0:00

Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart

0:02

Radio. Welcome

0:28

back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as

0:30

always so much for tuning in. This

0:33

is part two of our exploration

0:36

of a little known astronaut

0:38

program back in the sixteen

0:40

hundreds. Yes, that entire sentence

0:43

sounds bananas, but we assure you

0:45

it is factual. Please

0:47

listen to the first part of this

0:49

series before you proceed onto episode

0:52

two. I think that's all our housekeeping. Noal,

0:54

yournal, I am Noal, and you are Ben.

0:57

And if I may be so bold, I think we're ready to dive

0:59

on in in his defense.

1:01

In defense of this nascent space program,

1:04

we should point out astronomers

1:07

of this time, like around sixteen forty

1:09

years so, they knew how far away the

1:11

moon was, right they did.

1:14

They knew it pretty accurately

1:16

by today's standards. Um, so

1:20

they could kind of plot out what

1:22

this trip might look like. If

1:24

they, you know, made it a little more

1:26

routine, it would probably take several weeks.

1:28

And this made sense to them at the

1:31

time because they were used

1:33

to those kinds of really long, arduous

1:35

tracks because of ocean voyages. And

1:39

there's also a tinge

1:41

of capitalism here, not a small

1:44

tinge by any means, because

1:46

Wilkins is thinking, okay,

1:49

assuming all this works. There are a

1:51

lot of ifs Wilkins reasoning here,

1:53

but John's thinking, Okay, if

1:55

this works, will we meet inhabitants

1:58

on the moon. You'll see if you read

2:00

his stuff, you'll see that he called them Selenites

2:04

based on the name the Greek moon

2:06

got us Lean and he was like, Okay, if we

2:08

meet these people on the moon, hey,

2:10

we might be able to sell them stuff. We

2:13

could establish a moon trade, a

2:16

mean trade. I love it. In

2:18

this history extra article that we've

2:20

been digging into, they referred

2:22

to this as a quote lucrative celestial

2:25

markets, right exactly.

2:28

I love that. I love that. That was probably

2:30

part of the pitch. You know, he's like

2:32

he's telling aristocrats and royalty

2:35

about how we could do this, and then he

2:37

all that's his But wait, there's more moment,

2:40

you know. I mean, it's it's very

2:42

charming, especially when you read it now. But it's sort

2:44

of the same thing we talked about when we're

2:47

like, okay, if there was like the singularity

2:50

or like you know, beings from

2:52

another dimension or another you know, um

2:54

planet, far far far away from us

2:56

came we would have no reference for

2:58

communication, We would have no shared

3:01

anything. You know, we couldn't possibly assume

3:03

that we would. I guess maybe the moon's close enough

3:06

that they could be receiving our you know

3:08

nowadays, you know television transmissions

3:10

like in that episode of Pete and Pete about Johnny Unitis,

3:13

remember that one classic episode. Um,

3:16

but yeah, this is a very uh

3:18

again geocentric kind of view

3:20

of the world. These merchants would be so full

3:23

of themselves that they believe that they would have anything

3:25

to offer Moon people, right right,

3:27

you know, moon people would have

3:29

contacted us if they wanted something shortly.

3:32

Also, before we let's get in front

3:34

of the bad, very dark

3:36

humor here. Uh, this is

3:39

before the opium

3:41

trade is really blossoming. If

3:43

this had occurred a little bit later, eighteen

3:46

nineteen centuries, then I'm sure

3:48

that Wilkins would have said, and we

3:51

can sell the moon people opium,

3:53

because that was that was very much

3:55

a British push for a time. Anyway, his

3:57

ideas had a few beautiful things about

4:00

them. They're optimistic, Yes, they're

4:02

plausible. Yes, he's taking

4:05

the knowledge of space, gravity,

4:07

human biology, all the stuff that's available

4:10

at the time, he is making a good faith effort

4:12

to do due diligence. Also,

4:17

I said he was also super

4:19

open minded, which I think is a point

4:21

you raised earlier in the episode. Nod like he

4:24

he wanted the truth, he wanted the

4:26

correct answers. His ego was not

4:30

taking precedent over facts. Like

4:32

he if someone else said, um,

4:36

well hey John, you know, I like what

4:38

you're saying about blah blah blah, but what

4:40

about this idea, then he would hear

4:42

them out. He was very much crowdsourcing

4:44

this and he had

4:47

a different He had

4:49

a different take on different things at different times

4:51

as new information came in and was available.

