Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is part two of
Speaker 1: our exploration of a little known astronaut program back in
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds. Yes, that entire sentence sounds bananas, but
Speaker 1: we assure you it is factual. Please listen to the
Speaker 1: first part of this series before you proceed onto episode two.
Speaker 1: I think that's all our housekeeping. Noal, yournal, I am Noal,
Speaker 1: and you are Ben. And if I may be so bold,
Speaker 1: I think we're ready to dive on in in his defense.
Speaker 1: In defense of this nascent space program, we should point
Speaker 1: out astronomers of this time, like around sixteen forty years so,
Speaker 1: they knew how far away the moon was, right they did.
Speaker 1: They knew it pretty accurately by today's standards. Um, so
Speaker 1: they could kind of plot out what this trip might
Speaker 1: look like. If they, you know, made it a little
Speaker 1: more routine, it would probably take several weeks. And this
Speaker 1: made sense to them at the time because they were
Speaker 1: used to those kinds of really long, arduous tracks because
Speaker 1: of ocean voyages. And there's also a tinge of capitalism here,
Speaker 1: not a small tinge by any means, because Wilkins is thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: assuming all this works. There are a lot of ifs
Speaker 1: Wilkins reasoning here, but John's thinking, Okay, if this works,
Speaker 1: will we meet inhabitants on the moon. You'll see if
Speaker 1: you read his stuff, you'll see that he called them
Speaker 1: Selenites based on the name the Greek moon got us
Speaker 1: Lean and he was like, Okay, if we meet these
Speaker 1: people on the moon, hey, we might be able to
Speaker 1: sell them stuff. We could establish a moon trade, a
Speaker 1: mean trade. I love it. In this history extra article
Speaker 1: that we've been digging into, they referred to this as
Speaker 1: a quote lucrative celestial markets, right exactly. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. That was probably part of the pitch.
Speaker 1: You know, he's like he's telling aristocrats and royalty about
Speaker 1: how we could do this, and then he all that's
Speaker 1: his But wait, there's more moment, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's very charming, especially when you read it now.
Speaker 1: But it's sort of the same thing we talked about
Speaker 1: when we're like, okay, if there was like the singularity
Speaker 1: or like you know, beings from another dimension or another
Speaker 1: you know, um planet, far far far away from us
Speaker 1: came we would have no reference for communication, We would
Speaker 1: have no shared anything. You know, we couldn't possibly assume
Speaker 1: that we would. I guess maybe the moon's close enough
Speaker 1: that they could be receiving our you know nowadays, you
Speaker 1: know television transmissions like in that episode of Pete and
Speaker 1: Pete about Johnny Unitis, remember that one classic episode. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is a very uh again geocentric kind
Speaker 1: of view of the world. These merchants would be so
Speaker 1: full of themselves that they believe that they would have
Speaker 1: anything to offer Moon people, right right, you know, moon
Speaker 1: people would have contacted us if they wanted something shortly. Also,
Speaker 1: before we let's get in front of the bad, very
Speaker 1: dark humor here. Uh, this is before the opium trade
Speaker 1: is really blossoming. If this had occurred a little bit later,
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen centuries, then I'm sure that Wilkins would have said,
Speaker 1: and we can sell the moon people opium, because that
Speaker 1: was that was very much a British push for a time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: his ideas had a few beautiful things about them. They're optimistic, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're plausible. Yes, he's taking the knowledge of space, gravity,
Speaker 1: human biology, all the stuff that's available at the time,
Speaker 1: he is making a good faith effort to do due diligence. Also,
Speaker 1: I said he was also super open minded, which I
Speaker 1: think is a point you raised earlier in the episode.
Speaker 1: Nod like he he wanted the truth, he wanted the
Speaker 1: correct answers. His ego was not taking precedent over facts.
Speaker 1: Like he if someone else said, um, well hey John,
Speaker 1: you know, I like what you're saying about blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: but what about this idea, then he would hear them out.
Speaker 1: He was very much crowdsourcing this and he had a
Speaker 1: different He had a different take on different things at
Speaker 1: different times as new information came in and was available.
Speaker 1: Like originally, I believe he someone asked him how these
Speaker 1: asked for notts would eat while they're in space, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like they can go hunting. It's probably not
Speaker 1: a good look to shoot moon people if you land,
Speaker 1: and he had an interesting pitch some I I didn't
Speaker 1: think of. I know how weird this sounds today, but
Speaker 1: he said, well, the we have to understand the space
Speaker 1: travelers are not going to be subject to gravity at
Speaker 1: this point, so quote, we shall not at all spend
Speaker 1: ourselves in any labor and consequently not much need the
Speaker 1: reparation of diet, but may perhaps live all together without it.
