tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/amateurs-27814/articlesAmateurs – The Conversation2021-08-16T12:09:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642992021-08-16T12:09:09Z2021-08-16T12:09:09ZHow a volcano and flaming red sunsets led an amateur scientist in Hawaii to discover jet streams<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414701/original/file-20210804-13508-4zcdw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C14%2C1001%2C491&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 sent volcanic dust and gases circling the Earth, creating spectacular sunsets captured by artists.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa#/media/File:Houghton_71-1250_-_Krakatoa,_twilight_and_afterglow.jpg">William Ashcroft via Houghton Library/Harvard University</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the evening of Sept. 5, 1883, people in Honolulu witnessed a spectacular sunset followed by a period of extended twilight described as a “<a href="https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/14502/1/1883092201.pdf#page=4">singular lurid after sunset glow</a>.” There were no signs of anything else out of the ordinary, but these exceptional twilight glows returned each morning and evening over the following weeks.</p>
<p>Among the mystified Honolulu citizens was 56-year-old <a href="https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesofo00bish/page/4/mode/2up">Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop</a>, who in his varied career in Hawaii had been a chaplain, school principal and surveyor, and who had a keen interest in science. Over the subsequent weeks and months, the exceptional twilight glows occurred around the whole globe. Remarkably, as scientists first grappled with understanding the origin of the twilight glows, Bishop’s efforts would lead to the first convincing explanation. </p>
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<img alt="Profile photo of Bishop with a beard and glasses and wearing a suit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=718&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411159/original/file-20210714-25-yq4tfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop (1827–1909)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sereno_Edwards_Bishop#/media/File:Sereno_E._Bishop.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>His discoveries led to scientific investigations of the winds high above the ground and ultimately yielded information that today is used to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-008-0379-5">forecast weather over extended periods</a>.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/kph/">meteorologist</a> in Hawaii who helped revive appreciation of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07055900.2011.639736">Bishop’s seminal contribution</a> to the scientific exploration of the upper atmosphere.</p>
<h2>A volcanic eruption half a world away</h2>
<p>Today we know that the 1883 glows were caused by the sun below the visible horizon illuminating a mist of <a href="https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/volcanoes-turn-twilights-purple/">small liquid droplets in the atmosphere</a> high above the ground.</p>
<p>The mist was made of sulfuric acid droplets that were formed by reactions of the massive amounts of sulfur dioxide gas produced by the explosive eruption of Mount Krakatoa close to the equator in Indonesia on Aug. 27, 1883. The eruption sent the droplets high into the atmosphere, where the winds transported them around the world. They spread gradually, and it was November before people in <a href="http://www.simonwinchester.com/krakatoa">London</a> began to notice the glow.</p>
<p>Much later, scientists observed <a href="http://www.dewbow.co.uk/glows/sunset5.html">similar effects</a> after the June 1991 <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/self/">eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines</a>. The material Pinatubo injected into the upper atmosphere could be followed in detail with satellite observations, and their connection with spectacular sunsets and twilight glows was <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/self/">clearly established</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414683/original/file-20210804-27-qb2zwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sketches of twilight and afterglow on one evening in 1883 in London following the Krakatoa eruption.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Ashcroft via Houghton Library/Harvard University</span></span>
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<p>In 1883, Bishop had no idea that there had been a volcanic eruption until the San Francisco newspapers arrived. Very quickly, he formulated a hypothesis that he published as <a href="https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/14502/1/1883092201.pdf#page=4">a letter</a> in his <a href="https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/14502/1/1883092201.pdf">local newspaper</a>.</p>
<p>“I am disposed to conjecture that some very light element among the vapors of the Java eruptions has continued at a very great height in the atmosphere, and has been borne … across the Pacific into this region,” Bishop wrote.</p>
<p>He realized that he could connect the eruption to the glowing skies most credibly by gathering reports of the first appearance of the glows elsewhere and tracking the initial spread of the “vapor” from Krakatoa. Bishop continued his letter: “I earnestly invite, in behalf of science, all shipmasters and mates to publish what they may have observed at sea.”</p>
<p>Bishop assembled a dozen such reports over the first three weeks after the eruption and was able to show that the “vapor” that produced the glows had moved westward from Krakatoa, along the equator to reach Honolulu 10 days later. This implied that there was a wind high in the atmosphere blowing steadily with an extreme speed that, at ground level, is seen only in hurricanes.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414682/original/file-20210804-13-1iv4fpx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracking the red sunsets following the Krakatoa eruption. The stars mark the initial reports and dates of seeing the exceptional twilight colors in 1883.</span>
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<p>Bishop <a href="https://ia800604.us.archive.org/25/items/afw8023.0001.001.umich.edu/afw8023.0001.001.umich.edu.pdf#page=122">published his observations</a> in <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=hawaiianmonthly">The Hawaiian Monthly</a>, concluding that there was “a vast stream of smoke due west with great precision along a narrow equatorial belt with an enormous velocity, around the globe.”</p>
<h2>The equatorial jet stream</h2>
<p>Bishop called the motion of the volcanic aerosol a “smoke stream.” In fact, the equatorial winds transporting the aerosol were the first discovery of what meteorologists now call a jet stream. </p>
<p>A half-century would pass before the experiences of pilots flying at heights of several miles revealed the <a href="http://scihi.org/wiley-post-jetstream/">existence of the extratropical jet streams</a> lower down in the atmosphere that are now familiar from TV newscasts. Jet streams are strong, typically narrow bands of wind. The more familiar lower atmospheric jet streams move weather systems in the middle latitudes from west to east. By contrast, Bishop’s jet stream circles the equator at high altitudes and actually can blow from east to west.</p>
<p>Bishop’s work opened further exploration of the equatorial jet stream that culminated in the <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JZ066i003p00813">1961 discovery</a> that the equatorial jet stream varied from strong east winds to strong west winds roughly every other year. This so-called <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999RG000073">Quasi-biennial Oscillation</a> has been shown to <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD011737">connect with weather near the ground</a>, particularly in Europe and the North Atlantic, a fact that is now routinely <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/atmosphere/quasi-biennial-oscillation">exploited in making long range forecasts for the weather</a>.</p>
