"...a mummified corpse in the wreck of a burst sealtent..."
-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981), pp. 31-129 AT III, p. 39.
Stefan Rostomily dies in a cave-in when a diggings collapses and bursts his helmet open. (p.47)
"...on Mars, a prospector abandoned his wrecked sandmobile and got ready to attempt the long trek back to Outpost. He would never make it."
-Robert Heinlein, The Star Beast (London, 1974), CHAPTER II, p. 18.
Another strong Heinlein-Anderson parallel, this time involving Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
(Lummox, the title character of The Star Beast, has no hands but is consistently drawn with them.)
Will deaths on Mars be with us soon?
Deaths on the Moon will almost certainly come first.
ReplyDeleteTesting. My earlier comment disappeared.
ReplyDeleteSean
From Sean M. Brooks:
ReplyDeleteKaor, Jim and Paul!
To Both: Maybe, maybe not. Elon Musk and SpaceX has made so much progress, to my joy, over the past 20 some years jump starting a gallingly long stagnant space program that his hopes of sending a manned expedition to Barsoom by 2030 that some explorers might die on Mars before anyone gets to the Moon! That's because a sclerotic, shambling, shambolic, foot dragging, bureaucratic, politics ridden NASA seems totally unable to do anything quickly--despite the Moon being so much nearer Earth than Mars!
Merry Christmas! Sean
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ReplyDeleteFrontiers, in the old saying, are where you find new and interesting ways to die.
ReplyDeleteAs Kipling put it:
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man’s soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks—as the steer breaks—from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed—then the food failed—then the last water dried—
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift—on the veldt-side—in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after—follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after—we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after—follow after—for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come unto your own.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteAmen! Kipling was wise and prescient. And mankind needs frontiers, so I'm glad we still have adventurers like Musk.
Merry Christmas! Sean
Sean: well, Falcon 9 has cut pounds to orbit costs from around $10,000 to around $1,500, which has made a big difference. Starship will bring it down to air-freight levels, which will allow -economic- development of space, not just exploration.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteAnd I love how that drastic reduction of costs (per pound of cargo?) has made space flight and development so much more practical.
One weakness of the "Store" at the SpaceX website is that it doesn't include books/booklets explaining such points along with the other items offered for sale.
Merry Christmas! Sean