On Rocket Science and Rocket Scientists

During my career, the phrase "this is not rocket science" has been used many times, by myself and others. I find this phrase comforting and it is something that I use to urge people to try out new stuff that looks theoretically thick or challenging. It's like saying: "this is not so difficult, you can make sense of this if you want to." This statement of course makes sense against the understanding that rocket science is, in fact, quite complicated, really.

I read a remarkable book review a while back in the New York Review of Books, titled "Rocket Man". The book is called "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" and it is about the German scientist and engineer Wernher von Braun. The man was a member of the SS, the creator of both V1 and V2 rockets, who later emigrated to the U.S. and participated in their space program. During his time in Nazi Germany, concentration camp prisoners were used as labor in his projects.

What was interesting about the review was that it was written by Freeman Dyson a physicist who played a part in the British rocket program during WWII. I was familiar with Dyson mostly because of the concept "Dyson Sphere", a speculative construct of an artificial sphere, constructed around a sun. This construct has been fueled quite a bit of good science fiction, such as Larry Niven's Ringworld and the Star Trek Next Generation episode Relics (the one where Scotty visits Enterprise D).

Anyway, Dyson makes an intriguing ethical statement at the end of the book review. The author of the biography has condemned Von Braun's past ,which Dyson finds hard to accept. He writes:

"The author of this book condemns von Braun for his collaboration with the SS, and condemns the United States government for covering up the evidence of his collaboration. Here I beg to differ with the author. War is an inherently immoral activity. Even the best of wars involves crimes and atrocities, and every citizen who takes part in war is to some extent collaborating with criminals. I should here declare my own interest in this debate. In my work for the RAF Bomber Command, I was collaborating with people who planned the destruction of Dresden in February 1945, a notorious calamity in which many thousands of innocent civilians were burned to death. If we had lost the war, those responsible might have been condemned as war criminals, and I might have been found guilty of collaborating with them.

After this declaration of personal involvement, let me state my conclusion. In my opinion, the moral imperative at the end of every war is reconciliation. Without reconciliation there can be no real peace. Reconciliation means amnesty. It is allowable to execute the worst war criminals, with or without a legal trial, provided that this is done quickly, while the passions of war are still raging. After the executions are done, there should be no more hunting for criminals and collaborators. In order to make a lasting peace, we must learn to live with our enemies and forgive their crimes. Amnesty means that we are all equal before the law. Amnesty is not easy and not fair, but it is a moral necessity, because the alternative is an unending cycle of hatred and revenge. South Africa has set us a good example, showing how it can be done.

In the end, I admire von Braun for using his God-given talents to achieve his visions, even when this required him to make a pact with the devil. He bent Hitler and Himmler to his purposes more than they bent him to theirs. And I admire the United States Army for giving him a second chance to pursue his dreams. In the end, the amnesty given to him by the United States did far more than a strict accounting of his misdeeds could have done to redeem his soul and to fulfill his destiny."

This is a powerful statement and one that rings true and brave to me at many levels. Although we might disagree with the sentiment that war criminals should not be hunted after the war, for instance, I find that there are far too few compelling texts calling for reconciliation and forgiveness. I find Dyson's sentiment uplifting.