Speaker 1: So he's like, you're floating, you're not working against gravity,
Speaker 1: you don't have to eat. This would also prove to
Speaker 1: be incorrect. Shout out to dehydrated ice cream and space.
Speaker 1: You know in Deadwood, how they often refer to the
Speaker 1: Chinese as celestials like a like a racial slur. What
Speaker 1: do you think it has anything to do with this
Speaker 1: idea of moon of like aliens or them, like you know,
Speaker 1: co opting that term for spacemen and just you know,
Speaker 1: talking about like these weird Chinese people that might as
Speaker 1: well be from another planet and calling them celestials. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes from an old name that was used to
Speaker 1: refer to China as the Celestial Empire. It was sometimes
Speaker 1: called which is a translation of an an older name
Speaker 1: for the region in the country, which I believe is
Speaker 1: jan Chow. Interesting, Okay, that makes sense, but still, you know,
Speaker 1: even even referring to it as the Celestial Empire implied
Speaker 1: some level of mothering of almost like putting them in
Speaker 1: the same boat as say, people from another planet. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. This is coming from the perspective
Speaker 1: of can we extend an empire? Here he found this
Speaker 1: story of a German person who apparently slept throughout the
Speaker 1: entire winter, hibernating essentially, and new research in our modern
Speaker 1: day proves that there is there is a possibility to
Speaker 1: create um the circumstances for human hibernation. But he also,
Speaker 1: you know, again, I can emphasize this enough. He's working
Speaker 1: with the information he has at the time, and he says, look,
Speaker 1: there are reports that I believe prove human beings can
Speaker 1: indeed hibernate the way mammals like bears do, And he's
Speaker 1: and so maybe they can just sleep right sleep the
Speaker 1: moon voyage away and not have to eat and I
Speaker 1: have to breathe, etcetera. He did say he did put
Speaker 1: a little caveat in there, well, olive branch to the haters,
Speaker 1: and he said, if none of these ideas convince you,
Speaker 1: there may happily be some possible means for the conveyance
Speaker 1: of other food. And he's like, all right, if you
Speaker 1: guys are gonna be divas about it, I guess we
Speaker 1: can pack some lunches, is how I took it. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of nuts that Wilkins is making all this progress,
Speaker 1: and it is progress. This ideation is solid. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: it's nuts that he's able to do it, especially given
Speaker 1: the widespread turmoil in England at the time. Again, in
Speaker 1: sixty two, the English Civil War began. It led to
Speaker 1: the abolition of the Anglican Church. The king was beheaded.
Speaker 1: Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector as a result of these events,
Speaker 1: and that's when Wilkins marries uh Robina, Oliver Cromwell's younger sister,
Speaker 1: and he becomes the brother in law of Cromwell, who
Speaker 1: was at this time you know, it was at a time, um,
Speaker 1: therefore a time he has temporarily removed the royal family
Speaker 1: from power. And I think, I think, in my mind,
Speaker 1: I just think of him as being a very heavy
Speaker 1: handed ruler, um who was also a better a zealot,
Speaker 1: isn't that right? Well, he definitely had a reputation, as
Speaker 1: as we said, as an intense dude, a harsh ruler.
Speaker 1: He was to your point, a religious hardliner. Uh. He
Speaker 1: does have a real legacy though. A fun weird fact,
Speaker 1: there are more roads named after Cromwell than any other
Speaker 1: British ruler other than Queen Victoria. It's like there's I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're like Cromwell Ladies, Cromwell Uh, Cromwell Street. That's
Speaker 1: an easy one. British listeners, please let us know how
Speaker 1: Cromwell's legacy affects your neck of the global woods. Here's
Speaker 1: the here's the thing. That's why I keep bringing up
Speaker 1: League of Extraordinary Gentleman or maybe Ozamandius and his explorations
Speaker 1: and The Watchman, the HBO series. No spoilers, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Uh. When he is warden of Wadham College,
Speaker 1: Oxford between sixteen forty eight and uh, just before sixteen sixty,
Speaker 1: Wilkins gets his crew together. He assembles a club of
Speaker 1: scientific friends and like it's kind of like a salon.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a a think tank. You know,
Speaker 1: if they were, if they were getting together in a
Speaker 1: different time, they might have made a podcast. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I loved I love that approach where he's like,
Speaker 1: fellow will to do intellectuals. You come, we should sup
Speaker 1: on moist sponge and you speculate on the exploration of
Speaker 1: the mean. It's just for comfort, bad, It's just just
Speaker 1: a it's a sponge sponge your way to comfort. I
Speaker 1: don't quite understand how that works, just to like what
Speaker 1: you're what you're the nape of your neck or something
Speaker 1: to keep a little maybe, Yeah, it's kind of how
Speaker 1: you suck on the sponge. I'm confused about the implementation
Speaker 1: of the sponge. So why are we mentioning the idea
Speaker 1: of Wilkins pitching stuff. Well, it's because it turns out
Speaker 1: that he kind of was, like if you look at
Speaker 1: his books, you might agree with science. His story named
Speaker 1: Dr Alan Chapman, who says that his earlier works especially
Speaker 1: read kind of like a proposal to investors, like, hey,
Speaker 1: get in on the ground floor and then go twenty
Speaker 1: miles up with me to the moon a k A.
