Message from Distinguished Professor David Schiel

When I was a boy I saw the Gemini 12 space capsule in the Adler planetarium in St Louis. In those days, you could walk right up to it and touch it. My first impression was that it looked like something built in a home garage. The outside had numerous plates that looked like they were rivetted in place by an apprentice. We wondered how it could have withstood 59 orbits of earth over 3 days. The other thing that struck me was how small it was. Even at age 13 when I was well over 6 ft tall (I grew in non-metric units) I could not have fit inside, or at least not without severe claustrophobia. What brought this to mind was the death last week of William Anders, a crew member of Apollo 8 in 1968. He was an accomplished pilot and nuclear engineer, and one of the first three people to leave low earth orbit and travel to the moon. Those were the heady days of space exploration, when science was admired as underpinning progress for a nation and the future seemed positive and full of promise. But despite his many accomplishments over a long life, Anders was best known for taking the famous ‘Earthrise’ photo (a copy of which is on my office wall). It reminds us of our beautiful blue marbled planet in the vast darkness of space, and the need to care for it.

You’ve undoubtedly noticed that our Newsletter has a new feature – some reflections from members of the Academy Executive Committee. Many of you will know me as the chair of the Biological and Environmental Sciences domain. The AEC meets quarterly but in between meetings we chair and evaluate nominations for Fellowships and the various Academy awards.  We also consider and respond to many requests for comments, submissions on various topics, and liaisons with academies from other countries. Since the last newsletter in March, we held the Fellows Day and Fellows Forum on 18 – 19 April. The AEC considers these days as a touching reminder of the outstanding research being done in our country, and the exceptional Fellows who have joined our ranks. If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that there are two major reviews going on, which are likely to change the overall science domain in how they are funded and operated. Sir Peter Gluckman is chairing both the Science System Advisory Group and the University Advisory Group. The Society, with input from the AEC, made submissions to both of these reviews and, like you, eagerly await hearing what these advisory groups will recommend.

I leave the final reflection to William Anders: “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth”.

DR Schiel
Academy Executive Committee Domain Convenor - Biological and Environmental Science