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<p>Bishop’s contribution was <a href="https://archive.org/details/eruptionkrakato00whipgoog/page/n18/mode/2up">acknowledged</a> by the <a href="https://archive.org/details/eruptionkrakato00whipgoog/page/n12/mode/2up">scientists who first followed him,</a> and he won a prize from New York’s Warner Observatory in a contest for <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/045422a0">essays explaining the post-Krakatoa glows</a>. Bishop even merited a brief <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/downloadpdf/journals/mwre/37/2/1520-0493_1909_37_47b_dsb_2_0_co_2.pdf">obituary</a> in an American meteorological science journal.</p>
<p>Bishop, who was the son of missionaries, could also be a divisive figure in Hawaii. He supported the U.S. annexation of the islands, and his religious views opposed some native Hawai'ian traditions, <a href="http://www.ulukau.org/elib/cgi-bin/library?e=d-0voicesofeden-000Sec--11en-50-20-contact-book--1-010escapewin&a=d&d=D0.18&toc=0">such as the hula dance</a>. His contributions to science were largely forgotten in the 20th century.</p>
<p>An international scientific committee’s celebration of the <a href="https://www.sparc-climate.org/meetings/qbo60-celebrating-60-years-of-discovery-within-the-tropical-stratosphere/">60th anniversary of the Quasi-biennial Oscillation discovery</a> is an opportunity to <a href="http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/kph/zoom_0.mp4">remember Bishop</a> and his discovery.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Rev. Sereno Edwards Bishop mobilized ship captains to track the extraordinary sunsets appearing around the world after Krakatau erupted in 1883.Kevin Hamilton, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of HawaiiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1462792020-11-30T13:32:10Z2020-11-30T13:32:10ZNCAA amateurism appears immune to COVID-19 – despite tide in public support for paying athletes having turned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360086/original/file-20200925-20-1m08bc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C17%2C2964%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pandemic has laid bare just how few economic rights college athletes possess.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SpecialTeamsWoesFootball/6555e8056ffc46b2a0a1c1ef83a0d382/photo?Query=college%20AND%20football&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=357974&currentItemNo=97">AP Photo/Keith Srakocic</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite the coronavirus pandemic, college sports have <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29036650/the-coronavirus-college-sports-ncaa-reopening-plans-latest-news-program-cuts-more">mostly</a> chugged along – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/college-football-denial/617225/">albeit with cancellations, postponements and pauses in play</a>.</p>
<p>While many college athletes <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/grateful---players-celebrate-big-tens-reversal-on-season/2020/09/18/6b92e498-f9fd-11ea-85f7-5941188a98cd_story.html">are grateful</a> for the opportunity to compete, the pandemic has laid bare just how <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/college-football-unpaid-stars-with-no-power">few basic rights</a> they possess. College athletes are navigating this <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29036650/the-coronavirus-college-sports-ncaa-reopening-plans-latest-news-program-cuts-more">strange sports season with increased health risks</a>, but <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/03/college-football-coronavirus-athletes?CMP=share_btn_tw">with little leverage or say about the conditions under which they’ll play</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, their professional counterparts in leagues such as the NBA, WNBA, MLB and NFL, thanks to their respective unions, actively negotiated <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/nneka-ogwumike-and-the-wnbas-big-complicated-moment">special accommodations</a>, <a href="https://nba.nbcsports.com/2020/06/05/nba-players-union-approves-22-team-format-restart-of-season/">health measures</a>, <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/timeline-on-how-mlb-season-has-been-pushed-to-the-brink-coronavirus-013338726.html">truncated seasons</a> and <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/list-of-nfl-players-to-opt-out-of-2020-season">the ability to opt out of playing</a>. They also continually negotiate their <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/17/nba-nbapa-pay-cut-agreement-coronavirus">economic rights</a>, such as how their sport’s revenue is split up and the minimum and maximum amounts that players may be paid. </p>
<p>Will this unusual season be the one that finally compels the NCAA to grant players broad economic rights, too?</p>
<p>The public, it seems, is increasingly on board.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2020-0015">newly published study</a> I conducted with Ohio University sports management professor Dave Ridpath, the tide in public opinion – at least when it comes to pay – has already been turning. However, race plays a big role in determining the level of support. </p>
<h2>The public support is there</h2>
<p>In our study, we analyzed <a href="https://nsass.org/">survey data</a> that I collected from nearly 4,000 U.S. adults in late 2018 through early 2019. One of the questions we asked respondents was whether college athletes should be allowed to be paid, as athletes, beyond the costs to attend school.</p>
<p><a href="https://news.osu.edu/51-of-americans-agree-paying-college-athletes-should-be-allowed/">Based on our findings</a>, 51% of U.S. adults indicated support for this right by early 2019. This coincides with subsequent results from other polls that indicate rising levels of support for college athletes’ basic economic rights. For example, an October 2019 Seton Hall Sports Poll <a href="https://blogs.shu.edu/sportspoll/2019/10/03/american-public-supports-college-athletes-receiving-endorsement-money-for-image-and-likeness-as-approved-in-california-this-week/">found</a> that 60% of U.S. adults supported college athletes being allowed to be paid for the use of their names, images and likenesses. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/02/11/americans-now-overwhelmingly-support-college-athletes-earning-endorsement-and-sponsorship-money/#20cf0ce3648e">Results</a> from an AP-NORC survey in December 2019 pegged that support at 66%.</p>
<p>Previous research had <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2015.1096250?casa_token=-arGhUsCvaQAAAAA%3A3e-sn9O_3_VhMUODSFJDtGgXgBC_fKCivPrg3ZDs92lF_VQDCrxXFwpUNp3KJX8DTdZFf4ZhRukn">consistently found</a> that most U.S adults were opposed to college athletes being paid and were even against college athletes being able to negotiate for rights through a union.</p>
<p>The rising support for some basic economic rights for college athletes comes at a time when people are paying more attention to the massive <a href="https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances">financial hauls</a> of some college sports programs, particularly through men’s college football and basketball. These profits have led to enormous salaries for <a href="https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries">many coaches</a> and <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z97vhcjErrHIvuO3Nu2wUWbG90bFKnm_/view">administrators</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A college football player wearing a mask stretches during practice." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C5946%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/360085/original/file-20200925-14-ytv122.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While many college athletes are eager to compete during the pandemic, they lack the leverage held by America’s unionized professional athletes to negotiate the conditions of play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakStillPlayingFootball/ccf368a6f36e4a42a6aa2342b3a1d803/photo?Query=college%20football%20mask&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=245&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The NCAA has long <a href="https://harvardjsel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/06/HLS203.pdf">claimed</a> that college sports would lose their allure if college athletes were paid – that the magic of watching amateurs simply playing for pride while representing a cherished university would disappear, and fans would become less enchanted by college sports. </p>
