Weekly Short Stories: 1999 Science Fiction, Part 9

It's Wednesday and time once again to address what I've been reading in the realm of short science fiction.  The book I'm going through is an anthology, edited by the late Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection...covering short stories and novellas published in the year 1999. The tale I'm about to discuss might be termed a novella, and maybe just a long short story (or a short long story).  In any event, here's my reaction to it...

MOUNT OLYMPUS by Ben Bova

Ben Bova is one of those old-school hard science fiction writers who, like Robert Heinlein before him, envisioned what the emerging travel-to and exploration-of neighboring worlds in our solar system would be like in the years ahead of us.  You can learn a lot about astronomy and space travel from this particular story, which presents a fictional scenario about what it would be like to be on Mars, fly a specially-designed plane onto the surface of its massive, long-dormant volcano Olympus Mons, and then set out down into its caldera.  The story, written in plain language without some of those obnoxious literary pretensions I see in other writers, also seeks to be inclusive with the mission's crew, from different parts of the world and with their own special stories, motivations and concerns.  I found myself liking these people and rooting for them, much in the way I would for a Star Trek episode and its characters.  I wonder if Bova included some of those appearing in this story in any other material he wrote.  I liked Mount Olympus and wish there were more stories in the anthology like it...

Next week: more about short science fiction from '99...

Artemis I Successfully Returns, Future Lunar Missions Scheduled

The Artemis I NASA mission to the Moon and back was finally completed with a successful splashdown return on December 11th.  It was unmanned and designed to test the SLS launch rocket and Orion spacecraft and systems, as well as the Earth-based command center.  After some delays lasting months, it was finally launched on November 26th, with the Orion craft eventually making many lunar orbits over a span of six days, performing various maneuvers and taking spectacular photos both of the Moon and Earth off in the distance before returning to Earth.  I'm happy to see this concerted return to human deep space exploration after nearly half a century of doing little more than go around Earth in low orbit.  The next Artemis mission is scheduled for May, 2024 and will featured a human crew that will also orbit the Moon and return...after that, the way should be open for the first human landing on our Moon the following year, for the first time in 52+ years.  This time around, hopefully, we'll keep our presence there permanent with a planned Moon base.  The media coverage for all this is scant, with little popular interest...I'm not sure that this is a bad thing after thinking about it: it's all those voices complaining about investing money, time and effort into space exploration instead of pursuing their agendas that has, in large part, created this unnecessary gap in human deep space exploration and settlement.  May the future Artemis missions continue to be successful...

Great Old TV Episodes...from The Twilight Zone

 

AND WHEN THE SKY WAS OPENED was a chilling Season One episode of the original Twilight Zone series, first aired in December, 1959...I was only three at the time and wouldn't see it until years later. This is television that is pinpointed in history, a speculation about what might happen should humans endeavor to go into space...a little more than a year before that actually happened with the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin in April of 1961.  In this episode, a three-man astronaut crew fly an experimental space plane some 900 miles above Earth...but during its flight radio contact is broken for several hours and the plane is found crash-landed in the desert, all hands on board alive with one crewman, Gart, suffering a broken leg.  In the hospital the expedition leader Forbes, played by Rod Taylor (who would star in the original Time Machine movie the following year), tries to convince his bedridden colleague that there were THREE of them on the mission...but even the newspaper shows only two. Taylor then recounts what happened to the other man, Harrington, an old friend, as they both left that same room the day before with the paper (pictured above) showing all three of them.  But at a nearby bar with Forbes something happens to Harrington's thinking...as if he didn't belong there...and he vanishes.  Distraught over his buddy's disappearance, Forbes finishes his story to Gart and then starts to feel the same way as Harrington.  The ending was unexpected and ingenious...

When this episode first came out, no human had ever ventured into space and returned.  So it was intriguing to consider whether "something or somebody out there" didn't want us to ever leave our home planet and might take measures to prevent it. And then there's the notion that maybe the worse thing to no longer existing is to never have existed at all.  And When the Sky Was Opened is my all-time favorite episode of one of my all-time favorite TV series...

