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What Killed the Space Race?

Science fiction did, argues Adam Roberts.

16th October 2014
| Professor of Literature, science fiction writer and critic. His award-winning books include Anticopernicus and New Model Army.
1,150 words
Read time: approx. 6 mins

For a number of reasons I have been thinking recently about the 1969 moon landings. Partly it was the fact that the recent series-finale of the AMC TV serial Mad Men was set during that hot July, with all the characters agog at the splendour of Armstrong’s one small step. The show recaptured the mood of that time: a whole world was filled with an almost transcendent excitement—and with good cause. In my opinion, in a thousand years the names of all the politicians, artists, movie stars, scientists and philosophers will be long forgotten, but people will still know the name of Neil Armstrong.

Another reason this has been on my mind lately is because of one of my hobbies: collecting science fiction magazines from the 1950s-70s. I happened to pick up some old copies of Analog from a junk shop, and was reading through the way they reported Apollo. Of course the contributors were all tremendously excited by the moon mission, as you would expect them to be. But without exception they saw it as the start of something bigger: manned missions to the other planets; a permanent moon base; the colonisation of outer space by mankind. It was the dream of science fiction. It was the dream I grew up with.

Adam Roberts
16th October 2014

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Paul Cooper 24 October 2014

What a privilege to have the social life where one can make the statement "Every astronaut I know would disagree"!

Edward Wright 23 October 2014

Adam Roberts mistakes the nature of Apollo. It was never about "colonizing outer space." It was a political competition and never "became something more," despite what some writers in science-fiction magazines may have believed. (While reading those back issues of Analog, Roberts should pay attention to the columns of G. Harry Stine, who got it right.)

Adams says "the reality of space exploration is 90% dull." Every astronaut I know would disagree. The only people who became bored with Apollo were those who didn't have the chance to go. Unfortunately, that was well over 99.999% of the human race.

Space exploration did not end after Apollo, however. In fact, the vast majority of space missions came after Apollo -- not just unmanned missions, as Adams says, but astronauts, too. This will increase dramatically in the near future, as new low-cost commercial spacecraft come online. There is no physical reason why space travel has to be prohibitively expensive, if we develop reusable vehicles that can operate like aircraft instead of guided missiles.

Adams says space exploration is "slow" -- "it takes three days to reach the Moon." The implication is that space itself is simply an obstacle, something to be traversed as quickly as possible, to reach the surface of a moon or planetary body. This ignores everything to be seen, studied, and experienced along the way. It's like complaining about the "long boring drive" through Yellowstone National Park just to reach the visitors center.

Roberts asks why people would spend money to go into space when they can stay home and watch Hollywood movies. But travel and tourism are the world's largest industry, despite Hollywood and the Travel Channel. Clearly, many people are not content to sit home and watch teevee. There is no reason to think space will be different.