4:54

Like originally, I believe he

4:57

someone asked him how

4:59

these asked for notts would

5:01

eat while they're in space, right, It's

5:03

not like they can go hunting. It's

5:05

probably not a good look to shoot moon people

5:07

if you land, and he had

5:09

an interesting pitch some I I didn't

5:12

think of. I know how

5:14

weird this sounds today, but he said,

5:17

well, the we have to

5:19

understand the space travelers

5:21

are not going to be subject to gravity

5:24

at this point, so quote,

5:26

we shall not at all spend ourselves

5:28

in any labor and consequently

5:30

not much need the reparation of

5:33

diet, but may perhaps live

5:35

all together without it. So he's like,

5:38

you're floating, you're not working against gravity,

5:40

you don't have to eat. This would also prove

5:43

to be incorrect. Shout out to dehydrated

5:45

ice cream and space. You know in Deadwood,

5:47

how they often

5:49

refer to the Chinese as celestials

5:53

like a like a racial slur. What

5:55

do you think it has anything to do with this idea

5:57

of moon of like aliens or

6:00

them, like you know, co opting that term for

6:03

spacemen and just you know, talking about

6:05

like these weird Chinese people that might as

6:07

well be from another planet and calling them celestials.

6:09

Yeah, it comes from

6:11

an old name that was used to refer

6:13

to China as the Celestial

6:16

Empire. It was sometimes called which

6:19

is a translation of

6:22

an an older name for the

6:25

region in the country, which I believe is jan

6:27

Chow. Interesting, Okay, that makes

6:29

sense, but still, you know, even even

6:32

referring to it as the Celestial

6:34

Empire implied some level

6:37

of mothering of almost

6:39

like putting them in the same boat as say, people

6:41

from another planet. Exactly. Yeah,

6:43

that's a good point. This is coming

6:46

from the perspective of can

6:48

we extend an empire? Here

6:51

he found this story

6:53

of a German person who

6:56

apparently slept throughout the entire

6:58

winter, hibernating essentially,

7:01

and new research in our modern day

7:03

proves that there is there

7:06

is a possibility to create um

7:08

the circumstances for human hibernation.

7:12

But he also, you know, again,

7:14

I can emphasize this enough. He's working with the

7:16

information he has at the time, and he says,

7:19

look, there are reports that I believe prove

7:21

human beings can indeed hibernate

7:24

the way mammals like bears do, And

7:28

he's and so maybe they can just sleep

7:30

right sleep the moon voyage

7:33

away and not have to eat and

7:35

I have to breathe, etcetera. He

7:38

did say he did put a little caveat in there,

7:41

well, olive branch to the haters, and he

7:43

said, if none of these ideas convince

7:45

you, there may happily be some possible

7:48

means for the conveyance of other food.

7:50

And he's like, all right, if you guys are gonna be divas

7:53

about it, I guess we can pack

7:55

some lunches, is how I took it.

8:02

So it's kind of nuts

8:05

that Wilkins is making

8:08

all this progress, and it is progress. This

8:10

ideation is solid. Uh. It's

8:12

it's nuts that he's able to do it, especially

8:15

given the widespread turmoil in England

8:17

at the time. Again, in

8:19

sixty two, the English Civil

8:22

War began. It led to the abolition

8:24

of the Anglican Church. The king

8:26

was beheaded. Oliver Cromwell

8:28

became Lord Protector as a result

8:30

of these events, and that's when Wilkins

8:34

marries uh Robina,

8:36

Oliver Cromwell's younger sister, and

8:39

he becomes the brother

8:41

in law of Cromwell,

8:44

who was at this time you know, it was at a

8:46

time, um, therefore a time he has temporarily

8:49

removed the royal family from

8:51

power. And I think, I think,

8:53

in my mind, I just think of him as being a very

8:56

heavy handed ruler, um who

8:58

was also a better a zealot, isn't

9:01

that right? Well, he definitely

9:03

had a reputation, as

9:06

as we said, as an intense dude, a

9:08

harsh ruler. He was to

9:10

your point, a religious hardliner.