First American Manned Space Launch Since 2011 Scheduled for May 27th

At 4:32 pm on Wednesday, May 27th, assuming no delays, a two-astronaut crew will launch from Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as they take their Crew Dragon capsule for a rendezvous with the International Space Station...the first manned launch into space from the USA since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.  SpaceX's head honcho Elon Musk has spearheaded America's return to space exploration...in cooperation with NASA...and has dreams of traveling and even settling Mars in the not-so-distant future.  Whether it's the moon or Mars we get to first in our eventual return to space travel beyond low Earth orbit, I'm okay with either...but first we need to get our butts off the ground and into space again instead of paying Russia $80 million for each American they launch into space for us.  This story was buried deep in the news amid the coronavirus onslaught...thought you might enjoy have something positive to look forward to in the near future.  I think Boeing has also been working on manned space rockets...good, the more the merrier as long as the companies don't trip over each other to the program's detriment.  I think regardless how this upcoming  presidential election comes out we should establish a modest, permanent presence on the moon and keep aspiring to deeper space exploration...guess it's about time I put the NASA Channel on my Roku...

Just Finished Reading Space by James A. Michener

I had never read anything before by acclaimed author James A. Michener (1907-97), who wrote many historical novels that opened up the world and the past to readers...I just finished my first Michener book, Space, from 1982: I think I just discovered a "new" author to follow...move over, Stephen King and Agatha Christie.  Space chronicles the lives and experiences of several fictional characters as they pass through real historical events and processes, including the Apollo moon missions of the late sixties and early seventies, and ending following the first successful Space Shuttle flight in 1981.  Michener gives an incredible portrayal of the crucial October, 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines between the Japanese and American navies...I felt at times I was there in the midst of it all (well, not really).  Further in the story we read how some German scientists and engineers involved with rocketry development...and suspected of heavy water experimentation...escaped to the west at war's end and were picked up by the Americans. Skipping some years, the experiences of American fighter pilots in the Korean War and the later test-flying of new aircraft...nearly as deadly as the war...are described in detail.  Then the author relates how the early Eisenhower administration deliberately prohibited rocketry development and how that president abruptly turned about-face following the Soviets' successful launch into space of their Sputnik satellite in 1957 and instituted NASA.  Then the race is on to send men into space and ultimately to the moon and back.  After success with our Apollo missions, Michener accurately describes the snowballing public disinterest about space travel and a building anti-science movement in the seventies emphasizing the paranormal, UFOs, the New Age movement, and religious fundamentalism...

I've always had an issue with historical fiction, being a history buff myself and wanting to internalize the truths from history.  But if fictional characters are experiencing the real historical events...and even some things that never really happened are depicted in the story as having happened, then I have a task on hand in mentally sorting out what's real and what isn't.  Michener added manned missions that didn't really happen in order to allow his fictional astronauts to play a larger role in his story...but I already knew enough about that part of his narrative to filter out fiction from truth.  But with the naval battle, the escape of the German scientists, Korean dogfighting, test piloting, and the political narrative I'm much fuzzier about distinguishing between historical truth and the author's brilliant imagination.  Then again, I can easily look these topics up on the Internet and read about them or explore more purely historical books that focus on these themes...

At least in this book, James A. Michener wrote in a plain, easy-to-follow style that rewarded my diligence as he revealed his extensive research and preparation and enlightened me as never before about his chosen topic.  My favorite parts of Space were (1) Michener's detailed description of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, (2) young John Pope's fascination with the stars as a boy (I identified strongly with that), and (3) the later heated division among the space community as to the direction of the program: continued manned flights or a concentrated effort to explore the cosmos through unmanned probes.  I'm looking forward to soon starting on another Michener novel after seeing how well he handled this one...

By the way, I just read that Michener's Space was adapted to a TV miniseries in 1985, starring James Garner.  Look it up if you want, but for me I'm happy with the book...

