20170731 Reference #1 Page lx
On this day in 1520, the Magellan Expedition continued a wait for favorable weather at Puerto San Julian.
For the first two months of this period, members of the crew transported supplies from the wreck of the Santiago. The distance overland was about 100 miles, and the journey took four days.
The voyage of exploration resumed on August 24, so there were three months of Southern wintry weather to endure.
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Google provides a "Quick Fact" about the port where the expedition spent the next three months:
Begin Quotation:
Puerto San Julián is a natural harbour in Patagonia in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina located at 49°18′S 67°43′W. In the days of sailing ships it formed a stopping point, 180 km south of Puerto Deseado.Wikipedia
End Quotation.
I wondered what the weather might have been like in Magellan's time. It is likely that the expedition log books would have recorded the conditions that the crew endured during the layover, but assuming the weather is comparable today to what it was then, we have this report, from
https://www.windfinder.com/webcams/puerto_san_julian***
Wind and weather webcams
Puerto San Julián
Maps Wind 7 kts East
7°C Overcast
Data based on our forecast model
SUNRISE 8:56 SUNSET 18:18 LOCAL TIME 17:39 (UTC -3)
ELEVATION
62 m
20170731 Magellan Expedition Thread
497 years ago, in August of 1520, Magellan and his fleet of four remaining ships, and his crew now reduced by mutiny, have been waiting out the Antarctic winter in Puerto San Julian. The voyage resumed on the 24th of August, so there will be activity and movement to report after that date.
Approximately 500 years in the future from 2017, Kim Stanley Robinson has imagined an expedition of (about) 2200 people from Earth to Aurora, a moon that might exist in the vicinity of the star System Tau Ceti.
240 years ago, Adam Smith was putting the finishing touches on one of the multiple editions of “The Wealth of Nations” which were published in following years. Mr. Smith provides a detailed look at the economic and political times in which he lived, as well as perspective on earlier human cultures, including Greek and Roman civilizations, Asian ones and others.
Dr. Dartnell provides an incentive for the multiple threads currently under way in the Knowledge Forum, via his imagining of a time when humans on Earth might be faced with the necessity of trying to rebuild civilization after a major catastrophe.
Ferdinand Magellan is a clear example of a leader who conceives of an exploration into the truly unknown, sells his vision to political and commercial funders, and then plans the expedition in meticulous detail, including supplies, personnel and expectations for interactions with humans he expects to meet along the way.
Mr. Robinson’s Aurora vision does not reveal details about the leadership which must have existed at the time the expedition to Aurora was conceived, sold, funded and assembled, in part because the story begins as the vessel is approaching its destination after a flight of over 100 years. Mr. Robinson ** does ** cause his characters to speak critically of the humans who put the expedition into motion, by casting doubt on the ethics of launching the expedition in the first place, and then by pointing out mistakes that revealed themselves as time went on.
Mr. Magellan lived in a time, and was surrounded by the European culture of Portugal and Spain, when behaviors that seem abhorrent to my sensibilities of 2017 occurred with some frequency. It seems to me, as I follow reports of the man and the expedition, that he was aware of the nature of the society of which he was a part, and held firmly in mind the goal of reaching the Spice Islands from the West which had not been achieved by anyone to that date. Despite the weaknesses of personnel and supplies and equipment revealed during the expedition, Magellan held to his purpose.
It seems to me that an outcome of Dr. Dartnell’s initiative might well be coalescing of a group of individuals interested in developing a vision of one or more simulations of the kind of expedition described by Mr. Robinson, to be built and operated on Earth in the near future, to test ideas such as those Mr. Robinson describes, and to find the kinds of human beings who could find contentment in living their entire lives in a volume of space on the order of the ship Mr. Robinson proposed.
Certainly in the past on Earth, there have been cultures which have lived with (apparent) contentment in relatively small geographic regions. However, it seems to me that the freedoms that have become available to human beings in recent centuries have become so accepted and almost second nature, that it might turn out to be difficult to find genotypes that would be able to accept physical restrictions of bodily movement, in return for intellectual excursion throughout the (knowable) Universe.
Finding people who would be willing to experiment with habitats such as the one Mr. Robinson describes appears to be possible. Volunteers have agreed to participate in experiments on a much smaller scale, albeit for known intervals.
The key for success (it seems to me) would be for individuals, and particularly for children born into such test societies, to be free to leave if they choose to do so. It is the lines that follow from those who choose to REMAIN that would be of potential interest for consideration for actual expeditions away from the Earth.
(th)
May every member of The Knowledge forum grow financially, intellectually, socially and beyond.