Worlds Beyond, February 1951 (see image) contained a story by Anderson;
therefore, it is probable that that story was "The Acolytes."
(I can still construct a syllogism the morning after a party.)
"It had been a sort of disappointing trip from Sol, days and days locked inside the metal walls of the spaceship."
-Poul Anderson, "The Acolytes" IN Anderson, The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3, pp. 3-19 AT p. 3.
Somewhere on the blog, I have highlighted this paradox. In American sf, interstellar travel is the ultimate symbol of freedom. On the other hand, an interstellar traveler, while traveling, is often seen as confined in metal. One example is Anderson's The Avatar which, longer term, I am rereading. Another is his Tau Zero.
Interstellar travelers need to take their environment with them. James Blish has flying cities and there is a mobile terraformed asteroid in Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that, strictly speaking, life inside space ships will often feel "constricted." And space travelers will need to bring their environments and means of work and entertainment along with them. But the reason why people like Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn, Dominic Flandry, etc., put up with such constraints is what they hope or expect to find at the end of their journeys. And these hopes can take many forms: a desire for exploration and new knowledge, searching for profits in trade, settling new worlds, the need to solve a problem, etc.
Sean
Sean,
Also, those guys have pretty comfortable spaceships!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that would be necessary to make long interplanetary or interstellar journeys tolerable! Even the primitive or obsolete FTL ships of the Trillians in "A Little Knowledge" are more advanced and comfortable than the rockets we have now. THEY are barely at the rowboat stage of space technology. Which only goes to show all kinds of technology have to start at a primitive level.
Sean
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