Kings of the High Frontier II

Mr. Sharkey sent me the latest essay, by L. Neil Smith, entitled, Where Do We Go From Here, and it is well worth reading. A snippet:

"The October, 2003 issue of Discover contains one of the saddest letters I've ever read. Gil Bell, of Duluth, Georgia, writes " ... one would have to conclude that travel out of our solar system is impossible. The fusion, fission, and antimatter engines require too much fuel ... The laser sail is doomed by the fact that building a 6,600-mile-wide collecting mirror is simply not feasible, and ... a 600-mile-wide sail would be torn apart by cosmic debris on a daily basis. And why build a fusion ramjet when there's no fuel in space to run it, and its design would not allow it to attain the speed it needs?

"The fusion or fission engine concepts would be useful in getting around out own solar system, but what's the use in traveling to other planets in our neighborhood? Venus will never be inhabitable and neither will Mars or any of the Jovian planets or their moons, and changing the environment on another planet will never be within our capabilities. It is fun to speculate on way that humans might accomplish interstellar travel, but in the end it is just more science fiction."

There are lot of unsupported assertions in Mr. Bell's letter, and a great many factual errors (most of them, I'm afraid, based on an incredible ignorance of history), but the saddest thing about it is its spirit of defeat. As I said in a recent essay, Americans seem to have given up on the future. This letter from Discover is typical and symptomatic.

But it doesn't speak for everyone."

On a similar vein, I had a chance this past weekend to watch the box set of the cancelled television series, by Joss Whedon, FIREFLY. This is arguably the finest adult show, ever to air on the networks, whose underlying theme is freedom and liberty. The show's fan base, is so strong, that they are actually making it into a movie that is due to screen, late spring or early summer, of next year. I cannot express my appreciation of this show enough (and am utterly amazed that it even aired on network television) and suggest you go get it, or at the very least, beg, borrow, or rent a copy.