Punctuated equilibrium: that’s the notion that long stretches of routine activity that are randomly interrupted with massive game-changing events. Think asteroids crashing into the Yucatan peninsula 65 mm years ago. Or, Lincoln assassinated by Booth. Or, cooling systems on the International Space Station (ISS) failing.
Consider today’s story in the NY Times about the failure of an ammonia cooling system pump on the ISS from the perspective of one of the workers on the station:
ISS Ammonia Tank Assembly (NASA)
Space Station Malfunction Prompts Shutdowns – NYTimes.com
You’re busy doing your routine work when an alarm sounds. A big one, caused by an event that causes power failure and the shutdown of many of the station’s systems.
And it’s now your job to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it as quickly as possible, because if you don’t you and your shipmates may well die.
This scenario is certainly nothing new. Variations of it have played out for thousands of years on boats (and U-boats) and frontiers throughout the world. The only thing that is new about this crisis is its location.
As I write this, workers in space are working diligently to determine what went wrong and how to deal with it. This is more evidence that our civilization is indeed moving into space, and we are taking our dramas there with us.