Speaker 1: Help me pay for materials and help me with the research.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is and one thing I love that
Speaker 1: you pointed out all that this wasn't all just pen
Speaker 1: and paper brainstorming. The interesting thing here is that some
Speaker 1: of this stuff made it to the experimentation phase he had.
Speaker 1: And I love this talk about goals for a house.
Speaker 1: He had an inventor's garden of all these cool gadgets
Speaker 1: and devices at the college when he was wardened, and
Speaker 1: they held things like here's here's the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: he ad in this garden, a talking statue, something called
Speaker 1: a rainbow maker, which I imagine is a prism. Right,
Speaker 1: that sounds right? That's so funny you say that. My
Speaker 1: girlfriend is a stained glass artist and one of her
Speaker 1: most popular items that she makes is something she calls
Speaker 1: a rainbow maker, and it's a glass kind of frame
Speaker 1: with a prism crystal hung in the middle. And actually
Speaker 1: have one of my window and it's the most lovely
Speaker 1: way to wake up in the morning with the morning
Speaker 1: sun streaming through and kind of splitting up into little
Speaker 1: like dancing rainbows all over the room. But yes, she
Speaker 1: literally calls them rainbow makers. That's so wholesome, man it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet that is. But that is amazing, especially depending
Speaker 1: on where your window is placed. And check out her
Speaker 1: work at Daylight glass Works on Instagram. Plug if that's okay, Oh,
Speaker 1: this guy is going for the boyfriend points. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do it. I got your back, all right? Cool? What
Speaker 1: was it a good I'll say it to Daylight glass Works.
Speaker 1: Daylight glass Works, you heard it here first, do check
Speaker 1: it out custom jobs whatever you want, you want it
Speaker 1: in stained glass, She's got you covered. And uh, the
Speaker 1: There are other inventions here. One that is very clever
Speaker 1: and I think is still fascinating to a lot of
Speaker 1: people today is a glass bee hive, so that you
Speaker 1: could see what goes on within the hive. That's so cool.
Speaker 1: So his buddy we mentioned earlier, Robert Hook, another natural philosopher,
Speaker 1: was also writing about experimenting with flying machines in the
Speaker 1: garden with John Wilkins. Unfortunately they didn't get too specific
Speaker 1: about it. Why did they not get too specific about it? Well,
Speaker 1: there there are two ways to think of this, folks.
Speaker 1: We'll give you both ways, and then you can choose
Speaker 1: which you like best. Uh. First, maybe it's because these
Speaker 1: experiments were unsuccessful, all right. Yeah. Secondly, maybe it worked
Speaker 1: too well. Maybe it worked so well that they were
Speaker 1: like Cromwell, can never know. We must we must save
Speaker 1: the world is not ready for base geese. We have
Speaker 1: to we have to keep people on the planet. Or
Speaker 1: maybe they went to the moon. They're like moon people
Speaker 1: are jerks. They took our moist sponges. Anyway, soon after
Speaker 1: these experiments, we know that Robert Hook stops focusing on
Speaker 1: space exploration and gets really into clocks. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know a lot like, like we said, a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that that the mechanics of designs like
Speaker 1: his flying chariot and other uh, you know, concepts certainly
Speaker 1: hinged on the kinds of electro mechanical you know, principles
Speaker 1: that would would serve a watchmaker. Uh. And so we
Speaker 1: we we all pretty much knew this was coming. Not
Speaker 1: too much of a surprise here. The flying chariot never
Speaker 1: really became a thing. It was not particularly destined to
Speaker 1: take wing uh for real zes um, science was moving
Speaker 1: ahead such an insane clip that Wilkins was a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea man, and this flying chariot, you know, was
Speaker 1: clever and definitely fantastical. By the time he was fifty
Speaker 1: years old, he had been left in the dust by
Speaker 1: the the up and coming class of scientists. In sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, he finally decided that it was just not possible.
