Science fact and science fiction: Part II

Science fact and science fiction: Part II

E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith dressed as C.L. Moore’s character Northwest Smith at the 20th Worldcon in 1962.

E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith dressed as C.L. Moore’s character Northwest Smith at the 20th Worldcon in 1962.

The first part of this blog series can be found here.

Ray Bradbury has said the importance of science fiction lies in that fact that it is “the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself.” Sci-fi is arguably the best medium through which to examine the present by projecting what the future may hold; to debate potential social, political, technological and environmental changes before they become an entrenched part of our reality. Contemporary sci-fi authors conceive of versions of a world different from the one we know, but which hold complex and instructive dialogues with issues which will shape our immediate futures. Recently, for example, author Naomi Alderman has imagined what would happen in a world in which the balance of physical strength is shifted in women’s favour in her novel The Power, whilst Laurie Penny’s Everything Belongs to the Future posits the effects of a pill which provides a super-rich elite with the opportunity to cheat death.

In the mid-twentieth century, however, all thoughts about the future of the earth seemed directed towards the heavens and the popular imagination was captured by the race for the stars, largely played out between the USA and the Soviet Union. In the second part of this blog series which looks at science/fiction, we are focussing on several items which cast an interesting light on the dialogue between the two disciplines. Did scientific advances in the field of space exploration in the mid-twentieth century inspire the elaborate space operas that grew in popularity, or did early science fiction fire the imaginations of scientists? The books we have chosen highlight the hopes and fears for the future stimulated by the expansion of mankind’s reach beyond the limits of the earth’s atmosphere.

SMITH, Edward E., The Skylark of Space. In collaboration with Mrs Lee Hawkins Garby. Illustrated by O. G. Estees Jr. Providence, Rhode Island: Hadley Skylark of Valeron, Reading, PA: Fantasy Press, 1949

SMITH, Edward E., The Skylark of Space. In collaboration with Mrs Lee Hawkins Garby. Illustrated by O. G. Estees Jr. Providence, Rhode Island: Hadley Skylark of Valeron, Reading, PA: Fantasy Press, 1949

The Skylark Series by E. E. Smith, 1928 – 1966

E. E. Smith is sometimes credited as being the father of Space Opera. Whilst his work was predated by many space-adventure stories, The Skylark of Space, first serialised in the magazine Amazing Stories in 1928, epitomised what came to be the hallmarks of the genre. The story follows Richard Seaton, a chemist who discovers how to create a space-drive, builds a starship, and flies off to have adventures, conflicts and romances against a backdrop of galactic empires and interstellar wars. It was the first science fiction story in which humans left our solar system. The high drama and action of Smith’s plot, and that of other works of the genre, were inspired by the success of the Western films, or so-called ‘horse operas’, which enjoyed such popularity in the era of the silent movie. Smith’s Skylark was the first story to transcribe this formula so effectively into the realm of science fiction.

It ought to be noted that The Skylark of Space was a collaborative project between Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of a friend of Smith from the University of Idaho. The story goes that Smith was anxious to include a love interest in his story but felt uncomfortable writing romantic scenes or dialogue and so enlisted the help of a colleague’s wife. It is, however, not known what portion of the finished work is Garby’s; it seems that her involvement in the writing and typing of the manuscript might have been quite extensive. When the serial was first published as a novel in 1946 she was named as co-author on the title page, but Smith’s name alone appeared on the cover. A revised edition published in 1958 featured only Smith’s name, and was reissued many times. Despite the original version being republished in 2007, with Garby’s name restored, her involvement in the first incarnation of the Skylark series is often overlooked and the work is generally thought of as Smith’s alone.

The Skylark series extended over four novels: The Skylark of Space (1946), Skylark Three (1948), Skylark of Valeron (1949) and Skylark DuQuesne (1966). Its influence is far-reaching, with figures such as Robert A. Heinlein and George Lucas citing the series as amongst their major influences. Skylark was also read widely by scientists and contained descriptions of fictional scientific processes and inventions which would turn out to be remarkably prescient. The Skylark of Space, for example, contains the discovery of a nuclear reaction strikingly similar to cold fusion, more than 50 years before Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann would make such a process a reality.