9:13

Uh. He does have a real legacy

9:15

though. A fun weird fact,

9:18

there are more roads named

9:20

after Cromwell than any other

9:23

British ruler other than Queen Victoria.

9:26

It's like there's I'm sure they're like

9:28

Cromwell Ladies, Cromwell Uh,

9:32

Cromwell Street. That's an easy one. British

9:34

listeners, please let us know how

9:37

Cromwell's legacy affects

9:39

your neck of the global woods.

9:43

Here's the here's the thing. That's why I keep bringing up League

9:45

of Extraordinary Gentleman or maybe Ozamandius

9:48

and his explorations and The Watchman, the

9:51

HBO series. No spoilers, it's cool.

9:53

Check it out. Uh. When he

9:55

is warden of Wadham College,

9:58

Oxford between sixteen forty

10:00

eight and uh, just before sixteen

10:02

sixty, Wilkins gets

10:05

his crew together. He assembles

10:07

a club of scientific friends

10:10

and like it's kind of like a salon. It's

10:13

kind of like a a think

10:15

tank. You know, if they were,

10:18

if they were getting together in a different time,

10:20

they might have made a podcast. I don't

10:22

know. I just I loved I love that approach

10:24

where he's like, fellow

10:27

will to do intellectuals. You

10:29

come, we should sup on moist

10:32

sponge and you speculate

10:34

on the exploration of the mean. It's

10:37

just for comfort, bad, It's just just a it's

10:39

a sponge sponge your way to comfort. I

10:42

don't quite understand how that works, just

10:44

to like what you're what you're the nape

10:46

of your neck or something to keep a

10:48

little maybe, Yeah, it's kind of how

10:50

you suck on the sponge. I'm confused about

10:53

the implementation of the sponge. So

10:56

why are we mentioning the idea of

10:58

Wilkins pitching stuff. Well,

11:00

it's because it turns out that he

11:03

kind of was, like if you look

11:05

at his books, you might

11:07

agree with science. His story named

11:10

Dr Alan Chapman, who says

11:12

that his earlier

11:14

works especially read

11:16

kind of like a proposal to investors,

11:19

like, hey, get in on the ground

11:21

floor and then go twenty

11:23

miles up with me to the moon a

11:26

k A. Help me pay for materials

11:28

and help me with the research. The

11:31

interesting thing is and one thing I love

11:33

that you pointed out all that this wasn't all just

11:35

pen and paper brainstorming.

11:38

The interesting thing here is that some

11:40

of this stuff made it to the

11:43

experimentation phase he

11:45

had. And I love this talk about

11:47

goals for a house. He had an

11:50

inventor's garden of all

11:52

these cool gadgets and devices

11:54

at the college when he was wardened, and

11:57

they held things like here's here's the kind

11:59

of stuff he ad in this garden, a talking

12:01

statue, something called a rainbow

12:04

maker, which I imagine is a prism.

12:06

Right, that sounds right? That's so funny you

12:08

say that. My girlfriend is a stained

12:11

glass artist and one of her most

12:13

popular items that she makes is something she calls

12:15

a rainbow maker, and it's a glass

12:17

kind of frame with a prism crystal

12:20

hung in the middle. And actually have one of my window

12:22

and it's the most lovely way to wake up in the morning with

12:24

the morning sun streaming through and kind of

12:26

splitting up into little like dancing

12:29

rainbows all over the room. But yes, she literally calls them

12:31

rainbow makers. That's so wholesome, man

12:33

it. Yeah, I bet that is. But that is amazing,

12:35

especially depending on where your window is placed.