<p>Yet we found that the most passionate sports fans were actually the most likely to support the idea of permitting college athletes to be paid.</p>
<h2>Class, race and amateurism</h2>
<p>Race, however, does seem to influence respondents’ support for college athletes’ economic rights. </p>
<p>In our study, the odds for white adults strongly agreeing that college athletes should be allowed to be paid were 36% lower than those for nonwhite adults. When we zeroed in on Black and white respondents, we found that the odds for Black adults strongly agreeing with payment allowances were two-and-a-half times those of whites.</p>
<p>Why might this be the case? </p>
<p>It could have to do with the way race and class are intertwined with amateurism. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, white, upper-class Europeans invented the concept of amateurism. They claimed that paying athletes <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-doping-wasnt-considered-cheating-63442">would corrupt the purity of the game</a> and make participants more likely to cheat. In reality, they wanted to discourage working-class athletes from competing, as most couldn’t afford to play for free.</p>
<p>When American universities <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z97vhcjErrHIvuO3Nu2wUWbG90bFKnm_/view">adopted amateurism</a> in the early 20th century as its model for college sports, these social class distinctions were still in play. There was also a racial element, since, at the time, higher education was the domain of the white and wealthy.</p>
<p>Over the course of the 20th century, nonwhite – particularly, Black – athletes were gradually integrated into college sports, which became increasingly commercialized. Today, Black athletes constitute an <a href="https://abfe.issuelab.org/resources/29858/29858.pdf">outsized proportion</a> of college football and basketball rosters. </p>
<p>Yet amateurism, a relic of classist and racist attitudes, remains, and the bulk of the revenue that Black athletes disproportionately generate – a number that now amounts to <a href="http://assets.usw.org/ncpa/pdfs/6-Billion-Heist-Study_Full.pdf">billions of dollars</a> – doesn’t go to them. Nor have they or other athletes been permitted to accept outside payments aside from the full cost of attendance. </p>
<p>So, there is <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=20935">very much a racial element</a> to the economic exploitation that seems to be occurring. But this is not solely a racial issue. Self-serving profit motives are also at play. The NCAA has inconsistently applied the principles of amateurism <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723513498606?casa_token=w_V9s1qweEwAAAAA%3AmKcdYN2FsCfd-RBmn4cqzEkrEgIdRQXguhyAMDrzGemAKm4tlqZ6gE53_dyJM6txCF3U8oQcik5q">in order to exert more control over college sports and generate more revenue</a>.</p>
<p>Still, perhaps the Black respondents in our survey were more aware of this discrepancy between profits, race and labor. We also discovered that – regardless of the respondent’s racial identity – a recognition of racial discrimination in society coincided with greater support for college athletes’ right to be allowed to be paid. This suggests that those inclined to perceive racial exploitation in American society might see college sports through the same lens.</p>
<h2>Are the times finally changing?</h2>
<p>Pay, of course, is just one right. College athletes <a href="https://theconversation.com/dj-durkins-firing-wont-solve-college-footballs-deepest-problems-106118">can be subjected to abuse</a>, forced to risk their health and made to prioritize sports over academics – and still find themselves powerless to protest or enact changes. </p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29578950/pac-12-player-group-threatens-opt-makes-list-demands-injustice-safety">athlete activism</a>, <a href="https://harvardjsel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/06/HLS203.pdf">media attention, legal challenges, state legislation and shifts in public opinion</a> on the issue of economic rights, the NCAA seems to be on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-if-college-athletes-got-paid-3-questions-answered-123832">precipice</a> of allowing college athletes to receive some forms of additional compensation. </p>
<p>In April, after being pressed to allow college athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses, the NCAA <a href="http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/board-governors-moves-toward-allowing-student-athlete-compensation-endorsements-and-promotions">signaled that they will grant permission</a> for this and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/14/ncaa-proposal-athletes-endorsement-deals/">will vote on proposals</a> in January 2021. A <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/29302748/florida-name-image-likeness-bill-now-law-meaning-state-athletes-profit-endorsements-next-summer">Florida law</a> is slated to permit this to occur in their state with or without NCAA approval in the summer of 2021.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>If the NCAA won’t grant basic economic and other rights to college athletes, it might be up to lawmakers to keep applying the pressure. That’s exactly what a group of senators tried to do in August when they introduced <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/kamala-harris-college-athlete-pay-394580">a College Athletes Bill of Rights</a> that would guarantee NCAA players financial compensation, representation, long-term health care and lifetime educational opportunities.</p>
<p>The bill is languishing in the Senate, where it currently <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2020/08/13/senators-announce-college-athletes-bill-of-rights-proposal">lacks any Republican support</a>. Until that changes, it may be up to the athletes themselves to <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2020/8/3/21352951/pac-12-players-letter-we-are-united-college-sports-model">raise awareness and instigate change</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The National Sports and Society Survey was supported by the Sports and Society Initiative, The College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Human Resource Research at The Ohio State University.</span></em></p>Someone’s race, however, seems to be a factor in whether they support college athletes’ economic rights.Chris Knoester, Associate Professor of Sociology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132992019-03-27T16:38:00Z2019-03-27T16:38:00ZHow the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings turned baseball into a national sensation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265915/original/file-20190326-36267-1t4q3w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A drawing from Harper's Weekly depicts a game between the Red Stockings and the Brooklyn Atlantics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-c158-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">New York Public Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This Major League Baseball season, fans may notice a <a href="https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-patch-to-mark-150-years-of-pro-baseball-c303826766">patch</a> on the players’ uniforms that reads “MLB 150.”</p>
<p>The logo commemorates the <a href="https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/last-hurrah-for-the-cincinnati-red-stockings-8f45a7cae59a">Cincinnati Red Stockings</a>, who, in 1869, became the first professional baseball team – and went on to win an unprecedented 81 straight games.</p>
<p>As the league’s first openly salaried club, the Red Stockings made professionalism – which had been previously frowned upon – acceptable to the American public.</p>
<p>But the winning streak was just as pivotal. </p>
<p>“This did not just make the city famous,” John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, said in an interview for this article. “It made baseball famous.”</p>
<h2>Pay to play?</h2>
