Columnist Susan Snyder: A lesson learned on the trail

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2003 | 8:16 a.m.

It is human nature.

We learn from our mistakes.

We move forward.

Capt. Randolph B. Marcy knew this when he wrote about overcoming the pitfalls of exploration.

"This information is so varied, and is derived from so many different sources, that I still find every new expedition adds substantially to my practical knowledge," Marcy wrote.

Marcy wasn't an astronaut, and he wasn't writing about space exploration.

He was a U.S. Army captain who in 1859 wrote the passage above for the preface of his book, "The Prairie Traveler." His volume became the principle guide for people heading West to explore the frontier.

It is largely based on the mistakes of others who wore the wrong clothes, packed the wrong food or turned the wrong direction and paid the ultimate price.

But their mistakes made the journey a little easier and a little less harrowing for the next guy, who managed to go a little farther into the unknown before making his own mistakes.

A quarter of a century's travels into the vast unknown West, Marcy writes, "has shown me under what great disadvantages the voyageur labors for want of a timely initiation into these minor details of prairie-craft, which, however apparently unimportant in the abstract, are sure, upon the plains, to turn the balance of success for or against an enterprise."

A wagon running-gear bolt without a rivet. A wheel made of improperly seasoned wood. A faulty O-ring on a rocket engine. A few loose tiles on a shuttle's fuselage. Such items "apparently unimportant in the abstract" have always balanced the scales of success in exploration.

Our technology changes. Our frontier moves farther away.

But getting started successfully, moving along without major mishap, having enough food and water, staying dry, traveling in a reliable vessel and, finally, making it home safely -- our goals and hopes for exploration never change.

The idea that absolutely nothing can go wrong on journeys that have been made before is one those of us who watch from the safety of familiar places embrace more tightly with each successful trip.

The Donner Party. Challenger. Columbia.

We grieve the travelers' passing. We pray for their souls. We eulogize, memorialize and immortalize as heroes these sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends who had the courage to go farther up the trail but didn't come home.

We figure out which "apparently unimportant" thing went wrong so that it will never happen again.

But something will happen. If not that rough tile, faulty O-ring or loose wagon bolt, then some other small thing we never expected or didn't see coming will hinder our journey.

We will find comfort in the solutions and renewed confidence in the prevention plans we adopt, just as Marcy did when he wrote of how his book would assist the 19th-century explorer of the West:

"He will feel himself a master spirit in the wilderness he traverses, and not a victim of every new combination of circumstances which nature affords or fate allots."

We will learn from our mistakes.

We will move forward.

It is human nature.