Exploration of the rain forest canopy using airships and similar aerial platforms
Dendronautics stems from the Greek words dendron (tree) and nautica (navigation). This niche in science and engineering is concerned with the art of bringing persons or scientific instruments close to the crowns of forest trees. The refinement of this art will permit extended exploration of one of the Earth's richest and largely unexplored biomes: tropical rain forest canopy.
Within the endeavour known as astronautics, engineers and scientists have sent probes to the planets and moons of our solar system looking for signs of life. They have also developed hydronautics sending bathyspheres and submersibles to deepest parts of the ocean. It is therefore appropriate for engineers and scientists to develop dendronautics in order to explore a terrestrial biome that some experts believe provides a habitat for millions of as yet unknown species of life.
A decade before Alfred Russel Wallace proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection he made an essential expedition to the Amazon and was immediately impressed by the bio-diversity of arboreal fauna and flora high in the treetops. Recalling the observations made on July 4th 1842, Wallace wrote*:
"A few forest trees were also in blossom; and it was a truly magnificent sight to behold a great tree covered with one mass of flowers, and to hear the distant hum of millions of insects gathering together to enjoy the honeyed feast. But all is out of reach of the curious and admiring naturalist. It is only over the outside of the great dome of verdure exposed to the vertical rays of the sun that flowers are produced, and on many of these trees there is not a single blossom to be found at a less height than a hundred feet. The whole glory of these forests could only be seen by sailing gently in a balloon over the undulating flowery surface above: such a treat is perhaps reserved for the traveller of a future age."
The age that Wallace imagined has now arrived.
Photo copyright: Mark Antony Yhap and Dendronautics.com. 2004
* This exact quote was used in Jacob Bronowski's television series "The Ascent of Man", in the programme "The Ladder of Creation" first broadcast by the BBC, July 30th, 1973. See http://www.drbronowski.com/