<p>In the years after the Civil War, baseball’s popularity exploded, and thousands of American communities fielded teams. Initially most players were gentry – lawyers, bankers and merchants whose wealth allowed them to train and play as a hobby. The <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/National_Association_of_Base_Ball_Players">National Association of Base Ball Players</a> banned the practice of paying players.</p>
<p>At the time, the concept of amateurism was especially popular among fans. Inspired by classical ideas of sportsmanship, <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-doping-wasnt-considered-cheating-63442">its proponents argued</a> that playing sport for a reason other than for the love of the game was immoral, even corrupt. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, some of the major clubs in the East and Midwest began disregarding the rule prohibiting professionalism and secretly hired talented young working-class players to get an edge. </p>
<p>After the 1868 season, the national association reversed its position and sanctified the practice of paying players. The move recognized the reality that some players were already getting paid, and that was unlikely to change because professionals clearly helped teams win.</p>
<p>Yet the taint of professionalism restrained virtually every club from paying an entire roster of players.</p>
<p>The Cincinnati Red Stockings, however, became the exception. </p>
<h2>The Cincinnati experiment</h2>
<p>In the years after the Civil War, Cincinnati was <a href="https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/citywiseblog/remember-cincinnati-porkopolis-not-compliment/">a young, growing, grimy city</a>. </p>
<p>The city had experienced an influx of German and Irish immigrants who toiled in the multiplying slaughterhouses. The stench of hog flesh wafted through the streets, while the black fumes of steamboats, locomotives and factories lingered over the skyline. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, money was pouring into the coffers of the city’s gentry. And with prosperity, the city sought respectability; it wanted to be as significant as the big cities that ran along the Atlantic seaboard – New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265921/original/file-20190326-36256-5lntjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men slaughter hogs on an assembly line in a Cincinnati meat packing plant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2018654774/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cincinnati’s main club, the Red Stockings, was run by an ambitious young lawyer named <a href="https://sabr.org/node/24735">Aaron Champion</a>. Prior to the 1869 season, he budgeted US$10,000 for his payroll and hired <a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/eb17c14e">Harry Wright</a> to captain and manage the squad. Wright was lauded later in his career as a “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3CoUoAn55A0C&pg=PA7&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false">baseball Edison</a>” for his ability to find talent. But the best player on the team was his 22-year-old brother, George, who played shortstop. <a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/5468d7c0">George Wright</a> would end up finishing the 1869 season with a .633 batting average and 49 home runs. </p>
<p>Only one player hailed from Cincinnati; the rest had been recruited from other teams around the nation. Wright had hoped to attract the top player in the country for each position. He didn’t quite get the best of the best, but the team was loaded with stars.</p>
<p>As the season began, the Red Stockings and their new salaries attracted little press attention.</p>
<p>“The benefits of professionalism were not immediately recognized,” Greg Rhodes, a co-author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Revolutionaries-Stockings-Rocked-Country/dp/1798058049">Baseball Revolutionaries: How the 1869 Red Stockings Rocked the Country and Made Baseball Famous</a>,” told me. “So the Cincinnati experiment wasn’t seen as all that radical.”</p>
<p>The Red Stockings opened the season by winning 45 to 9. They kept winning and winning and winning – huge blowouts. </p>
<p>At first only the Cincinnati sports writers had caught on that something special was going on. Then, in June, the team took its first road trip east. Playing in hostile territory against what were considered the best teams in baseball, they were also performing before the most influential sports writers.</p>
<p>The pivotal victory was a tight 4-to-2 win against what had been considered by many the best team in baseball, the powerful <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/New_York_Mutuals">New York Mutuals</a>, in a game played with <a href="https://sabr.org/research/baseball-and-tammany-hall">Tammany Hall “boss” William Tweed</a> watching from the stands. </p>
<p>Now the national press was paying attention. The Red Stockings continued to win, and, by the conclusion of the road trip in Washington, they were puffing stogies at <a href="http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/prz_1st.shtml">the White House with their host, President Ulysses Grant</a>.</p>
<p>The players chugged home in a boozy, satisfied revel and were met by 4,000 joyous fans at Cincinnati’s Union Station.</p>
<h2>American idols</h2>
<p>The Red Stockings had become a sensation. They were profiled in <a href="http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/173318?list_url=%2Flist%3Fpage%3D22%2525per_page%3D30%2525q%255Bcategory_id%255D%3D107-harpers-weekly%2525sort%3Ditems.id%2525sort_direction%3DASC">magazines</a> and serenaded in <a href="http://oct07.hugginsandscott.com/cgi-bin/showitem.pl?itemid=7144">sheet music</a>. Ticket prices doubled to 50 cents. They drew such huge crowds that during a game played outside of Chicago, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Boys-Summer-Sixty-Nine-Professional/dp/0964140209">an overloaded bleacher collapsed</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265926/original/file-20190326-36248-r1x0no.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aaron Chapman’s squad averaged 42 runs a game in the 1869 season.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of Greg Rhodes</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most scores were ridiculously lopsided; during the 1869 season the team averaged 42 runs a game. Once they even scored 103. <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TRO/index.shtml">The most controversial contest</a> was in August against the Haymakers of Troy, New York. The game was rife with rumors of $17,000 bets, and bookmakers bribing umpires and players. The game ended suspiciously at 17 to 17, when the Haymakers left the field in the sixth inning, incensed by an umpire’s call. The Red Stockings were declared the winners.</p>
<p>The season climaxed with a road trip west on the new <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1863-1869/dp/0743203178">transcontinental railroad</a>, which had just opened in May. The players, armed with rifles, shot out windows at bison, antelope and even prairie dogs and slept in wooden Coleman cars lighted with whale oil. More than 2,000 excited baseball fans greeted the team in San Francisco, where <a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Boys-Summer-Sixty-Nine-Professional/dp/0964140209">admission to games was one dollar in gold.</a> </p>
<p>Cincinnati ended its season with an undefeated record: 57 wins, 0 losses. The nation’s most prominent sports writer of the day, <a href="https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/436e570c">Henry Chadwick</a>, declared them “champion club of the United States.”</p>
<p>Despite fears that others clubs would outbid Cincinnati for their players, every Red Stockings player demonstrated his loyalty by signing contracts to return for the 1870 season.</p>
<h2>The demise begins</h2>
<p>The winning streak continued into the next season – up until a <a href="https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-14-1870-atlantic-storm-red-stockings-suffer-first-defeat">June 14, 1870, game</a> against the Brooklyn Atlantics.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265914/original/file-20190326-36248-9lex3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An error by second baseman Charles Sweasy ended the Red Sockings’ historic streak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">From the collection of John Thorn</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After nine innings, the teams were tied at 5. Under the era’s rules, the game could have been declared a draw, leaving the streak intact. Instead Harry Wright opted to continue, and the Red Stockings ended up losing in extra innings after an error by the second baseman, Charlie Sweasy.</p>
