space, the first frontier
Apr. 7th, 2010 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacIt is with humble perplexity, like a Polynesian in a blizzard,* that I link to this article that I just read in last Nov. 9's Newsweek. The title, 'Rocket Men: Politicians won't get us back into the space race, but novelists just might," suggests that it might be about science-fiction writers working in think tanks to come up with space travel ideas, but it turns out to be about the transformative power of SF to encourage us to hunger for space.
But as such, it's peculiarly weak. For one thing, the only novelist mentioned in it is Jules Verne. The rest of the SF is all movies and tv shows, and the author, Jeremy McCarter, considers most of the recent ones weak. Ones he mentions may be, but there's plenty of others. The one he does like is Firefly, which he describes as "a Western in space, starring the A-Team." The A-Team? The A-Team? Does he really think it's that cheesy?
Problem is, though, Firefly is about a literal junkyard spaceship trying to keep under the radar of an oppressive government, and the crew aren't exploring anything, they're conducting hand-to-mouth economics. Not the kind of image that inspires me to think about present-day bold programs to land on the Martian moons. Of the older material he mentions favorably, Star Trek and 2001 have that kind of inspiration in them, but Star Wars, like Firefly, is about something else.
Weirdly, McCarter fails to mention his most relevant films, bold and inspiring movies about real space exploration, like Apollo 13 and the From the Earth to the Moon miniseries. These are great stuff, and I've watched them both more than once. I can even testify, as someone who remembers the original events, that the movies improve on history. They edit out long boring sections in which nothing happens, they have better cinematography and are better acted, and they have stirring music behind them, all of which history unfortunately failed to provide.
McCarter also makes historical errors that any space buff would catch - Alan Shepard was the US's first man in space, but he didn't reach orbit on that flight; the first American in orbit was a fellow named John Glenn, remember him? - and is a clumsy writer as well. "I wouldn't be writing this essay - and maybe you wouldn't be reading it - without the formative influence at a malleable age of several hundred viewings of The Empire Strikes Back." Well, no, if he hadn't written the essay, we most certainly wouldn't be reading it.
Addressing what he actually means, though, I can say that in my formative years - which apparently predate his - I didn't become interested in space because I watched Star Trek and 2001. It was the other way around: I watched those shows because I was excited by space exploration and astronomy.
*©1964 Walter A. Willis
But as such, it's peculiarly weak. For one thing, the only novelist mentioned in it is Jules Verne. The rest of the SF is all movies and tv shows, and the author, Jeremy McCarter, considers most of the recent ones weak. Ones he mentions may be, but there's plenty of others. The one he does like is Firefly, which he describes as "a Western in space, starring the A-Team." The A-Team? The A-Team? Does he really think it's that cheesy?
Problem is, though, Firefly is about a literal junkyard spaceship trying to keep under the radar of an oppressive government, and the crew aren't exploring anything, they're conducting hand-to-mouth economics. Not the kind of image that inspires me to think about present-day bold programs to land on the Martian moons. Of the older material he mentions favorably, Star Trek and 2001 have that kind of inspiration in them, but Star Wars, like Firefly, is about something else.
Weirdly, McCarter fails to mention his most relevant films, bold and inspiring movies about real space exploration, like Apollo 13 and the From the Earth to the Moon miniseries. These are great stuff, and I've watched them both more than once. I can even testify, as someone who remembers the original events, that the movies improve on history. They edit out long boring sections in which nothing happens, they have better cinematography and are better acted, and they have stirring music behind them, all of which history unfortunately failed to provide.
McCarter also makes historical errors that any space buff would catch - Alan Shepard was the US's first man in space, but he didn't reach orbit on that flight; the first American in orbit was a fellow named John Glenn, remember him? - and is a clumsy writer as well. "I wouldn't be writing this essay - and maybe you wouldn't be reading it - without the formative influence at a malleable age of several hundred viewings of The Empire Strikes Back." Well, no, if he hadn't written the essay, we most certainly wouldn't be reading it.
Addressing what he actually means, though, I can say that in my formative years - which apparently predate his - I didn't become interested in space because I watched Star Trek and 2001. It was the other way around: I watched those shows because I was excited by space exploration and astronomy.
*©1964 Walter A. Willis
