This past week I was in Washington DC on business. I’ve only been to DC a couple of times, and each time left little room on the schedule for sightseeing. But this time, as I was being driven back to my hotel, I noticed a certain building and asked the driver to just drop me there and I’d find my way back. He complied and I stepped, rapt with anticipation and wonder, into the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The Spirit of St. Louis. Photo by the author.

As someone who was raised in the halcyon days of the space race, during a time when it was national policy to create and cherish intellectual greatness, this place has always had special resonance for me. Pity I had not had a chance to visit it before now.

The achievement of flight has, to me, always been inseparable from the work of the guerrilla scholar and amateur scientist. The museum’s room honoring the Wright Brothers and their conquest of flight had much to say about the ground-breaking work they had to do just to come up with a workable model of aerodynamics which they then applied to their successful flyer.

Perhaps I was overly sentimental, but standing in the midst of these amazing machines and the artifacts associated with them, I could not help thinking that somehow I was standing on holy ground, a temple raised to honor applied genius.

The Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier. Photo by the author.

Of course, impulsive tourism comes with a price. I packed for this trip with a very no-nonsense attitude, which meant that my camera got left behind. I was thus forced to make use of my cell phone’s camera, which did okay given the circumstances.

Now the Bad News…

Along one wall, the museum had a video presentation running about the Gossamer Condor, the world’s first successful human-powered aircraft. This remarkable machine was built by Dr. Paul MacCready, who was also a great friend and champion to amateur science. Imagine my dismay when, the following day, I learned he had died.

SAS Executive Director Shawn Carlson has written a touching tribute in the current issue of The Citizen Scientist.

I had the good fortune to meet Dr. MacCready during the SAS Citizen Science Convention at Caltech in 2003. A couple of years prior to that I had proposed an annual lecture series in honor of Dr. Arthur Winfree who was another professional scientist who did much to help amateurs and had written some wonderful pieces for The Citizen Scientist while I was the General Editor. Dr. MacCready delivered the inaugural Arthur W. Winfree Lecture at that convention.

The author and Paul MacCready at the 2003 Citizen Science Conference at Caltech. Photo by Forrest M. Mims III.

What struck me about the lecture was that although we were listening to a scientist and engineer who had no less than five of his aircraft gracing the National Air and Space Museum, his lecture proper was about the impact of humanity on the planet. My notes from that lecture show that he discussed the massive impact that humans and their livestock have on the planet, as well as a warning that the use of fossil fuels would stop in a decade or two. For all his attention to things of the air, here was someone who was just as concerned with what was happening here on the the ground. That was one aspect of his life as a scientist that many overlook; he was interested in a vast range of topics that had nothing to do with flight. It was one of the things that drove his interest in helping SAS and amateur scientists generally–the sheer diversity of what we do.

But like everyone else, I will remember Paul for his conviction that all of us can be pioneers, can reach the “high, untresspassed sanctity of space“, each in our own way. I shall miss him.

For more information about Paul MacCready and his work, visit his company’s web site, Aerovironment.