The narrator of "The Pirate" is going to tell us "...about Trevelyan Micah, Murdoch Juan, Smokesmith, red Faustina, and the rest..." (p. 137) although we soon forget this introductory passage. Faustina, Murdoch's mistress, is from the "marginal" (p. 140) planet, New Mars, so Trevelyan imagines "...scarring poverty in her background..." (ibid.) Why cross an interstellar distance to colonize a Mars-like planet? Why cross an interplanetary distance to colonize Mars? The Moon is closer. Would self-sustaining habitats in near-Earth orbit not be even easier? As Larry Niven's Belters ask, why go down to the bottom of a gravity well? Are these becoming practicable questions? Will the real Space Age begin in our lifetimes? The future history series with the most detailed interplanetary period is Robert Heinlein's Future History. Is FTL plausible? If it is not, then a lot of future history series are invalidated.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I certainly hope a real Space Age is finally starting, after the "False Dawn"* we had to endure for most of our lives!
And careful SF writers, such as Poul Anderson, while thinking some very terrestroid planets exist, will stress they are likely to be a minority. Planets where humans can live without needing protective suits, helmets, air tanks, etc., will be rare enough that they will be worth colonizing even if they otherwise have serious flaws. Examples from the Technic History will be Altai (due to its frigidity), Imhotep (with a gravity 30 percent heavier than Terra's), Unan Besar (because of its toxic atmosphere).
Mars does have its advantages, making it more desirable than the Moon. It's larger, with a gravity heavier than Luna's, and has abundant frozen water. In his books THE CASE FOR MARS and THE CASE FOR SPACE, Robert Zubrin gives detailed arguments for how the resources to be found on Mars would enable a colony founded there to become self sustaining. I think it's safe to say Elon Musk has read those books!
And I do agree on the desirability of building O'Neill style habitats, which Gerald O'Neill explained in detail might be done in his book THE HIGH FRONTIER. Such habitats might be most practicable for people living in the asteroid belt, giving them a home base from which they could mine the asteroids. And ditto for habitats in the Oort Cloud.
Some people, like Alcubierre, has seriously speculated that some kind of FTL might be theoretically possible. It's the engineering part, turning theory into practical reality, which is going to be the most difficult to achieve.
Ad astra! Sean
*We know where that phrase came from!
Orbit is halfway to anywhere, pretty much, in terms of energy costs. Martian gravity is probably healthier than lunar. No reason not to do both, eventually, of course.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Shades of Jerry Pournelle's book A STEP FURTHER OUT! And I agree!
Ad astra! Sean
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