There is getting away from it all and soon there will be opportunities for getting 240 miles above it all. That’s right. Soon you can be a space tourist.
SpaceX is the corporation behind the first successful commercial launch to the International Space Station. They are working with the space tourism company, Space Adventures.
For an undisclosed price, up to four tourists will ride the Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon spacecraft to orbit the earth three times at about 250 miles up.
On the Space Adventures website they also offer a flight to within a few hundred kilometers of the moon, a visit to the ISS, and a spacewalk. Cool, huh?
Private Citizens in Space
Public Domain image from NASA Dennis Tito is on the left.
American Dennis Tito blasted off from Kazakhstan on April 28, 2001, and spent nearly 8 days on the Russian space station.
English/South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth flewSoyuz Flight TM-34 on April 25, 2002.
Gregory Olsen launched onboard Soyuz TMA-7 on October 1, 2005 and took part in a research program for the European Space Agency (ESA) onboard the ISS.
Iran-born, US emigrant, Anousheh Ansari lifted off on Soyuz TMA-9 on September 18, 2006. She conducted experiments onboard the ISS for the ESA.
Hungarian Charles Simonyi flew twice. He started a fourteen-day trip on April 7, 2007, onboard the Soyuz TMA-10. And he returned to space in March 2009, Simonyi onboard Soyuz TMA-14.
On October 12, 2008, onboard Soyuz TMA-13, British-American Richard Garriott was the sixth private citizen in space. And Canadian Guy Laliberte, the seventh and last citizen in space, took the Soyuz TMA-16 on September 30, 2009.
Space Hotels
There are several organizations that are working on plans for hotels in space. Each offers an experience of a lifetime.
Orion Span is another Houston-based startup that plans to open a space hotel called Aurora Station in 2022. This hotel would house four guests.
Design with tourism in mind, Aurora Station will feature a spacious interior to move around, large observation windows, personal sleeping quarters, great food, and plenty of activities to stay busy. Guests will build friendships that last a lifetime, and experience something that will change their lives forever.
The Gateway Foundation is planning a Von Braun class station. A wheel design, it promises to be a resort level vacation destination and spaceport. We’re not to the point of launching this one yet, but some project it will be open in the 2030s.
Would You Like to be a Space Tourist?
If money weren’t an issue, would you be a space tourist? If I were younger, I surely would.
I’ve posed many questions regarding the ethics of research being done. Today, I want to talk about the good science has done. Let’s take a tiny peak at the amazing discoveries of the past decade.
The Human Genome
The year 2000 saw a rough draft of the human genome released. The final draft published in 2003 received updates in 2007.
They believed this research would help alleviate diseases and advance medical break throughs. Sadly, that is slow in coming. The National Human Genome Research Institute estimates that it takes about seventeen years to advance from new research information to something useful for patients. But much is being done. Check out their website for detailed information about research on cystic fibrosis, infectious disease outbreaks, pharmacogenomics, and much more.
Archeology
The 2010s brought extraordinary discoveries in the field of Archeology. British researchers found the body of King Richard III
The discovery of Homo Naledi, a new species with a mix of human and primate features, suggests they may have been a hybrid.
Radar detection and lasers and photographs from space have aided archeologists in their search. The number of discoveries made in archeology is impossible to cover in this short blog.
Space
Oh, my. So many discoveries and adventures during the past decade. They finally, 100 years later, confirmed Einstein’s idea and heard or felt the first gravitational waves.
NASA’s Kepler Telescope (and others) found thousands of new exoplanets.
This is a tiny peak at the amazing discoveries of the past decade. If you’d like to read more,, check out this Cool Blend of Science and Technology post. During the next decade we will explore and study this information (and more), and we will learn more about ourselves, our planet, and the universe.
Are there discoveries you thought were amazing, and I didn’t mention them? Please tell us about them in the comments below.
When I first saw this youtube video I knew I had to share it, but I haven’t spoken cat for nearly twenty years so it’s up to you. To boldly go where no cat has gone before…in the comments below, provide subtitles please.
The next stop on our Going to Mars, Word-by-Word tour is the Nebula award-winning novel, Man Plus by Fredrik Pohl, published in 1976. By the mid-seventies, Pohl had been writing and publishing stories for almost 40 years. The writing reflects that. Smoothly written, it is a quick and entertaining read.
THE SET-UP
In reality the early 1970’s were a time of disco dances like the hustle, world wide unrest and fear of terrorist bombings, hijackings, kidnappings, and assassinations. There were economic worries and hardships and a huge energy crisis. The United States, USSR, and France were doing nuclear tests on their own soil. Space Mountain opened at Disneyland and Jaws by Steven Spielberg had its premier. The television show The Bionic Man was popular. Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 rendezvoused in space. And the Viking 2 Mars probe was launched.
