Son of Son of…
19. Jul, 2009 
3 Comments
While I was at Readercon I attended a panel entitled Apollo 11. Among the participants was Barry Malzberg (Beyond Apollo) who was visibly enraged during the course of the discussion.
Most of the talk (at least from Barry) centered on the fact that science fiction authors (who’s job it is to explore – not prognosticate) failed, with the notable exception of Malzberg and one other author who’s name escapes me right now) to write about the moon landing moment and, its meanings and its consequences.? Barry seemed to contend that anyone who was really paying attention would have known that the manned space program and any chance of continuing on to Mars was FINISHED! the moment Neil touched boot to dust.
The panel ended before there was any real cf chance for Q&A – I would have liked to have heard more detail from Barry on the subject, but perhaps this piece from Tom Wolfe in the NYT helps to extend the discussion.
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Seems strange that Malzberg would be worked up over the death of the space race. It’s kind of like being upset about the breakup of The Beatles or something. Yes, it’s disappointing, but it’s also old news. My hope continues to rest on private industry. So long as the government controls the purse strings, it’s going to be a slow, inefficient process. Some combination of a company like Virgin Galactic (if they’re still solvent) and a single-stage-to-orbit capacity that reduces cost per pound from $10K to $1K or less: those are the things that will make a difference.
so far as the cost per pound issue, we’re in the classic catch 22 stage: if there were more capacity/flights/competitors, the price will be driven down, but we won’t get competitors until the cost is driven down…
Malzberg, I think, was more upset about “SFs” failure to look beyond the obvious (we’ll be all over the solar system, goin to the stars baby!) than he was about the demise of the program.
follow-on: the solution the the catch-22 is either: new technological development or, someone with deep pockets willing to invest in long-term return