, making modifications and design changes simple and inexpensive.