Man Plus takes place in the not-too-distant future when the overpopulated earth is on the brink a world war battling over the few remaining natural resources on the planet. The fate of humanity rests on the people and the project inside a building in Tonka, Oklahoma.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
When former astronaut Col. Roger Torraway volunteered to be the understudy for astronaut Willy Hartnett, Roger never thought he’d actually be called upon. After Willy’s death, the President of the United States urged the team at the project to meet their deadline because computer projections predicted the world would soon be at war. Roger was mankind’s last hope. He was to become Man Plus, a cyborg engineered to survive and thrive in the harsh conditions on Mars.
Heavily sedated, Roger did not know when his nervous system, his eyes, lungs, heart, ears, nose, and skin were replaced or supplemented. To solve the power problem, they gave him wings of solar panels. When the surgeries were finally over, Roger had to learn to use his new senses. His large, multifaceted eyes could distinguish everything from infrared to UV light. With his bat-like ears, he could hear all of life’s most minute sounds and easily heard conversations in the corridors outside his pressurized room. Roger also had to come to terms with who he was, was he still human? Would his wife still love him? Was his wife having an affair with his best friend, Brad, who was also the scientist responsible for much of Roger’s new body?
The remaining two-thirds of the book is about Roger adapting to his new, alien self, to the planet Mars, and finding a way to be human despite everything. The computers now predict humanity will survive on Mars and are pleased they have been successful in their mission to save the humans as well as themselves.
The story is told from a kind of limited omniscient viewpoint with sentient computers as the ‘surprise’ narrator. The reader of today is not surprised. And on reflection, there are plot holes, inconsistencies, and questionable motivations throughout the story. So yes, the story has some flaws. But it was a story that captured many readers imaginations at the time it was first published. And, it may not be as far-fetched as it seems at first glance. Do you remember these stories that made the news?
The descriptions of Mars in Man Plus are minimal, but not inaccurate visually. Various metals and elements mentioned in the novel I’m unable to recognize as correct or incorrect. The human characters erect tents for shelter and begin performing scientific studies and tests one would expect the first persons on Mars to do.
Roger’s reaction to being on Mars is delightful. “To Roger, looking out on the bright, jewel-like colors of the planet he was meant to live on, it was a fairyland, beautiful and inviting.” And a little later, “First he walked, then trotted, then he began to run. If he had sped through the streets of Tonka, here he was a blur. He laughed out loud.” He is so eager to explore Mars that he gets himself into trouble with his power supply. This is what I read books about Mars for, that sense of wonder and excitement.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1919, Frederik George Pohl, Jr. has been a high school drop-out, an American soldier (during WWII), and has had nearly every possible role in science fiction. He has been a fan, poet, critic, literary agent, teacher, book and magazine editor, and a writer. “Elegy to a Dead Planet” was his first published story and appeared in Amazing Stories in 1937. His volume of writing is phenomenal and he has won every major science fiction award and then some.
When asked about his process, Pohl has had this to say, “People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. I just enjoy reading the stuff, and some of it sticks in my mind and fits into the stories. Maybe that’s the best way to do it.” from Locus Online
Between the duration of his career and the breadth of his career, there is no way to do him justice in this post. Please visit the resources listed below. Be sure to visit his blog, The Way The Future Blogs, in which he discusses his travels (all over the world), sf writers he has known (there’s a lot of those!), and things that interest him (the list is endless).
CONCLUSION
I believe that Man Plus deserves its place in science fiction history. It deserved a Nebula at the time and it deserves being read today. It challenges you to think about what it is to be human, how we humans are going to deal with our burgeoning population and consumption of natural resources, and it questions our reliance on computers. Finally, it’s one more way that Man might go to Mars.
We’re going to Mars today via the words of one of the “Big Three*,” Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sands of Mars. Clarke said, “I have a special fondness for Sands, as it was my first full-length novel”. Published in 1951 it is an optimistic story of the early days of colonizing Mars. So hop aboard, let’s explore Mars with an Optimistic Knight.
I read an omnibus edition paired with The City and the Stars. Warner Aspect published the omnibus in 2001.
In the introduction, Clarke makes wry note of the year, and says, “When I tapped out ‘The End’ on my Remington Noiseless (ha!) Portable in 1951, I could never have imagined that twenty years later I would be sitting on a panel with Ray Bradbury and Carl Sagan at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory waiting for the first news of the real Mars to arrive from the Mariner Space Probes. . .”. Nor could he imagine the Mars we’ve come to know through modern telescopes and NASA rovers.
Clarke does not romanticize the harsh conditions he imagined the colonists would have to survive. He used the best scientific information available at the time but admits there are errors in his speculations. Like many other science fiction authors, Clarke did not imagine the miniaturization of electronics. Nor did he imagine the development of personal electronic devices that resulted in a proliferation of computers and cell phones. His protagonist takes a manual typewriter on the spaceship. He faxes articles back to Earth. Faxes! And the crew of the space-liner smokes cigarettes. (Secondhand smoke was not an acknowledged issue in 1951.)