<p>The 81-game win streak had ended.</p>
<p>The Red Stockings did not return in 1871. Ticket sales had fallen after their first loss, and other teams began to outbid the Red Stockings for their star players. Ultimately the cost of retaining all of its players was more than the Cincinnati club could afford.</p>
<p>Yet the team had made its mark.</p>
<p>“It made baseball from something of a provincial fare to a national game,” Thorn explained.</p>
<p>A few years later, in 1876, the <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1876.shtml">National League was founded</a> and still exists today. The <a href="https://www.mlb.com/reds/one-fifty">Cincinnati Reds</a> were a charter member. And not surprisingly, some of the biggest <a href="https://www.mlb.com/reds/one-fifty/throwback-uniforms">150-year celebrations</a> of the first professional baseball team are occurring in the town they once called Porkopolis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Wyss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This season marks the 150th anniversary of the first professional baseball team and the start of its eye-popping 81-game winning streak.Robert Wyss, Professor of Journalism, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/709152017-01-06T10:52:03Z2017-01-06T10:52:03ZThe discovery of medieval Trellech and the plucky amateurs of archaeology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151876/original/image-20170105-18656-55tpfu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alongside a road, under the ground a medieval manor lies waiting.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ender4000/Lost City of Trellech</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tale of how an amateur archaeologist’s hunch led him to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/trellech-ancient-medieval-city-found-discover-stuart-wilson-england-wales-border-monmouthshire-a7508591.html">uncover a lost medieval town</a> and spend £32,000 of his own money to buy the land, would stand to be the archaeological discovery of any year. On the border between England and Wales, the site of the medieval town of Trellech reveals much about a tumultuous period of history – and how the town came to be lost.</p>
<p>The story begins in 2004, when archaeology graduate Stuart Wilson began his search for this <a href="http://www.lostcityoftrellech.co.uk/">lost medieval town</a> in Monmouthshire, south-east Wales, near where now only a small village bears the name. In the face of scepticism from academic archaeologists, Wilson’s years of work have been vindicated with the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4083716/History-fan-spends-32-000-life-savings-buying-field-digs-discover-lost-medieval-city.html">discovery of a moated manor house, a round stone tower, ancillary buildings</a>, and a wealth of smaller finds including pottery from the 1200s. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151879/original/image-20170105-29222-10knwo2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the manor house at Trellech might have looked, judging by the discovered remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Davies</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The town could turn out to be one of the largest in medieval Wales, and while there is more work to be done, the evidence is building. The large number of finds – including metalwork, cooking vessels and decorated pottery – point to a large settlement, and are essential in helping archaeologists date the site. What they suggest is a short-lived but intensive period of occupation between the 12th and early 15th centuries, during which the town was founded by the De Clare family as an industrial centre and later destroyed during the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/guide/ch10_revolt_of_owain_glyndwr.shtml">Owain Glyndwr rebellion</a> in 1400. This was a period of instability on the Welsh border, with conflict between rival Welsh princes and the English throne. Settlements like Trellech would become the focus of such clashes, culminating in Glyndwr’s rebellion.</p>
<h2>Ever-disappearing archaeology</h2>
<p>What makes the lost city of Trellech so important is its rarity and the quality of its preservation. Most large medieval settlements in England and Wales are still towns and cities to this day. This means archaeological investigations of medieval London or York for example are difficult and expensive, and can only occur piecemeal as urban redevelopment allows excavation of small areas. If Trellech turns out to be an extensive town, it will be a unique and important site. As archaeology is key to understanding the lives of everyday people who are ignored by the histories of the great and the good, sites like Trellech are the only way we gain these insights.</p>
<p>It may seem surprising that an entire medieval town could become lost from the historical record for more than 500 years, but in fact this is more common than you might think. Medieval Britain was characterised by poor documentary records, particularly outside major centres of political or religious power like London, Edinburgh, York or Canterbury. A settlement could be destroyed, fall into decline, <a href="https://www.dmv.hull.ac.uk/">or be abandoned</a> – and if no written records existed or those that did were subsequently lost, it’s quite possible for there to be no account of its existence.</p>
<p>At the very least, the precise location of a settlement can be hard to trace as over time land is reclaimed as farmland, or stonework that might otherwise last is removed for buildings elsewhere. Wooden structures decay within decades. Sites on flood plains can be covered by metres of alluvial (fertile clay, silt and sand) deposits, while upland settlements may be reforested. And in modern times, mechanical ploughing has been extremely destructive to the archaeological record. Due to any or all of these natural processes, finding a lost site requires dedication and concerted archaeological research, or a chance find.</p>
<p>Given the many things that could have damaged medieval Trellech’s remains beyond recognition, it is incredibly significant that it survives in such good condition. The longer back into the past we look, the more common it is to lose settlements, buildings or monuments – <a href="http://www.mustfarm.com/bronze-age-river/archaeology/">particularly into prehistory, before documentary evidence</a>. Trellech is proof that any field in the UK could conceal an important site, and this is precisely why professional archaeological investigation before building work is essential.</p>
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<h2>One man’s dedication</h2>
<p>Trellech’s discovery is also important due to how it was found. Most important discoveries in Britain are uncovered by professional archaeologists undertaking paid work, and the number of these discoveries easily dwarf the work done by university researchers. But in this case, Trellech was revealed through the commitment and perhaps bloody-mindedness of one man and a dedicated team of volunteer archaeologists. </p>
<p>British archaeology as a discipline and profession grew out of exactly this kind of work: in the 19th and early 20th centuries fresh archaeological ground was broken by the likes of Nancy Newbigin, <a href="http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/harrison325/">John Mortimer</a> and <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=74582">Canon William Greenwell</a>, all working as unpaid, self-taught experts in what was then a new field of learning. </p>
