"Live, from the Red Planet..."
Several months ago, I wrote an article entitled "The Orbital Invisible Hand", about the revolution in orbital commerce that would be initiated with the advent of a true reusable launch vehicle. I continue to be amused by the fact that that article has probably been the least well-received of any I have yet written. What can I say? I liked it!
This month I have cause to revisit the topic of the commercialization of space, albeit from a somewhat different angle. Hopefully I will do so with more penetrating insight and more entertainment value this time around! But what angle might I be approaching from, you wonder? I'm so glad you asked--but first permit me a brief digression.
Recently it was my privilege to receive from Bethany House a review copy of a science fiction novel that they have published-- Oxygen by Drs. John B. Olson and Randall Ingermanson. http://www.bethanyhouse.com/index.asp?in... It made for engaging reading--I was loathe to put it down--and I heartily recommend it for its considerable virtues and in spite of its few weaknesses.
The novel is exhaustively researched--although there is something of the Space Camp graduate's glee in the use of every possible acronym when mere words would suffice--and it is a definite triumph that even though it takes them 345 pages to even land on Mars (the book is 365 pages long), the story does not suffer in the least from that all-too-common bane of science fiction fans everywhere: the Interminably Lengthy, Impossibly Boring Interplanetary Journey. Quite the contrary, in fact, since their harrowing flight to Mars makes Apollo 13 look like a Coney Island thrill ride.
Another of the novel's virtues is its fearless confrontation of issues of faith. I have always been convinced that the very best space-traveling science fiction recognizes the majesty of its subject matter and is not afraid to wrangle with man's place in the cosmos, his origins, and his destiny. And for my money, I enjoy a dauntless inquiry that does not necessarily land where my own beliefs would like it to (although some have); none of us are so enlightened as to permit us the luxury of having nothing further to learn. Thus, truly great science fiction can and does run the gamut from Carl Sagan's determinedly agnostic Contact to Arthur Clarke's vaguely (and strangely) deistic Childhood's End to H.G. Wells's naturalistic but ultimately theistic War of the Worlds. And while Oxygen is not so compelling in its inquiry as these, it is still to be applauded for its solid effort.
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