January 2010

What Astronomy can teach us about information use

I am interested in Astronomy. From the first years I can remember, I found the stars fascinating. In another life, with better mathematical physics skills, I would have loved to work in that area. Those who do work in that area are – in so many ways – like the explorers of earlier centuries on earth: pioneers of new lands and discoveries.

However what can astronomy teach us about mental health information you may ask? A great deal as it happens.

There are 4 NASA projects which have much to teach us about information use. These projects are the Voyager space satellites, the Martian rovers, the Kepler telescope and the New Horizons project. These four projects respectively highlight: the way information keeps us in touch; the way information helps us find our way around; the way information gives us a purpose and the way information provides goals.

Let’s start with the Voyager satellites. I defy anyone not to be enthused by the Voyager space satellites. These two satellites were sent out in the 1970s. They whizzed past Jupiter and Saturn in the 80s, giving us wonderful information about those gas giants as they went. They have been heading out to the outer edges of the solar system ever since. They are currently the furthest travelling man-made objects in the galaxy and about to leave our solar system and enter intergalactic space. We are still in touch with them even though they are so far away. The information from the two Voyager probes takes around 12-14 hours travelling at the speed of light to reach us and it is that information which enables us to keep in touch. The moral for me in terms of mental health information is that even though information is hard to get (such as outcome information) it is worth the effort since it opens up new possibilities.

The Martian rovers provide another illustrative way in which information can help us to navigate our way around. The Martian space rovers were sent to Mars around six years ago. Initially it was thought they might last a few months but they have been slowly moving around the surface ever since (for those interested in such things Google have recently launched Google Mars which enables people to track the rovers over the surface). The amazing thing about the rovers is the way that information takes many hours to return trip to earth, yet we are able to steer and navigate these rovers successfully over the surface (unfortunately one of the rovers recently got stuck in the Martian sand and is proving hard to extricate!). The moral of the rovers and mental health information is that without information we will get lost and get stuck more quickly.

The Kepler telescope is a telescope designed to seek out earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. The chances are – even in my lifetime – that new extra terrestrial life forms will be located, and this will change the way we all view ourselves. The moral of Kepler and mental health information is that we need a purpose to our work. Kepler is about finding life, and mental health needs an information purpose too, such as improving recovery by improving outcomes.  Without such information as an overarching purpose other goals are in danger of becoming trivial.

Finally the New Horizons project. This is the project launched a few years ago to visit the dwarf planet of Pluto. The New Horizons rocket is the fastest moving rocket ever made by human beings but it will still take another 5 years to get to Pluto. What the mental health information message might take from New Horizons is that while Pluto’s status has recently taken a hit (it is no longer viewed as a planet just as HoNOS is no longer viewed as an outcomes panacea) visiting this tiny ice world provides a goal. Mental health information needs to pursue the goal of making information more widely available for clinicians, managers and service users so they can make better informed decisions.

Astronomy can teach us much if we care to transfer the ideas and concepts from that discipline into our own.

Let me finish with a quote from playwright Ben Jonson “Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times”.

Perhaps mental health information really can navigate by the light of the stars…

Page last updated: 19 January 2010