Heinlein, Robert A. The Man Who Sold the Moon. Chicago: Shasta Publishing, 1950. Heinlein and his wife Virginia on the set of Destination Moon in 1950, for which Heinlein wrote the screenplay

Heinlein, Robert A. The Man Who Sold the Moon. Chicago: Shasta Publishing, 1950.
Heinlein and his wife Virginia on the set of Destination Moon in 1950, for which Heinlein wrote the screenplay

The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert A. Heinlein, 1949

Often described alongside Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke as one of the ‘big three’ science fiction authors, Robert Heinlein won numerous awards for his fiction and, like Smith, had the habit of predicting technological advances in his stories which would later become a reality. Written in 1949, The Man Who Sold the Moon deals with the events surrounding a fictional first moon landing in the year 1978.

Delos D. Harriman is an entrepreneur whose ambition is to own the moon. In order to surmount the financial demands of this project, Harriman must exploit commercial and political rivalries in order to secure funding, convincing the Moka Coka cola company that a rival soft drinks venture plans to use to moon as a billboard for advertising their products. He gains backing from an influential anti-communist by convincing him of the need to reach the moon before Russia, and offers the moon as a broadcasting location to a television network. He also secures his ownership by convincing the United Nations that, as the moon passes directly above a number of countries in its orbit of the earth, a bitter ownership contest could ensue, and that granting the management of the moon to a private company would circumvent such a dispute. “I would cheat, lie, steal, beg, bribe—do anything to accomplish what we have accomplished” says Harriman at one point.

Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1944. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1944. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Heinlein’s novella is not only prescient in its prediction of the space race – specifically, of the rivalry between the US and the USSR for the first manned moon landing – but also in its foresight about the rush to commercialise space that would follow on the heels of successful spaceflight. Harriman’s plans at the end of the novel to establish a lunar colony and provide tourists with the opportunity to travel to the moon anticipated the push for space tourism, an industry into which several competing companies around the world are currently looking to expand, whilst the use of commercial satellites in space has been a reality since 1962.

Jones, Raymond F. This Island Earth. Chicago: Shasta Publishing, 1952.

Jones, Raymond F. This Island Earth. Chicago: Shasta Publishing, 1952.

This Island Earth by Raymond F. Jones, 1952 (Item sold)

Raymond F. Jones’ story of a man who becomes embroiled in an alien plot to use earth as a bargaining chip in an intergalactic war was to become the basis for a 1955 sci-fi movie of the same name. The novel is now less well-known than its film counterpart, and its author often features only as footnote in the annals of Golden Age science fiction scholarship. Jones’ novel has occasionally been criticised for its thin characterisation and sexism and is generally not considered amongst the classics of the genre. However, it does advance some interesting themes and, as is the case with much science fiction writing, functions as an interesting analogue for perceptions of several major issues of the era.

The plot follows electrical engineer Cal Meacham, who, after ordering and assembling a series of mysterious parts from a catalogue, receives a message on the device inviting him to join the so-called Peace-Engineers, a group of top scientists working for an alien race who are fighting a massive war in space. In the course of the story, earth is in danger of being swept up and destroyed in the conflict between the two powerful opposing alien forces, and the hero and his colleague Ruth must plead for its protection by demonstrating the human race’s usefulness in helping Lanna, the side for which they have been working, to win the war.

Rex Reason and Faith Domergue in a PR Still for the 1955 film of This Island Earth

Rex Reason and Faith Domergue in a PR Still for the 1955 film of This Island Earth

Echoes of cold-war paranoia rumble in the plot of uncovering an unsuspected alien takeover of planet earth, and in themes of surveillance, undercover agents and information leaks to the enemy. The novella can also be read as a comment on the Manhattan Project: Cal and his fellow scientists are initially unaware that they are being used as pawns in a war that is largely indifferent to the fate of planet earth, and find themselves trapped into their situation when they discover the truth and try to object, mirroring Oppenheimer’s troubled relationship with the work he was undertaking on the development and use of the atomic bomb.

