Black Holes and Martian Valleys

By Hugh Sidey

Jimmy Carter's memos sometimes have the margins crowded with his slide-rule jottings and formulas of physical phenomena. He has pondered what his responsibilities might be in case communication with beings beyond our galaxy can be established. He will soon launch a deep study of American innovation. Question: Can this nation continue to think and invent its way to preeminence? We have slipped in the past few years, but not yet fatally.

Carter has seized one or two of the few odd moments of presidential quietude he has to put his eye to his family's reflecting telescope and search out the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra. He has asked his Secretary of Transportation, Brock Adams, to advise the engineers who design our mass-transit systems to simplify them so they are more functional. He has mulled the reasons why the huge power turbines lose reliability as they grow in size, and how thinking smaller may be one way to energy conservation.

Jimmy Carter is the closest thing to a scientist we have had in the White House since Thomas Jefferson. It may yet prove to be both a strength and a handicap. He moves with ease in the world where there are immutable laws of action and response, where figures line up and yield answers without argument, without any need for cajolery and bourbon. Much of his trouble in the mystical arena of political leadership arises when he tries to apply these bloodless principles to human power and pride.

One notable result of Carter's scientific bent: the budget for basic research has gone up 11% to begin the absolutely crucial journey back to full respectability in scientific knowledge. Both Nixon and Johnson not only distrusted eggheads in the scientific world but also cut their influence and money. Maybe part of the problem was the ineptitude of these two in the world of machines. Nixon could not run a tape recorder. Johnson could not fully figure out his alarm wristwatch and once had to halt his automobile to solve the problem of turning on the windshield squirter.

Not Jimmy. "Frank," he intoned one morning at a senior staff meeting, "did you see the article on black holes? What do you think?" Science Adviser Frank Press, a brilliant geophysicist from M.I.T., confessed he could not fully digest the New York Times that early. The article had reported about new data gathered by one of our space probes. Well, said Carter, be sure and let him know. He was fascinated by the discussion of black holes and the speculation that they might provide answers to what holds the universe together.

A while later, Astronomer Carl Sagan (The Dragons of Eden) found himself lugging his slide box into the Vice President's big new house and, after coffee, taking the Mondale and Carter families on a journey through the heavens. Carter asked most of the questions, his eyes bright with the sense of adventure, urging that any new missions to Mars seek out mountains and valleys and old volcanoes instead of staying on the more level or gently rolling surfaces.

Another visitor, Amory B. Lovins (Soft Energy Paths), found that Carter had almost memorized charts and passages from his book, which tells how to use the sun and natural biological processes for energy. "We were talking the same language," said Lovins.

The new money will soon enlarge our research in fields ranging from the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the development of human fetuses. Some day this foresight could save us all. Remember that Franklin Roosevelt back in 1939 read a letter from the little man with the funny hair and began the atomic bomb. And one afternoon shortly before the Bay of Pigs in 1961, John Kennedy brushed aside the warnings that a moon shot was a multibillion-dollar, decade-long gamble that might fail. Such decisions dwarf the squabbles of politicians.

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