<p>So in this sense, Wilson and his team belong at the heart of one of the great traditions of archaeological research: all over the country local societies and archaeological associations work tirelessly in the same way to uncover neglected corners of Britain’s past. Long may they continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Edwards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ploughing his life savings into buying the land under which the lost city lies, Stuart Wilson has made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.Ben Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology & Heritage, Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634422016-08-10T00:34:57Z2016-08-10T00:34:57ZWhen doping wasn’t considered cheating<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133412/original/image-20160808-18037-byecsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jim Thorpe and Ben Johnson were both banned from the Olympics. But if each had played at different points in history, they would have been allowed to compete. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Trying to gain an advantage over your opponent is as old as sport itself. But what’s considered fair and unfair is often up for debate. </p>
<p>In cricket, there’s “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledging_(cricket)">sledging</a>,” which is when fielders verbally abuse batsmen in order to break their concentration. Baseball pitchers will use any number of substances, from Vaseline to pine tar, to get a better a grip on the ball, while football coaches will attempt to decipher their opponents’ calls on the opposing sidelines. </p>
<p>But, above all else, it’s doping that commands our attention, inciting moral outrage and international condemnation. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/dec/05/russian-olympic-committee-banned-winter-games-doping">Russia’s state-sponsored doping program</a> is only the latest scandal, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42999126">banning 47 Russian athletes and coaches</a> from participating in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.</p>
<p>We tend to think of doping as the utmost assault on fair play. But sporting authorities of the past – who had no qualms about enforcing lifetime bans for other infractions – might have actually found our current angst over doping puzzling. At the same time, sports fans today would likely be confused by 19th-century efforts to exclude the poor from participating with the claim that it was the only way to ensure a level playing field. </p>
<p>It goes to show that as time passes, so do notions of what’s fair.</p>
<h2>Honoring the gods</h2>
<p>The ancient Olympics of Greece were staged in honor of the god Zeus. But despite the religious underpinnings, winning had little to do with modern ideas of fairness: Athletes could, within reason, attempt to win by any means necessary. </p>
<p>They were allowed to use technological aides, such as <a href="http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/TC003EN.html">halters</a> (handheld weights that would enable long jumpers to achieve greater distances), and employ sometimes-deadly violence in the <a href="http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/TC007cEN.html">pankration</a>, a mix of wrestling and boxing where anything went (save for eye-gouging). </p>
<p>Greek athletes were also allowed to consume a variety of <a href="https://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/ISS/ISS2401/ISS2401e.pdf">performance enhancing drugs</a> (PEDs). Like the Egyptians before them, the Greeks made the connection between testes and strength. Athletes consumed animal testicles and hearts, alongside other herbal potions and hallucinogens. </p>
<p>It was, therefore, only those who dishonored Zeus by bribing opponents to fix contests <a href="https://theconversation.com/since-ancient-greece-the-olympics-and-bribery-have-gone-hand-in-hand-62476">who were punished severely</a>, with those caught having their crimes immortalized in stone plinths <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanes_of_Olympia">called Zanes</a> at Olympia.</p>
<h2>Ensuring fair … betting?</h2>
<p>In the 18th century, playing by the rules and fair play were closely associated with gambling – the lens through which both the upper and lower classes watched, played and discussed sports. </p>
<p>Whether it was pedestrianism (an early form of long-distance walking), boxing, horse racing or cricket, aristocrats would wager huge sums on the outcome of what were termed “challenges.” Some of sport’s earliest rules were, therefore, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Social-History-English-Cricket-Classics/dp/1781311765">designed to ensure fairness for those placing bets</a>, rather than those competing. </p>
<p>Everything changed once the Industrial Revolution began blurring previously impenetrable class distinctions. While <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/middle_classes_01.shtml">the middle class vastly expanded</a>, many social climbers possessed little of the status security enjoyed by their aristocratic predecessors. Anxious about their place within the social (and sporting) hierarchy, they increasingly strove to avoid any contact with their social inferiors.</p>
<p>Essentially, they wanted to rid sport of the lower classes – and the traditional excesses of gambling and drinking – to make it the realm of the elites.</p>
<p>Their ability to do so relied heavily on a new sporting culture called amateurism, <a href="http://www.gymnica.upol.cz/pdfs/gym/2006/02/10.pdf">which reinvented Classical notions</a> of sportsmanship in order to argue that playing sports for any reason other than for “love” was in some way immoral. </p>
<h2>The hypocrisy of amateurism</h2>
<p>At the same time, modern sporting leagues created opportunities for talented working-class athletes to supplement their incomes. Upper-class sportsmen didn’t need to make money from playing sports, so they utilized their financial advantage to further amateurism as a way to keep the working-class athlete in his place.</p>
<p>Fair play, in the modern sense that everyone competes on a level playing field, did not apply. And by the time a Frenchman named <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-baron-de-Coubertin">Pierre de Coubertin</a> established the modern Olympics in 1896, the only “pure” athletes were gentlemen who relied on ability alone, played out of love and wouldn’t be tempted to cheat to make more money. Even training <a href="https://archive.org/details/TeamsThatHaveWonTheAssociationCup">was deemed unprincipled</a> by amateur sportsmen such as C.B. Fry.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, manual laborers were often excluded in the name of fairness because they were automatically at a physical advantage (and, after all, no gentleman derived his income from manual labor). As an 1849 article in the British newspaper The Era argued, it “cannot be supposed that a merchant’s clerk, for instance, is physically competent to contest with a machinist or carpenter.” </p>
<p>By today’s standards of fairness, it’s a logical leap. But the twisted rationale behind such rules was applied indiscriminately. </p>
<p>For example, an 1868 article from the Nottinghamshire Guardian described how an athlete called Peters was disqualified from an athletics race “open to all amateurs” simply because of the way he was dressed. Meanwhile, an 1871 article in The Standard reported that organizers of the Amateur Athletic Club’s Bicycle Championship reduced the field of competitors from 20 to three, as they were the only entrants judged to be “gentleman amateurs.” Even in the 1960s, cricket professionals <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Social-History-English-Cricket-Classics/dp/1781311765">were obliged to use separate changing rooms</a>, which could lead to the farcical scene of an amateur captain changing alone, while his professional teammates changed elsewhere. </p>
<p>More serious consequences emerged in athletics where men who had done little more than accept money as teenagers when competing in other sports were ruthlessly banned for life. The most famous case relates to <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-are-jim-thorpes-olympic-records-still-not-recognized-130986336/?no-ist">Jim Thorpe</a>, who had his amateur status, Olympic gold medals and world records (pentathlon and decathlon) stripped away when it was revealed he had previously played two seasons of semi-professional baseball. </p>