For further mid-century sci-fi currently in stock please see the following items:
HEINLEIN, Robert A., Assignment in Eternity. Four Long Science Fiction Stories. 1953 (Item sold)
CAMPBELL, John W., Jr., Islands of Space. 1956
SIMAK, Clifford D. City. 1952
SMITH, Edward E. Spacehounds of IPC. 1947

Science fact and science fiction: Part I

Science fact and science fiction: Part I

Earthrise as seen from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968. By NASA / Bill Anders [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Earthrise as seen from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968. By NASA / Bill Anders [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In a recent interview, Margaret Atwood speculated that the world we currently live in is not a million light years away from the dystopias such as those we might find in her fiction. Her MaddAddam trilogy imagines a world in which the earth’s resources are severely depleted, leading to a situation in which “warlords and demagogues take over, some people forget that all people are people, enemies are created, vilified and dehumanised, minorities are persecuted, and human rights as such are shoved to the wall.” Sci-fi and speculative narratives have recently risen to new prominence in popular culture, attested to by the popularity of shows such as Black Mirror, which imagines nightmarish futures such as the one described in MaddAddam. This might be explained in part by a growing awareness that recent upheavals in the social, political and ecological status-quo have brought the moribund worlds of dystopic narrative off the page and screen and into our immediate realities.

Science fiction has progressed beyond the space operas which inform the stereotypes of the genre, and now deals as often with the forces which might alter life as we know it from within our own atmosphere, as those which might be found in galaxies far far away. However, during the period between the 1950s and 1970s, when the popular imagination was captured by the international space race, the stories causing sci-fi to soar into the stratosphere were fact rather than fiction. This blog looks at a few items from the collection of Dr Homer E. Newell, a former NASA administrator, which illustrate the endeavours of man to understand the universe in the golden age of space exploration. A companion piece will bring together some works of sci-fi which emerged from the same period of human history. Together, these demonstrate the ability of the human race to pursue knowledge of the origins of our universe and speculate on its future.

Dr Homer E. Newell Jr

Dr Homer E. Newell Jr

From the library of Dr Homer E. Newell Jr

The following three items were recently acquired from the collection of Dr Homer E. Newell Jr. Newell was an American scientist and mathematician who was instrumental in the creation of NASA, having long been an advocate for the creation of a civilian space agency. On the establishment of NASA in 1958, Newell was given credit by his peers for being a strong driving force in negotiations. He joined NASA in its inaugural year and held several successive positions there, eventually rising to the post of associate administrator, third in command at the agency. During his time with NASA, he was instrumental in the development of plans for lunar exploration.

Newell was the recipient of many honours for his work, including NASA’s Distinguished Service Award and in 1965, the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service. He kept an extensive collection of books on space science and the surrounding fields, and authored eight works of his own. This is the first time that books from Newell’s collection have been available on the market.

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Kepler’s Dream by John Lear (Item sold)

This presentation copy is inscribed ‘For Homer Newell, with the author’s respect, sincerely John Lear’. This book is the first complete translation of the seventeenth century novel Somnium by the German mathematician Johannes Kepler, which is believed to be the first scientific treatise on lunar astronomy, as well as being cited by writers such as Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan as one of the first known works of science fiction. Its basis in Copernican principles made this a highly controversial work, contradicting religious beliefs on the day. Kepler wrote Somnium in Latin and presented his vision of lunar travel as a dream-allegory, intended only for circulation amongst a select group of scientists who would immediately discern its meaning.

Somnium was developed from Kepler’s student thesis which considered how the earth and the movements of the planets in the heavens would look to an observer stationed on the moon. The allegorical dream framework was added much later. The narrative centres on Duractos, an Icelandic boy, who travels to the island of Levania (the moon) with the help of a wise Daemon and observes from there the orbit of the earth and other planets, echoing the theories of Galileo and Copernicus.

