Robert Heinlein's Man Who Sold The Moon sold, and died on, a lifeless Moon.
Poul Anderson's Mother of the Moon was the ancestress of Lunarians, genetically adapted to live and breed in Lunar gravity although not on the Lunar surface.
Thus, not finding aliens, human beings might create them:
"[Kyra] did wonder whether those commentators were right who declared that the Lunarians were basically different in mind as well as in body. Could you make human DNA over so radically that its bearers could spend their lives and have children here, without also getting a soul alien to Earth?"
-Harvest Of Stars, 13.
These works by Wells, Heinlein and Anderson form a conceptual sequence.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course, when Wells was writing, there was still some hope of life, including intelligent life, existing on the Moon. Or at least speculations!
What D.D. Harriman began was to start bringing life to the Moon. Which I hope soon happens for real.
To be pedantic, while Dagny and Edmond Beynac were among the first, perhaps the very first, ancestors of the Lunarians, they were not the only ones. I am sure other Terran humans also volunteered for the genetic modifications needed for their children to become Lunarians. And it is reasonable to wonder if such modifications would affect the psychology of such children.
Ad astra! Sean
Possibly, but the modifications are to things like bone-formation and the circulatory system.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I know, but it seems reasonable to think such modifications might have unexpected psychological and social effects. At least that seems to have been the idea Anderson chose to run with in the HARVEST books.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, all parts of an organism interact so changing one part can change other parts, sometimes unpredictably.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! And Stirling himself did that with his New Race Draka in THE STONE DOGS and DRAKON. Monstrous as the Old Race Draka were, they were still the same old hominids unmodified humans are. The genetically modified New Race Draka WERE different--because of how those modifications affected everything else.
Ad astra! Sean
Just not aging would change your personality formation quite profoundly -- one of the distinguishing characteristics of our species is that we're more or less continually aware of our own inevitable mortality.
Animals generally only fear death when they're in immediate danger of it. Humans who didn't age would be in roughly that position -- they're going to live indefinitely until something kills them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
We see that in Anderson's WORLD WITHOUT STARS, where the antithanatic made death rare, unless caused by accident or violence. I recall one mortally wounded character, who had had the antithanatic only a few years, crying out in protest about the injustice of dying when Hugh Valland had lived for thousands of years.
I can see medical science possibly extending human life spans to about 150 years, but not indefinitely. Not that most of us would object if that became possible!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: if it goes up to 150 years, think of what science will do -in- that 150 years. There's no inherent reason we can't lick aging completely; it's just very complex.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Assuming, of course, our civilization manages to hang together! And I used to think the antisenescence of Anderson's Technic stories, enabling people to live till about age 110, pretty radical.
We see the Phoenician immortal, Hanno, subsidizing the Rufus Institute, studying the aging process in THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS. I wouldn't be surprised if some billionaires are doing the same thing. So it MIGHT be possible to drastically extend human life spans.
Ad astra! Sean
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