Machines

In haste between social engagements, no time to find quotes, but:

in The Infinite Voyage, Poul Anderson argues that human beings must explore space because machines cannot cope with the unforeseen;

however, in Genesis, written much later, he describes self-conscious AI's exploring space;

now I read that AI will soon be incorporated into military technology so that self-directing weapons systems will decide who and what to attack;

seemingly every country buys the latest high tech weaponry.

Is it too much to ask that even one government might give an international moral lead by announcing, "We will stop buying new weapons and will instead invest only in life-enhancing technology?"

Think what humanity could achieve with existing technology if none of it were to be used destructively. Will there be a change inside human beings, as in HG Wells' In The Days Of The Comet or in Anderson's Brain Wave? I do not expect it. So will there instead be a change in power relationships such that public priorities significantly shift away from continued prosecution of current conflicts?

UFOs

Poul Anderson, The Infinite Voyage: Man's Future In Space (London, 1969).

Anderson displays a picture of a "flying saucer" in New Mexico, not this one, on pp. 150-151. He points out that:

"...the reported behavior of flying saucers does not square with the laws of motion for solid objects." (p. 152)

I know a ufologist who would reply that obviously flying saucers are inter-dimensional craft that defy ordinary laws of motion. Obviously. The proposition that flying saucers are some kind of intelligently directed air/space/time/dimensional vehicles is for him not a testable hypothesis but an unassailable assumption and anyone who questions it is blinkered by Western science - unless and until scientists confirm one of his assumptions, in which case their testimony is then quoted as proving the matter. (It gets worse: every time scientists make a discovery that obliges them to revise their earlier statements or theories, they are showing themselves up to have been stupid for accepting their earlier "wrong" views; every time they publish the latest data, e.g., about the atmosphere of Venus, they are claiming infallibly and authoritatively to know the composition of the Venerian atmosphere, thus setting themselves up for another humiliation whenever they - by their own scientific methods, of course - acquire additional data. Could any (mis)understanding of science be more distorted than that?)

At a World SF Con, Arthur C Clarke showed slides, including one of an Apollo launch with a discernible and rather detailed ufo in the sky. He thought that it was some sort of reflection in the camera lens. What it was not was a vehicle hovering in a clear blue sky surrounded by thousands of eyewitnesses, including photographers and camera crews, none of whom noticed it. But a photo of that sort could easily be displayed in Ufology magazines as evidence that aliens monitored Apollo launches.

Anderson's The Infinite Voyage speaks to us from an earlier period when flying saucers were reported and "...Luna City...fifty or a hundred years from now..." (p. 82) was confidently anticipated. In his "Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript" to some editions of Revolt In 2100, Robert Heinlein wrote:

"Space travel in the near future is likely to be a marginal proposition at best, subsidized for military reasons. It could die out..."

It could. In fact, as far as space travel goes, he is describing our timeline.

That is it for 2015, folks. Posting will resume some time in 2016.

Lunar Colonization

Why colonize the Moon?

"Military bases? No. Quite apart from the treaty forbidding them, they would have no usefulness that was not grotesquely outweighed by the expense and trouble."
-Poul Anderson, The Infinite Voyage: Man's Future In Space (London, 1969), p. 76.

That rules out the Space Patrol bases in Robert Heinlein's Future History or the Lunar Guard in Anderson's Psychotechnic History. However, nuclear missiles could instead be placed in Earth orbit.

"Scientific research?" (ibid.)

Yes. Anderson argues that machines cannot cope with the unforeseen whereas the purpose of exploration is precisely to discover (un-cover) what was previously unknown. Machines might become more sophisticated or might be remotely controlled but for the latter there would be a time lag. The purposes of exploration are many but Anderson articulates one that I had not encountered before. Maybe:

wind carried germs into the upper atmosphere;
light pressure drove them into space;
a few landed on the Moon;
some were protected from radiation by falling into cracks or mingling with dust;
there could be several hundred per year for over a billion years;
thus, the Moon might hold clues to the origins of life;
indeed, the Moon itself might have retained enough air and water to generate primitive organisms;
also, complex, pre-biological matter might have originated in the dust cloud that condensed into the Solar System;
the Moon will have vacuum-preserved any such earlier matter that landed on it.

So let's get some scientists onto the Moon.

Infinite Voyages: Man's Future

Poul Anderson, The Infinite Voyage: Man's Future In Space (London, 1969).

An infinite voyage through space or infinite voyages in every direction? Anderson's Foreword mentions:

the ocean;
the Antarcitic;
tropical rain forests;
science -

- although not the mind.

The ocean is mostly unknown. Anderson's "The Sensitive Man" describes an underwater settlement:

oil wells;
mines;
exploration -

- "...men learned to go deeper into cold and darkness and pressure. It was expensive but an overcrowded world had little choice." (The Psychotechnic League, pp. 140-141)

Science includes the exploration of the microcosm. How infinite is that? Is it possible that every particle is composed of smaller particles and spaces between them? No. If every particle = spaces + at least two smaller particles, then every particle = spaces + (spaces + at least four even smaller particles). But then every particle = spaces + (spaces + {spaces + at least eight much smaller particles}) etc. So, at infinity, the volume of every particle = space + infinite particles of zero volume, i.e., just space. In any case, physics has moved away from the model of particles as merely much smaller physical objects.

The human mind is also scientifically studied in the Psychotechnic History which includes "The Sensitive Man." Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:

"...mind has mountains...no-man-fathomed."

Can science fathom mental mountains?