I am delighted that a multiple award-winning, best selling author like Clarke re-released this novel with all of its warts. The story is entertaining, though much slower paced than today’s novels. It suffers from stiff prose, weak conflicts, and internal story inconsistencies. All of which are fairly typical of a first or second novel. Personally, I can forgive and overlook those blunders if I enjoy the characters.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The first half of the book deals with the flight to Mars. The protagonist, a well-known science fiction author, rides a rocket ship into space. Martin is going to Mars on assignment. He is to report on what the colony is doing with the millions of Earth dollars spent on it.
Stricken with space-sickness, Gibson fears he’ll be sent back to Earth in shame. Fortunately, the space-sickness resolves quickly and he boards the next ship on his journey.
Ares is on her maiden voyage, a test run with a stripped down crew consisting of Captain Norden, an experienced space pilot; his engineer, the Scottish astrogator; the cynical electronics officer, the medical officer, and Jimmy Spencer, a Master’s degree student hoping to pilot his own spaceship someday. Jimmy, the junior member of the crew, must assist their only passenger, Gibson. Over the course of the three-month trip, Gibson discovers a link between Jimmy and Gibson’s own unpleasant college days.
When he first arrives on Mars, the spartan lifestyle in the small, claustrophobic settlement disappoints Gibson. As he explores the domed city and its surrounds, Gibson learns about the challenges of surviving on the planet. The weekly articles he writes and sends to Earth become more and more pro-Mars as his ideas about the colony change. He meets and grows to respect and like the locals, even his antagonist Warren Hadfield, Chief Executive of Mars. Finally, during one of Gibson’s excursions, a severe sandstorm forces his aircraft off course and he makes discoveries vital to the success of the colony, or so he thinks.
I found the ending satisfying, but in case you’d like to read this novel for yourself, I’ll keep that information to myself.
HOW THE RED PLANET IS PORTRAYED
Clarke’s vision of Mars is more scientific and less descriptive than some. During the trip to the planet, the electronics officer confesses that he can’t see why anyone would want to go to Mars. “It’s flat, it’s cold, and it’s full of miserable half-starved plants looking like something out of Edgar Allan Poe”. The cities and scientific centers are contained in clusters of circular domes. Oxygen is ‘cracked’ from the iron oxide that tinted the soil a dark red.
Clarke does a remarkable job of evoking the orbiting moons, Deimos and Phobos, and the size of Mars. However, he speculates that lush brilliant green plants fill areas of the planet, though much of the planet was barren, red dirt and rocks. Infamously, he has his protagonist, Gibson, declare, “There are no mountains on Mars!” (That was true as far as anyone knew in 1951.) Finally, Clarke disables his protagonist and strands him in a deep trench. (In 1950 Clyde Tombaugh a member of the Lowell Observatory and discoverer of Pluto, proposed that the ‘canals’ of Mars were actually fissures radiating from craters which were the result of cosmic impacts.*)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in southwestern England, Arthur Charles Clarke (1917 – 2008) enjoyed stargazing and reading American science fiction magazines as a child. So much so, that he was active in science fiction circles before World War II. During the War he joined the Royal Air Force, serving as a radar instructor and technician. It was during that time he published his landmark scholarly paper, “Extra-Terrestrial Relays Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage,” where he set out the first principles of global communication via satellites in geostationary orbits.
His first science fiction story professionally published was “Loophole” for Astounding in 1946. Listing all of Clarke’s accomplishments as a scientist and author is not possible in this short blog post, but I’ll hit the major points.
Besides having been a radar instructor and technician, Clarke earned a first class honors degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1948 and served two terms as the British Interplanetary Society president.
He developed a keen interest in undersea exploration when he visited Sri Lanka (called Ceylon at that time) and moved there in 1956. He created a diving school. In 1962 a diagnosis of polio curtailed his diving activities. (The 2004 tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and Indonesia did not harm Clarke, his staff, or his home. It did destroy his diving school.)
Regarded as one of the chief prophets of the space age, he joined CBS newsman Walter Cronkite and astronaut Wally Schirra in narrating the 1969 Apollo lunar landing and returned for coverage of Apollo missions 12 and 15.
Childhood’s End, Rendezvous with Rama, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are among Clarke’s best-known works. His body of work includes more than 70 books of fiction and nonfiction. He’s known for an optimistic view of the future of space exploration. Histories have accurate technical details and philosophical themes. He’s won Hugos, Nebulas, and the SFWA Grand Master. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1997 and was knighted in 1998.
CONCLUSION
I would recommend reading this novel. Its characters are engaging. The argument of should we explore and colonize Mars is pertinent today. Finally, it’s fascinating to read the first novel of one of the best-known science fiction writers of all time. Go ahead, go to Mars in the words of Arthur C. Clark’s The Sands of Mars.