<p>But the most tragic example may be that of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/john-tarrant-sad-shadow-of-the-ghost-runner-still-stalks-the-track-2305959.html">John Tarrant</a>, who became known as the “Ghost Runner.” Like Thorpe before him, Tarrant’s past mistake of accepting £17 (US$22) for a series of teenage boxing bouts in the 1940s denied him amateur status at just 20 years old. Effectively banned for life, Tarrant became infamous for gatecrashing races – entering without permission – and regularly outperforming internationally recognized runners. </p>
<h2>Doping: more about sponsors than sports?</h2>
<p>Distracted by social issues, amateur sporting bodies like the IOC have been slow to deal with the issue of doping. Although it was always frowned upon, it was usually considered a question of individual morality.</p>
<p>The drug-related death of cyclist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knud_Enemark_Jensen">Knud Enemark Jensen</a> at the 1960 Rome Olympics didn’t change the IOC’s approach. Doping became a serious issue only after sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for stanozolol at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Ronald Reagan’s signing of the <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/18990/reagan's_drug_war_legacy">Anti-Drug Abuse Act</a> that same year also proved decisive. Part of the wider “War on Drugs,” the issue of drugs in sport was no longer a moral question, but a legal one.</p>
<p>This significant change notwithstanding, the authorities – even when confronted with compelling evidence – appear unable to act. Like sprinter Marion Jones, who committed perjury, cyclist Lance Armstrong may face time in jail not because he doped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/feb/06/lance-armstrong-criminal-charges-america">but because he defrauded the sponsors</a>. </p>
<p>It seems that, today, corporate sponsors are the gods that sports exist to please.</p>
<p>Given the righteous treatment of Greek match fixers and the ruthless treatment of working-class athletes in the past, the inability of sporting authorities to ban for life those who knowingly dope, over long periods of time, seems inconsistent. </p>
<p>Sport appears to have lost its true meaning as an enjoyable end in itself. But in an era when sporting bodies and media networks rely upon stars like Armstrong for ratings and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jun/24/uk-athletics-poaching-foreign-born-athletes-sponsors-zharnel-hughes">athletes are naturalized</a> or <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-29/south-sudan-'pressured'-by-advertiser-into-athlete/7674116">selected</a> on the basis of sponsorship rather than talent, should we really be surprised? </p>
<p><em>This an updated version of an article originally published on Aug. 9, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan Stone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In sports, what’s considered fair play has changed throughout history. At one point, even looking ‘too poor’ was grounds for exclusion.Duncan Stone, Visiting Researcher, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584782016-05-26T01:24:20Z2016-05-26T01:24:20ZThe future of personal satellite technology is here – are we ready for it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124026/original/image-20160525-17595-isdv6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CubeSats upon release from the International Space Station.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/8054844339">NASA Johnson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Satellites used to be the exclusive playthings of rich governments and wealthy corporations. But increasingly, as space becomes more democratized, these sophisticated technologies are coming within reach of ordinary people. Just like drones before them, miniature satellites are beginning to fundamentally transform our conceptions of who gets to do what up above our heads.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog/23503/achieving-science-with-cubesats-thinking-inside-the-box">recent report</a> from the <a href="http://www.nasonline.org">National Academy of Sciences</a> highlights, these satellites hold tremendous potential for making satellite-based science more accessible than ever before. However, as the cost of getting your own satellite in orbit plummets, the risks of irresponsible use grow.</p>
<p>The question here is no longer “Can we?” but “Should we?” What are the potential downsides of having a slice of space densely populated by equipment built by people not traditionally labeled as “professionals”? And what would the responsible and beneficial development and use of this technology actually look like?</p>
<p>Some of the answers may come from a nonprofit organization that has been building and launching amateur satellites for nearly 50 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124030/original/image-20160525-25222-13zqxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just a few inches across and ready for orbit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-1_CubeSat_Flight_Model.jpg">Thuvt</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>The technology we’re talking about</h2>
<p>Having your own personal satellite launched into orbit might sound like an idea straight out of science fiction. But over the past few decades a unique class of satellites has been created that fits the bill: CubeSats.</p>
<p>The “Cube” here simply refers to the satellite’s shape. The most common CubeSat (the so-called <a href="http://www.cubesat.org/">“1U” satellite</a>) is a 10 cm (roughly 4 inches) cube, so small that a single CubeSat could easily be mistaken for a paperweight on your desk. These mini, modular satellites can fit in a launch vehicle’s formerly “wasted space.” Multiples can be deployed in combination for more complex missions than could be achieved by one CubeSat alone. </p>
<p>Within their compact bodies these minute satellites are able to house sensors and communications receivers/transmitters that enable operators to study the Earth from space, as well as space around the Earth. </p>
<p>They’re primarily designed for Low Earth Orbit (<a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/09/whats-special-low-earth-orbit/">LEO</a>) – an easily accessible region of space from around 200 to 800 miles above the Earth, where human-tended missions like the <a href="http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/">Hubble Space Telescope</a> and the International Space Station (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-international-space-station-is-a-unique-place">ISS</a>) hang out. But they can attain more distant orbits; NASA plans for most of its future Earth-escaping payloads (<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/lunar_flashlight.php">to the moon</a> and <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php">Mars</a> especially) to carry CubeSats.</p>
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<p>Because they’re so small and light, it costs much less to get a CubeSat into Earth orbit than a traditional communication or GPS satellite. For instance, a research group here at Arizona State University recently claimed their developmental “femtosats” (especially small CubeSats) <a href="https://asunow.asu.edu/20160406-creativity-asu-suncube-femtosat-space-exploration-for-everyone">could cost as little as US$3,000</a> to put in orbit. This decrease in cost is allowing researchers, hobbyists and <a href="http://www.arrl.org/news/view/elementary-school-s-stmsat-1-cubesat-now-in-orbit">even elementary school groups</a> to put simple instruments into LEO, by piggybacking onto rocket launches, or even having them <a href="http://nanoracks.com/products/smallsat-deployment/">deployed from the ISS</a>. </p>
<p>The first CubeSat was created in the early 2000s, as a way of enabling CalPoly and Stanford graduate students to <a href="http://www.isispace.nl/cubesats/#cubesats-history">design, build, test and operate a spacecraft</a> with similar capabilities to the USSR’s <a href="http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/">Sputnik</a>.</p>
<p>Since then, NASA, the <a href="http://www.nro.gov/">National Reconnaissance Office</a> and even Boeing have all launched and operated CubeSats. There are more than 130 currently operational in orbit. The NASA Educational Launch of Nano Satellite (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/elana/index.html">ELaNa</a>) program, which offers free launches for educational groups and science missions, is now open to U.S. nonprofit corporations as well. </p>