12:37

And check out her work at Daylight glass Works

12:39

on Instagram. Plug if that's okay, Oh,

12:42

this guy is going for the boyfriend points. Yeah,

12:44

let's do it. I got your back, all right? Cool?

12:46

What was it a good I'll say it to Daylight

12:48

glass Works. Daylight glass Works,

12:51

you heard it here first, do check it out custom

12:53

jobs whatever you want, you want it in stained glass,

12:55

She's got you covered. And

12:58

uh, the There are other inventions

13:01

here. One that is very clever and

13:03

I think is still fascinating to a lot of people

13:05

today is a glass bee hive, so

13:08

that you could see what goes on within the

13:10

hive. That's so cool. So

13:12

his buddy we mentioned earlier, Robert Hook,

13:15

another natural philosopher, was

13:17

also writing about experimenting with flying

13:20

machines in the garden with

13:22

John Wilkins. Unfortunately

13:26

they didn't get too specific

13:28

about it. Why did

13:30

they not get too specific about it? Well,

13:32

there there are two ways to think

13:35

of this, folks. We'll give you both

13:37

ways, and then you can choose which you like best. Uh.

13:40

First, maybe it's because

13:42

these experiments were unsuccessful, all

13:45

right. Yeah. Secondly, maybe

13:48

it worked too well. Maybe

13:50

it worked so well that they were like Cromwell,

13:53

can never know. We must we

13:56

must save the

13:58

world is not ready for base geese. We

14:01

have to we have to keep people on the planet.

14:03

Or maybe they went to the moon. They're like moon people

14:05

are jerks. They took our moist

14:07

sponges. Anyway,

14:09

soon after these experiments, we know

14:12

that Robert Hook stops

14:14

focusing on space exploration and

14:16

gets really into clocks. Yeah, I

14:18

mean, you know a lot like, like we said, a lot of the things

14:20

that that the mechanics

14:22

of designs like his flying chariot

14:25

and other uh, you know, concepts

14:28

certainly hinged on the kinds

14:30

of electro mechanical you

14:32

know, principles that would would serve a watchmaker.

14:35

Uh. And so we we we all pretty much knew this

14:37

was coming. Not too much of a surprise

14:39

here. The flying chariot never really

14:42

became a thing. It was not particularly

14:44

destined to take wing uh

14:47

for real zes um, science

14:49

was moving ahead such an

14:51

insane clip that Wilkins

14:54

was a pretty good idea man, and this

14:56

flying chariot, you know, was

14:59

clever and definitely fantastical.

15:01

By the time he was fifty years old, he

15:03

had been left in the dust by the

15:06

the up and coming class

15:08

of scientists. In sixteen sixty four,

15:11

he finally decided that it was just

15:13

not possible. By sixteen fifty nine,

15:16

research done by his friends Robert

15:18

Boyle and Robert Hook actually led

15:20

to the discovery of the vacuum uh

15:22

and and then led to things like the vacuum two

15:24

which we use today in electronics,

15:26

and also just understanding how

15:29

things work in a vacuum and that space

15:32

itself is a vacuum and airless

15:35

environment that would not be possible

15:38

to inhabit without some technology

15:40

that was way way above their weight

15:42

class at this time, right, yeah,

15:44

exactly their weight less class. There,

15:47

it is there, it is so

15:50

so Wilkins. Wilkins

15:52

doesn't make it to space in

15:54

his corporeal form, but

15:57

the charisma the guy had, the curiosity

16:00

city he had really

16:02

put him at the forefront of

16:05

the scientific movement in England.

16:08

And again, unless you're talking about space travel,

16:10

nothing occurs in a vacuum.

16:17

So the monarchy is restored.

16:20

After Civil Wars sixteen

16:22

sixty Wilkins

16:25

Scientific Club is

16:27

chartered as the Royal Society.

16:29

It is still one of, if not the

16:32

most prominent and auspicious

16:34

scientific body in Great Britain.

