Into Space

In a lot of sf, space travel has become routine. However, there remain a few individual works in which the mere launch of a space vehicle is a momentous event. For example, there is violent opposition to the first space launch at the end of the film, Things To Come, and, by the same token, Iern and Ronica violently hijack Orion Two near the end of Poul Anderson's Orion Shall Rise. I will probably reread more about the latter tomorrow. Thus, Anderson manages to write a "first men in space" story. At least, his characters are the first in space in the Maurai period. Valeria Matuchek is the first human being on the Moon in the goetic timeline of Anderson's Operation Luna. So Anderson manages to cover that particular sub-genre among others.

A particular classic, in Robert Heinlein's pre-Anderson Future History, is "The Man Who Sold The Moon" which, as its title tells us, is about not the first man on the Moon but the man who financed the first and other early flights to the Moon - so it is set entirely on Earth. Such stories, set in the near future, feature visionaries looking forward into the further future so they are doubly futuristic.