<p>Clearly, satellites are not just for rocket scientists anymore.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124035/original/image-20160525-25213-iyipzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pre-K through 8th grade students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia designed, built and tested a CubeSat that was deployed in space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/first-cubesat-built-by-an-elementary-school-deployed-into-space">NASA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Thinking inside the box</h2>
<p>The National Academy of Sciences report emphasizes CubeSats’ importance in scientific discovery and the training of future space scientists and engineers. Yet it also acknowledges that widespread deployment of LEO CubeSats isn’t risk-free.</p>
<p>The greatest concern the authors raise is space debris – pieces of “junk” that orbit the earth, with the potential to cause serious damage if they collide with operational units, including the ISS. </p>
<p>Currently, there aren’t many CubeSats and they’re tracked closely. Yet as LEO opens up to more amateur satellites, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329882-500-cubesat-craze-could-create-space-debris-catastrophe/">they may pose an increasing threat</a>. <a href="http://www.nap.edu/read/23503/chapter/8">As the report authors point out</a>, even near-misses might lead to the “creation of an onerous regulatory framework and affect the future disposition of science CubeSats.”</p>
<p>More broadly, the report authors focus on factors that might impede greater use of CubeSat technologies. These include regulations around earth-space radio communications, possible impacts of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (which govern import and export of defense-related articles and services in the U.S.), and potential issues around extra-terrestrial contamination.</p>
<p>But what about the rest of us? How can we be sure that hobbyists and others aren’t launching their own “spy” satellites, or (intentionally or not) placing polluting technologies into LEO, or even deploying low-cost CubeSat networks that could be hijacked and used nefariously?</p>
<p>As CubeSat researchers are quick to point out, these are far-fetched scenarios. But they suggest that now’s the time to ponder unexpected and unintended possible consequences of more people than ever having access to their own small slice of space. In an era when you can simply <a href="http://www.cubesatkit.com">buy a CubeSat kit off the shelf</a>, how can we trust the satellites over our heads were developed with good intentions by people who knew what they were doing?</p>
<p>Some “expert amateurs” in the satellite game could provide some inspiration for how to proceed responsibly.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124012/original/image-20160525-25239-1yv2dnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modular CubeSats deployed from ISS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/12468001753">NASA Johnson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Guidance from some experienced amateurs</h2>
<p>In 1969, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (<a href="http://www.amsat.org/">AMSAT</a>) was created in order to foster ham radio enthusiasts’ participation in space research and communication. It continued the efforts, begun in 1961, by Project OSCAR – a U.S.-based group that <a href="http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19640011000">built and launched</a> the very first nongovernmental satellite just four years after Sputnik.</p>
<p>As an organization of volunteers, AMSAT was putting “amateur” satellites in orbit decades before the current CubeSat craze. And over time, its members have learned a thing or two about responsibility. </p>
<p>Here, open-source development has been a central principle. Within the organization, AMSAT has a philosophy of open sourcing everything – making technical data on all aspects of their satellites fully available to everyone in the organization, and when possible, the public. According to a member of the team responsible for <a href="http://www.amsat.org/?page_id=1113">FOX 1-A, AMSAT’s first CubeSat</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This means that it would be incredibly difficult to sneak something by us … there’s no way to smuggle explosives or an energy emitter into an amateur satellite when everyone has access to the designs and implementation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, they’re more cautious about sharing info with nonmembers, as the organization guards against others developing the ability to hijack and take control of their satellites.</p>
<p>This form of “self-governance” is possible within long-standing amateur organizations that, over time, are able to build a sense of responsibility to community members, as well as society more generally.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124028/original/image-20160525-25247-1w9f7qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AMSAT has a long history as a collaborative community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/ke9v/4608745232">Jeff Davis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does responsible development evolve?</h2>
<p>But what happens when new players emerge, who don’t have deep roots within the existing culture?</p>
<p>Hobbyist and student “new kids on the block” are gaining access to technologies without being part of a longstanding amateur establishment. They are still constrained by funders, launch providers and a tapestry of regulations – all of which rein in what CubeSat developers can and cannot do. But there is a danger they’re ill-equipped to think through potential unintended consequences.</p>
<p>What these unintended consequences might be is admittedly far from clear. Certainly, CubeSat developers would argue it’s hard to imagine these tiny satellites causing substantial physical harm. Yet we know innovators can be remarkably creative with taking technologies in unexpected directions. Think of something as seemingly benign as the cellphone – we have microfinance and text-based social networking at one end of the spectrum, improvised explosive devices at the other.</p>
<p>This is where a culture of social responsibility around CubeSats becomes important – not simply for ensuring that physical risks are minimized (and good practices <a href="http://spacenews.com/1-in-5-cubesats-violate-international-orbit-disposal-guidelines/">are adhered to</a>), but also to engage with a much larger community in anticipating and managing less obvious consequences of the technology.</p>
<p>This is not an easy task. Yet the evidence from AMSAT and other areas of technology development suggest that responsible amateur communities can and do emerge around novel technologies.</p>
<p>For instance, see the <a href="https://diybio.org/">diy-bio community</a>, where hobbyists work in advanced community biotech labs. Their <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/531167a">growing community commitment</a> to safety and responsibility is highlighting how amateurs can embrace responsibility in research and innovation. A similar commitment is seen within open-source software and hardware communities, <a href="http://www.linuxfoundation.org/">such as the members of the Linux Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>The challenge here, of course, is ensuring that what an amateur community considers to be responsible, actually is. Here’s where there needs to be a much wider public conversation that extends beyond government agencies and scientific communities to include students, hobbyists, and anyone who may potentially stand to be affected by the use of CubeSat technology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Garbee is affiliated with AMSAT. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just about anyone can get a tiny, cheap satellite into orbit these days. As we consider how to deploy them responsibly, inspiration comes from an amateur community of enthusiasts.Elizabeth Garbee, Ph.D. Student in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, Arizona State UniversityAndrew Maynard, Director, Risk Innovation Lab, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.