16:37

Wilkins becomes Bishop of Chester

16:40

in sixteen sixty eight, and

16:42

his pal Robert Hook becomes

16:45

the greatest experimental physicists

16:48

of the age. And as Wilkins

16:51

continues his ongoing

16:54

quest of discovery and innovation,

16:57

he keeps thinking, I love you, said idea

16:59

man. He keep thinking of new ideas.

17:01

He's one of the people who says, why don't we make

17:04

a universal language so everyone

17:06

can talk to one another. Why don't we have

17:09

get this, folks, a predecessor

17:11

of encrypted personal messaging,

17:14

which is nuts by the way

17:16

that he even thought of this. He

17:19

was like, let's make a signal cipher system

17:22

so anybody can communicate

17:24

their thoughts to a friend at

17:26

any distance with privacy

17:29

and speed. How nuts is that? How

17:31

nuts is it for you to be sitting around

17:34

in the mid to late sixteen hundreds and

17:36

go, you know what I need to invent what

17:39

text messaging? I need to invent signal?

17:41

I need to invent the signal. Oh totally. And we

17:44

did an episode around the New Year about

17:46

Nikolai Tesla and his pals

17:48

some of their predictions that, like

17:50

you said, that is what science

17:52

fiction is all about. It's about predicting

17:55

what could be without maybe having the means

17:57

to make it actually happen. And

17:59

then so many people are inspired by these ideas,

18:02

you know, like the idea of pocket communicators,

18:04

you know from Star Track or whatever. Now

18:06

that's just like everyday stuff. And we've talked

18:08

about you know, um texts,

18:10

avery cartoons like or

18:13

Chuck Jones I always forget like Rocket Bye

18:15

Baby, or like the you know, the

18:17

kind of pop culture pop

18:19

art depictions of the future, um,

18:22

back in the fifties. So it's

18:24

just very interesting to see these kind

18:26

of idea people, these thinkers

18:28

like uh, like Wilkins or

18:30

you know, even people like Robert Heinlein, like authors

18:33

that then um kind of postulate

18:35

things that ultimately do come into being

18:38

eventually. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

18:41

And we buried the lead a little

18:43

bit here. He coined

18:45

the words cell in biology,

18:48

in the in the in the discipline biology,

18:50

and so he got a lot of street cred from

18:52

other natural philosophers, his

18:54

his pals in the club that became the Royal

18:57

Society of Science. And even

18:59

if we look back on everything

19:02

he got wrong, what we see is

19:05

a very self aware dude,

19:08

because he was thinking

19:10

in the right direction. Like I said earlier,

19:13

you know, learning which questions to ask

19:15

is just as important as

19:18

finding answers to questions, And

19:20

a lot of stuff he wanted to do actually

19:22

happened just much later

19:25

than he would have liked.