Kepler’s model of the solar system. Statue of Katharina Kepler in Eltingen. Harke, CC BY-SA

Kepler’s model of the solar system.
Statue of Katharina Kepler in Eltingen. Harke, CC BY-SA

Kepler was never to see the publication of Somnium in his lifetime. His mother, Katharina, was caught up in the witch hunting mania which swept through Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Known as a difficult woman, brought up by an aunt who had been burned as a witch, it seems that it was only a matter of time before Katharina would be accused of the same crime. To make matters worse, Kepler’s Somnium, in which the mother of the protagonist is described as a ‘wise woman’, who sells lucky charms to passing sailors, was taken to be autobiographical evidence that his mother was a witch, and was used against her in the trial. Kepler abandoned his work to fight a legal battle for his mother’s life which would last six years. Fourteen months of this time was spent by Katharina chained to the floor of a prison cell and threatened with torture in an effort to extract a confession of witchcraft. Kepler’s defence of his mother is said to have been a triumph of reason against superstition and she was eventually cleared of the charges. However, the trial and privations of prison had taken their toll on her, and she died only six months later.

The Decision to go to the Moon, John M. Logsdon, 1920. President John F. Kennedy delivers his proposal to put a man on the Moon before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961. By NASA (Great Images in NASA Description)

The Decision to go to the Moon, John M. Logsdon, 1920.
President John F. Kennedy delivers his proposal to put a man on the Moon before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961. By NASA (Great Images in NASA Description)

The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest by John M. Logsdon (Item sold)

John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and former member of the NASA advisory council, published this account of the decision making process which led to the first manned moon landing only a year after the success of Apollo 11. Reconstructing the series of events which saw the announcement in 1961 of John F. Kennedy’s decision to reach the moon “before this decade is out”, Logsdon casts the Apollo Project in a political, rather than a military light, citing the Soviet Space Program as the clear motivating factor in the immense and single-minded effort which put Neil Armstrong on the moon. President Kennedy, according to Logsdon, was not himself a particular enthusiast for space exploration, remarking to one of his advisors “if you had a scientific spectacular on this earth that would be more useful – say desalting the ocean – or something just as dramatic and convincing as space, then we would do that.” However, Kennedy did believe that American international security was inextricably linked to its unshakable position as the world’s leading technological force. He asked his advisors to come up with a space race that American could win and they responded with a feasible plan to put an American on the moon, stating in their report that “it is man, not merely machines, in space that captures the imagination of the world.”

Ionosphere, (Floyd D. Hall), 1968

Ionosphere, (Floyd D. Hall), 1968

Ionosphere. (HALL, Floyd D.)

This remarkable blue leather case, presented to Newell by chairman and chief executive of the now defunct Eastern Airlines, contains an eclectic and charming collection of material which illustrates the story of man’s efforts in communication, exploration and navigation. Ionosphere is, in Hall’s words, “an attempt to define the proper perspective of the airplane in the service of mankind”. The contents of the case comprises a short brochure including poetry and literary quotations which illustrate the message of Ionosphere, and four folders entitled respectively ‘Man Learns to Find His Way’, ‘Man Learns to Communicate’, ‘Man Learns to Multiply His Strength’ and ‘Man Learns to Fly’. These folders contain a beautifully presented collection of material including a working astrolabe, a recreation of a page from the Gutenberg bible, notes on the creation of the first steam engine and a hitherto unpublished photograph of the first flight of the Wright brothers in 1905.

From ‘Man Learns to Find His Way’

From ‘Man Learns to Find His Way’

Brochure accompanying Ionosphere and the letter from Floyd Hall presenting the collection to Newell

Brochure accompanying Ionosphere and the letter from Floyd Hall presenting the collection to Newell

Other items from the collection of Dr Newell include:
ROSEN, Milton W – The Viking Rocket Story, 1955 (Item sold)
(FOX, Sidney W., ed.) – The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular Matrices, 1965 (Item sold)
VAETH, J. Gordon – Weather Eyes in the Sky: America’s Meteorological Satellites, 1965 (Item sold)
NEWELL, Homer E. – Guide to Rockets, Missiles, and Satellites, 1958