Future history background continues. We have read references to other "Units," Manitowoc and Dallas, Radek sees the light of a city on the Moon and his airboat uses beamed power.
A future historian can always tell us that there was something that he did not tell us before. Now we learn that the Institute of Human Biology, which fired Barwell, has existed for about 250 years almost concurrently with the since suppressed Psychotechnic Institute so when did the latter organization start? There are very few clues about dates in the texts.
In Radek's time, very few people reach 150! Recently, in our timeline, two 112-year olds appeared on British TV. How can life be prolonged? Alternative speculative answers to this question are valid sf premises. One such occupies successive chapters of James Blish's They Shall Have Stars and another is the basis of this story by Poul Anderson but it remains in this single story.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I can see it being POSSIBLE that medical technology might advance enough to somewhat prolong human lifespans. Anderson speculated in THE HARVEST OF STARS books that unmodified humans could live to age 130 (Lunarians, humans genetically modified to live and reproduce in low gravity, could live to about 150). Anderson seems to have thought that was the extreme limit for mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
The limits of human lifespan haven't changed; we just have far more people reaching them. At which point, like the "wonderful one-hoss shay", everything (or a lot of things) fail at once.
I firmly expect that prolonged lifespans are possible, and the possibility will (baring catastrophe) be realized sometime in the next century. But not immediately.
My luck; I may be of the last generation subject to those age-old limits... 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Your first comment above: I agree! Altho some, like her Majesty of Great Britain, have managed to push beyond those limits.
Your second comment: possibly, albeit I'm skeptical of life spans extending longer than what PA seems to have thought possible in the HARVEST books.
I'm only a bit more than a year younger than you, so I'm part of that generation you think will be unlucky!
Ad astra! Sean
People have always lived past 100; just not so many.
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