19:27

He said something really inspiring too,

19:30

when he was talking about

19:32

these these wild ass ideas

19:34

of exploring space. He said, he pointed

19:36

out, you know what, folks, we

19:39

use boats and ships all the time, and

19:41

the invention of ships at one time

19:43

seemed impossible to the people who first

19:46

conceived them. And quote none

19:48

but the bold daring men Durst

19:50

adventure, we have no just reason

19:53

to be discouraged in our hopes of

19:55

the like success. So he's like, we built

19:57

ships on the ocean, why can't we get

19:59

ships in the you know? And

20:01

I think this is what inspired um,

20:04

the guy who later took the stage name Fred

20:06

Durst. He's he's

20:08

been making a new career for himself as

20:11

a hack director. Really, I saw

20:13

I saw him as an actor in a in

20:16

a horror film I watched a while back, and it was stuff

20:18

to recognize him. So he's a director, huh, well,

20:20

I mean, you know, you could put that in quote fingers. I'm not

20:22

sure. I haven't seen his work, to be fair, but casey

20:25

he might be where he made a movie called I think

20:27

the what was that, The Fan or the

20:29

Stalker something like that. John Travolta

20:31

is in it, and he basically plays a let's

20:34

just say, developmentally disabled fan

20:37

of an actor who then goes full

20:40

psycho and home invades him and

20:42

tortures him and ties him to a chair. And

20:45

just the clips of it that I've seen, it's like, Wow,

20:47

John Travolta, you really really

20:49

went for that, and fred Durst, you really pushed

20:52

him to go for that. So I can't really support

20:54

that casey, you know I'm talking about it

20:56

looked rough. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't

20:58

go beyond just a few clips here there. But it

21:00

looks like a future Camp classic maybe

21:03

Okay, well not not every trivol To

21:05

joint can reach the caliber battlefield

21:08

Earth. You know, that's just that's

21:10

just the reality of the business. But

21:13

fred Durst decide John Wilkins is really

21:15

inspiring. You know, if we wanted to put

21:17

it in perspective, we could say that

21:21

they belong to a sort of

21:23

honeymoon era of science.

21:26

Enough stuff had been discovered

21:29

again by Europeans. Is very Eurocentric.

21:32

To open up all kinds of wonderful

21:34

possibilities. We

21:37

knew that things

21:39

we had thought were impossible we're

21:42

achievable, and now we just

21:44

had to figure out what else we

21:46

could do. And and Wilkins,

21:50

his likability, his genial nature,

21:52

I think stood the test of time because

21:54

if you look in one of his

21:56

books, The Discovery, it

21:59

ends with him making a humble

22:01

prediction where he says, you

22:04

know, posterity is probably

22:06

going to be surprised by how ignorant

22:09

me and all my friends are today.

22:12

It's uh it, and you

22:14

know, it comes at the end of some very mistaken

22:16

beliefs about the moon. He's

22:19

basically he's saying, even if I'm

22:21

wrong, I'm trying

22:24

and other people should try to right.

22:27

That's cool. I think that's so approachable.

22:29

I kind of want to hang out with him. I do not want to hang

22:31

out with his brother in law again. It

22:34

seems like Oliver Cromwell seems

22:36

intense. Oh yeah, as long as you keep the space

22:38

geese uh safely distanced

22:41

from me, I would be down to hang as well. And

22:50

with that, with our final

22:52

shout outs to space geeks, this concludes

22:55

our two part series Space

22:57

Geeks and Geese. Yes,

23:00

Geeks and Geese, I'll honk to that.

23:02

So this concludes our

23:04

two part series All had the Life,

23:07

Times and uh Dreams

23:10

of John Wilkins. We hope

23:12

that you enjoyed it. We hope

23:15

that anybody listening to this who

23:17

is maybe you know, if you're young,

23:20

you want to go to space camp, we

23:22

hope you get a chance to. If your parents want

23:24

to send a kid to space camp. We hope you get a

23:26

chance to if you're if you're

23:28

listening right now, and let's say

23:30

you know you're a middle schooler

23:32

or a high school or something, believe

23:35

us, you totally can be an astronaut.

23:37

I guarantee you. John Wilkins would want

23:39

you to. Isn't that is that off base?

23:41

Do you think that works? No? No, And not

23:43

to mention the opportunities newly available

23:46

opportunities perhaps that we're going to see moving

23:48

forward with the Space Force. I know we

23:51

probably ragged on that a little bit when it first came out

23:53

for reasons, um, but you know now

23:55

it's it's it's actually moving forward, and it

23:57

seems like there's some opportunities for some budding space

24:00

enthusiasts to get involved. And

24:02

please let us know about your adventures

24:05

and your endeavors. Thanks as always

24:07

to our super producer Casey

24:09

pegram Thinks as well to Christopher

24:11

Hassiotis and Eve's Jeff co Huge

24:14

thanks to Gabe Luzier, researcher extraordinary,

24:16

Jonathan Strickling, the quister Alex Williams

24:18

who composed our theme, and

24:20

Ben, thanks to you for being

24:23

a friend and always being there and protecting

24:25

me. From the Space Geese back at you

24:27

knowl Here's to the Moon, to

24:29

the Moon, Let's see

24:31

you next time. Fox. For

24:42

more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

24:44

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

24:47

listen to your favorite shows.