He is a thinking man and a Jerusalem Catholic.
He is flamboyant and confident with women, like a precursor of Flandry.
He gives us some minimal information about life in the Solar System where his father is in the Sociodynamic Service. He himself was born in the spaceport and manufacturing centre of Selenopolis and spent some impressionable years on the incompletely terraformed Venus. He joined the navy to see the universe.
When he is in hospital on Avalon, most of his fellow patients prefer the pass-time of bitching. Consequently, Rochefort wears earphones non-stop to listen to borrowed books. I could get along with this guy.
He can handle Tabitha breaking off their relationship and remembers a girl in Fleurville on Esperance.
Rochefort's life continues although unfortunately we do not see it.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think we would like to know more about those problems hindering the terraforming of Venus!
Ad astra! Sean
Given what is known *now* about Venus, the big one would be bringing in enough water or hydrogen to make decent sized seas. Solving that problem would be a matter of what technology you have and how many centuries or millennia you are willing to take.
To make a reasonable guess at what Poul was thinking I would have to check the publication date of the first Technic civilization story to mention the 'unsatisfactory terraforming of Venus' and read up on what was known about Venus at the time.
Kaor, Jim!
The nearest or closest I've thought of to what you had in mind is THE REBEL WORLDS, first pub. by New American Library in 1969. It's where Admiral Kheraskov discussed the origins of Aaron Snelund on Venus.
There's also Jerry Pournelle's article "The Big Rain" discussing in detail how Venus could be terraformed using even 1970's technology (collected in A STEP FARTHER OUT [Ace Books, 1980]).
Ad astra! Sean
There's plenty of water in the outer Solar System. Whole moons of it, and that's what comets are mainly made of.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And some of that water could be used for terraforming Venus and Mars, as Zubrin suggested might be done for the latter in his book THE CASE FOR MARS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, if the price of space travel declines significantly. All sorts of things could be done -- asteroid mining, orbital solar power, and ultimately terraforming.
There is plenty of water in the outer solar system. Moving it to Venus would take a *lot* of energy. If you just make lots of ice balls hit Venus that is going to heat Venus up massively, adding to the existing problem of cooling it down. Whatever you do it will take *time* to make Venus anything approaching earthlike.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely! Something like what we see in Anderson's TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS.
Jim: I agree you are correct about the energy cost of moving large amounts of water to Venus. Hence the mentions we see in the Technic stories on the not quite satisfactory terraforming of Venus. It might be easier and quicker to use that water for terraforming Mars.
Ad astra! Sean
"It might be easier and quicker to use that water for terraforming Mars."
There may be enough ice under the dusty surface of Mars to make decently large seas if melted. If anything needs to be imported for terraforming Mars, I think it would be nitrogen to make a thicker atmosphere.
Kaor, Jim!
Yes, I think Mars still has lots of frozen water--which explorers and colonists will find very useful. And I like that idea, bringing nitrogen to thicken the atmosphere.
Ad astra! Sean
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