Speaker 1: By sixteen fifty nine, research done by his friends Robert
Speaker 1: Boyle and Robert Hook actually led to the discovery of
Speaker 1: the vacuum uh and and then led to things like
Speaker 1: the vacuum two which we use today in electronics, and
Speaker 1: also just understanding how things work in a vacuum and
Speaker 1: that space itself is a vacuum and airless environment that
Speaker 1: would not be possible to inhabit without some technology that
Speaker 1: was way way above their weight class at this time, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly their weight less class. There, it is there, it
Speaker 1: is so so Wilkins. Wilkins doesn't make it to space
Speaker 1: in his corporeal form, but the charisma the guy had,
Speaker 1: the curiosity city he had really put him at the
Speaker 1: forefront of the scientific movement in England. And again, unless
Speaker 1: you're talking about space travel, nothing occurs in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: So the monarchy is restored. After Civil Wars sixteen sixty
Speaker 1: Wilkins Scientific Club is chartered as the Royal Society. It
Speaker 1: is still one of, if not the most prominent and
Speaker 1: auspicious scientific body in Great Britain. Wilkins becomes Bishop of
Speaker 1: Chester in sixteen sixty eight, and his pal Robert Hook
Speaker 1: becomes the greatest experimental physicists of the age. And as
Speaker 1: Wilkins continues his ongoing quest of discovery and innovation, he
Speaker 1: keeps thinking, I love you, said idea man. He keep
Speaker 1: thinking of new ideas. He's one of the people who says,
Speaker 1: why don't we make a universal language so everyone can
Speaker 1: talk to one another. Why don't we have get this, folks,
Speaker 1: a predecessor of encrypted personal messaging, which is nuts by
Speaker 1: the way that he even thought of this. He was like,
Speaker 1: let's make a signal cipher system so anybody can communicate
Speaker 1: their thoughts to a friend at any distance with privacy
Speaker 1: and speed. How nuts is that? How nuts is it
Speaker 1: for you to be sitting around in the mid to
Speaker 1: late sixteen hundreds and go, you know what I need
Speaker 1: to invent what text messaging? I need to invent signal?
Speaker 1: I need to invent the signal. Oh totally. And we
Speaker 1: did an episode around the New Year about Nikolai Tesla
Speaker 1: and his pals some of their predictions that, like you said,
Speaker 1: that is what science fiction is all about. It's about
Speaker 1: predicting what could be without maybe having the means to
Speaker 1: make it actually happen. And then so many people are
Speaker 1: inspired by these ideas, you know, like the idea of
Speaker 1: pocket communicators, you know from Star Track or whatever. Now
Speaker 1: that's just like everyday stuff. And we've talked about you know,
Speaker 1: um texts, avery cartoons like or Chuck Jones I always
Speaker 1: forget like Rocket Bye Baby, or like the you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of pop culture pop art depictions of the future, um,
Speaker 1: back in the fifties. So it's just very interesting to
Speaker 1: see these kind of idea people, these thinkers like uh,
Speaker 1: like Wilkins or you know, even people like Robert Heinlein,
Speaker 1: like authors that then um kind of postulate things that
Speaker 1: ultimately do come into being eventually. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: we buried the lead a little bit here. He coined
Speaker 1: the words cell in biology, in the in the in
Speaker 1: the discipline biology, and so he got a lot of
Speaker 1: street cred from other natural philosophers, his his pals in
Speaker 1: the club that became the Royal Society of Science. And
Speaker 1: even if we look back on everything he got wrong,
Speaker 1: what we see is a very self aware dude, because
Speaker 1: he was thinking in the right direction. Like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, learning which questions to ask is just as
Speaker 1: important as finding answers to questions, And a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff he wanted to do actually happened just much later
Speaker 1: than he would have liked. He said something really inspiring too,
Speaker 1: when he was talking about these these wild ass ideas
Speaker 1: of exploring space. He said, he pointed out, you know what, folks,
Speaker 1: we use boats and ships all the time, and the
Speaker 1: invention of ships at one time seemed impossible to the
Speaker 1: people who first conceived them. And quote none but the
Speaker 1: bold daring men Durst adventure, we have no just reason
Speaker 1: to be discouraged in our hopes of the like success.