The Barriers of Space Exploration

As I have mentioned a few days earlier here, I'm now in the process of rereading many of the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's book series about robots, the Empire, and Foundation...which he wrote over a span of four decades and number around fifteen volumes.  Their unifying theme is the advancement of humanity in space travel and settlement, something necessitating an innovation that current science...according to the theory of general relativity...says is impossible: travel at faster than the speed of light. The common belief that the light barrier can be somehow circumvented is partially due to the earlier notion of a sound "barrier", which never really existed and was disproven after aircraft first "broke" it decades ago.  In reality, space exploration is still possible while slower-than-light travel drastically restricts our ability to reach even nearby star systems, but in my opinion there are two another barriers almost as formidable as the light barrier, and which have hampered our space program ever since the mid-1960s: the boredom and budget barriers...

While the Gemini phase of the Apollo program to the moon was going on in the mid-sixties, TV networks would preempt their regular programming for hours-on-end and...along with merciful interruptions for commercials...would show on-screen simulations of what was going on, with the scratchy sounds of astronauts and ground control communicating back and forth. In the meantime, Star Trek was a popular alternative and showed a different picture of space travel using the warp drive to get around all that wasted time and always having suspense and character drama to rivet the viewer's attention.  Even when the moon landing first happened on July 20, 1969, and millions across the world were watching the events live, once the astronauts got out there on the surface and made their statements, there wasn't really much to report on...or stay tuned in for.  By the time of the Apollo 13 mission in early 1970, the networks began to curb their coverage due to lack of viewer interest.  Then-President Nixon cancelled the final three Apollo moon missions (18, 19, and 20) and was going to cancel Apollo 16 and 17 as well when Caspar Weinberger, budget director at the time, persuaded him not to.  Since then we've been in low-Earth orbit...when we could actually shoot a rocket up into space, that is.  President George W. Bush laid out an ambitious plan to return to the moon and establish a more permanent presence, but his successor Barack Obama scrubbed that plan, stating that "we've already been there".  And the current president, Donald Trump, has reset the focus to go back to the moon.  But suppose he loses in 2020?  His successor would doubtless change everything once again...

The public at-large wants Star Wars, Star Trek, and space-themed video games, but the reality of space travel can challenge their patience and ever-dwindling attention spans.  And with success inevitably comes the political fallout...from both conservatives and liberals...as people ask whether the money spent for the space program could be better used in other areas.  In a speech the other day commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, Vice-President Pence said that the return mission to the moon will take place in 2024.  Sure, unless another president comes along and turns everything upside-down. Sigh...here we go again...

Weekly Short Story: First Contact by Murray Leinster

I first read Murray Leinster's science fiction short story First Contact many years earlier, but when I purchased a used copy of Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 7 (1945) (DAW Books, 1980), there it was again.  The premise is simple enough: a human deep space expedition, in the process of exploring the Crab Nebula, unexpectedly comes across a completely alien ship, the first time ever that mankind has come in contact with another intelligent life form in the cosmos.  The confrontation between the two is mutually suspicious, and it becomes apparent to both sides that neither ship can allow the other to return to its own home planet without jeopardizing their own world's very existence.  After all, neither human nor alien know anything of the other's intentions...best to be safe.  So the two spaceships are at a standoff, with no solution in sight...or is there?

Leinster's tale reminds me to a great extent of Star Trek...especially the original series' five-year mission to explore strange new worlds.  Yes, the Federation knew of its own benign intentions regarding new life forms, but its ships still were armed to the hilt and with scanning technology to probe into strange ships they encountered.  Call First Contact the conceptual ancestor of Star Trek...it puts into proper perspective the notion of just reaching out willy-nilly in favor of contact with extraterrestrials without ever considering the consequences of encountering one that is hostile and/or technologically superior.  With Murray Leinster's story, there is a solution, but will it work?  Looks like you'll have to read it yourself to find out...

Project Gutenberg has on its site several stories by Murray Leinster, but I didn't see First Contact listed anywhere.  It's worth looking into, though...