To the Moon . . . and Beyond?
Location
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
20-9-2019 2:00 PM
Description
Fifty years ago, the first human being set foot on the moon, and to many, especially a group of people called astro-futurists, it seemed like just the first step in an even more giant leap not just to other planets in our solar system to the great expanses of space beyond. Shortly after the lunar landing, NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight even predicted proposed to have a human presence on Mars by the early 1980’s, with Nixon’s own Space Task Force shooting for the end of the 20th century. Obviously, neither happened…except in science fiction. As someone who teaches science fiction, I have been increasingly puzzled by this discrepancy. Many answers have been proposed, but none, to me at least, is completely satisfactory. In this talk, I will engage with this question by looking closely not just at those answers but also at another important event that occurred within that same 12 month period: the first orbit of the moon that gave us one of the most famous photographs ever taken, “Earthrise,” which not coincidentally is featured on the cover for this symposium. I will also step back a bit to consider what it might say about humanity (in particular Americans) that we did not go beyond at that time, as well as that we now appear to be setting out on that course once more to the moon and beyond.
Recommended Citation
Monteverde, Maggie, "To the Moon . . . and Beyond?" (2019). Humanities Symposium. 6.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2019/2019/6
To the Moon . . . and Beyond?
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Fifty years ago, the first human being set foot on the moon, and to many, especially a group of people called astro-futurists, it seemed like just the first step in an even more giant leap not just to other planets in our solar system to the great expanses of space beyond. Shortly after the lunar landing, NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight even predicted proposed to have a human presence on Mars by the early 1980’s, with Nixon’s own Space Task Force shooting for the end of the 20th century. Obviously, neither happened…except in science fiction. As someone who teaches science fiction, I have been increasingly puzzled by this discrepancy. Many answers have been proposed, but none, to me at least, is completely satisfactory. In this talk, I will engage with this question by looking closely not just at those answers but also at another important event that occurred within that same 12 month period: the first orbit of the moon that gave us one of the most famous photographs ever taken, “Earthrise,” which not coincidentally is featured on the cover for this symposium. I will also step back a bit to consider what it might say about humanity (in particular Americans) that we did not go beyond at that time, as well as that we now appear to be setting out on that course once more to the moon and beyond.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts & Sciences