Speaker 1: So he's like, we built ships on the ocean, why
Speaker 1: can't we get ships in the you know? And I
Speaker 1: think this is what inspired um, the guy who later
Speaker 1: took the stage name Fred Durst. He's he's been making
Speaker 1: a new career for himself as a hack director. Really,
Speaker 1: I saw I saw him as an actor in a
Speaker 1: in a horror film I watched a while back, and
Speaker 1: it was stuff to recognize him. So he's a director, huh, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you could put that in quote fingers.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I haven't seen his work, to be fair,
Speaker 1: but casey he might be where he made a movie
Speaker 1: called I think the what was that, The Fan or
Speaker 1: the Stalker something like that. John Travolta is in it,
Speaker 1: and he basically plays a let's just say, developmentally disabled
Speaker 1: fan of an actor who then goes full psycho and
Speaker 1: home invades him and tortures him and ties him to
Speaker 1: a chair. And just the clips of it that I've seen,
Speaker 1: it's like, Wow, John Travolta, you really really went for that,
Speaker 1: and fred Durst, you really pushed him to go for that.
Speaker 1: So I can't really support that casey, you know I'm
Speaker 1: talking about it looked rough. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't
Speaker 1: go beyond just a few clips here there. But it
Speaker 1: looks like a future Camp classic maybe Okay, well not
Speaker 1: not every trivol To joint can reach the caliber battlefield Earth.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just that's just the reality of the business.
Speaker 1: But fred Durst decide John Wilkins is really inspiring. You know,
Speaker 1: if we wanted to put it in perspective, we could
Speaker 1: say that they belong to a sort of honeymoon era
Speaker 1: of science. Enough stuff had been discovered again by Europeans.
Speaker 1: Is very Eurocentric. To open up all kinds of wonderful possibilities.
Speaker 1: We knew that things we had thought were impossible we're achievable,
Speaker 1: and now we just had to figure out what else
Speaker 1: we could do. And and Wilkins, his likability, his genial nature,
Speaker 1: I think stood the test of time because if you
Speaker 1: look in one of his books, The Discovery, it ends
Speaker 1: with him making a humble prediction where he says, you know,
Speaker 1: posterity is probably going to be surprised by how ignorant
Speaker 1: me and all my friends are today. It's uh it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it comes at the end of some
Speaker 1: very mistaken beliefs about the moon. He's basically he's saying,
Speaker 1: even if I'm wrong, I'm trying and other people should
Speaker 1: try to right. That's cool. I think that's so approachable.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to hang out with him. I
Speaker 1: do not want to hang out with his brother in
Speaker 1: law again. It seems like Oliver Cromwell seems intense. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as you keep the space geese uh safely
Speaker 1: distanced from me, I would be down to hang as well.
Speaker 1: And with that, with our final shout outs to space geeks,
Speaker 1: this concludes our two part series Space Geeks and Geese. Yes,
Speaker 1: Geeks and Geese, I'll honk to that. So this concludes
Speaker 1: our two part series All had the Life, Times and
Speaker 1: uh Dreams of John Wilkins. We hope that you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: We hope that anybody listening to this who is maybe
Speaker 1: you know, if you're young, you want to go to
Speaker 1: space camp, we hope you get a chance to. If
Speaker 1: your parents want to send a kid to space camp.
Speaker 1: We hope you get a chance to if you're if
Speaker 1: you're listening right now, and let's say you know you're
Speaker 1: a middle schooler or a high school or something, believe us,
Speaker 1: you totally can be an astronaut. I guarantee you. John
Speaker 1: Wilkins would want you to. Isn't that is that off base?
Speaker 1: Do you think that works? No? No, And not to
Speaker 1: mention the opportunities newly available opportunities perhaps that we're going
Speaker 1: to see moving forward with the Space Force. I know
Speaker 1: we probably ragged on that a little bit when it
Speaker 1: first came out for reasons, um, but you know now
Speaker 1: it's it's it's actually moving forward, and it seems like
Speaker 1: there's some opportunities for some budding space enthusiasts to get involved.
Speaker 1: And please let us know about your adventures and your endeavors.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Casey pegram Thinks
Speaker 1: as well to Christopher Hassiotis and Eve's Jeff co Huge
Speaker 1: thanks to Gabe Luzier, researcher extraordinary, Jonathan Strickling, the quister
Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed our theme, and Ben, thanks to
Speaker 1: you for being a friend and always being there and
Speaker 1: protecting me. From the Space Geese back at you knowl
Speaker 1: Here's to the Moon, to the Moon, Let's see you
Speaker 1: next time. Fox. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.