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An Adventure Amidst the Industrial Revolution

Commencement of earth-moon history

SCENES ON THE PLANETS

SATURN, A PRODIGY AMONG PLANETS

JUPITER, THE GREATEST OF KNOWN WORLDS

THE ASTEROIDS, A FAMILY OF DWARF WORLDS

Other Worlds by Garrett Putman Serviss is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . INTRODUCTORY INTRODUCTORY Other worlds and their inhabitants are remarkably popular subjects of speculation at the present time. Every day we hear people asking one another if it is true that we shall soon be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes, such as Mars, that circle in company with our earth about the sun. One of the masters of practical electrical science in our time has suggested that the principle of wireless telegraphy may be extended to the transmission of messages across space from planet to planet. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets has become, with many, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presents a question of fascinating interest, which has deeply stirred the popular imagination. The importance of this subject as an intellectual phenomenon of the opening century is clearly indicated by the extent to which it has entered into recent literature. Poets feel its inspiration, and novelists and romancers freely select other planets as the scenes of their stories. One tells us of a visit paid by men to the moon, and of the wonderful things seen, and adventures had, there. Lucian, it is true, did the same thing eighteen hundred years ago, but he had not the aid of hints from modern science to guide his speculations and lend verisimilitude to his narrative. Another startles us from our sense of planetary security with a realistic account of the invasion of the earth by the terrible sons of warlike Mars, seeking to extend their empire by the conquest of foreign globes. Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than— "The anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders"— that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the planets. Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe. In short, writers of fiction have already established interplanetary communication to their entire satisfaction, thus vastly and indefinitely enlarging the bounds of romance, and making us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of Mars, Venus, and the moon, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognize them on sight wherever we might meet them. But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it. Around Mars, in particular, a lively war of opinions rages. Not all astronomers have joined in the dispute—some have not imagination enough, and some are waiting for more light before choosing sides—but those who have entered the arena are divided between two opposed camps. One side holds that Mars is not only a world capable of having inhabitants, but that it actually has them, and that they have given visual proof of their existence and their intelligence through the changes they have produced upon its surface. The other side maintains that Mars is neither inhabited nor habitable, and that what are taken for vast pub lic works and engineering marvels wrought by its industrious inhabitants, are nothing but illusions of the telescope, or delusions of the observer's mind. Both adduce numerous observations, telescopic and spectroscopic, and many arguments, scientific and theoretic, to support their respective contentions, but neither side has yet been able to convince or silence the other, although both have made themselves and their views intensely interesting to the world at large, which would very much like to know what the truth really is. And not only Mars, but Venus—the beauteous twin sister of the earth, who, when she glows in the evening sky, makes everybody a lover of the stars—and even Mercury, the Moor among the planets, wearing "the shadowed livery of the burnished sun," to whom he is "a neighbor and near bred," and Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon itself—all these have their advocates, who refuse to believe that they are lifeless globes, mere reflectors of useless sunshine. The case of the moon is, in this respect, especially interesting, on account of the change that has occurred in the opinions held concerning its physical condition. For a very long time our satellite was confidently, and almost universally, regarded as an airless, waterless, lifeless desert, a completely "dead world," a bare, desiccated skull of rock, circling about the living earth. But within a few years there has been a reaction from this extreme view of the lifelessness of the moon. Observers tell us of clouds suddenly appearing and then melting to invisibility over volcanic craters; of evidences of an atmosphere, rare as compared with ours, yet manifest in its effects; of variations of color witnessed in certain places as the sunlight drifts over them at changing angles of incidence; of what seem to be immense fields of vegetation covering level ground, and of appearances indicating the existence of clouds of ice crystals and deposits of snow among the mountainous lunar landscapes. Thus, in a manner, the moon is rehabilitated, and we are invited to regard its silvery beams not as the re flections of the surface of a desert, but as sent back to our eyes from the face of a world that yet has some slight remnants of life to brighten it. The suggestion that there is an atmosphere lying close upon the shell of the lunar globe, filling the deep cavities that pit its face and penetrating to an unknown depth in its interior, recalls a speculation of the ingenious and entertaining Fontenelle, in the seventeenth century—recently revived and enlarged upon by the author of one of our modern romances of adventure in the moon—to the effect that the lunar inhabitants dwell beneath the surface of their globe instead of on the top of it. Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern telescopes and other improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes which together with the earth constitute the sun's family, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form—and that is the object of this book. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the planets, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Hence, a book written specially from the point of view of that subject would appear calculated to meet a popular want; and this the more, because, since Mr. Proctor wrote his Other Worlds than Ours and M. Flammarion his Pluralité des Mondes Habités, many most important and significant discoveries have been made that, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the planets present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability. No doubt the natural tendency of the mind is to regard all the planets as habitable worlds, for there seems to be deeply implanted in human nature a consciousness of the universality of life, giving rise to a conviction that one world, even in the material sense, is not enough for it, but that every planet must belong to its kingdom. We are apt to say to ourselves: "The earth is one of a number of planets, all similarly circumstanced; the earth is inhabited, why should not the others also be inhabited?" What has been learned of the unity in chemical constitution and mechanical operation prevailing throughout the solar system, together with the continually accumulating evidence of the common origin of its various members, and the identity of the evolutionary processes that have brought them into being, all tends to strengthen the a priori hypothesis that life is a phenomenon general to the entire system, and only absent where its essential and fundamental conditions, for special and local, and perhaps temporary, reasons, do not exist. If we look for life in the sun, for instance, while accepting the prevalent conception of the sun as a center of intense thermal action, we must abandon all our ideas of the physical organization of life formed upon what we know of it from experimental evidence. We can not imagine any form of life that has ever been presented to our senses as existing in the sun. But this is not generally true of the planets. Life, in our sense of it, is a planetary, not a solar, phenomenon, and while we may find reasons for believing that on some of the planets the conditions are such that creatures organized like ourselves could not survive, yet we can not positively say that every form of living organism must necessarily be excluded from a world whose environment would be unsuited for us and our contemporaries in terrestrial life. Although our sole knowledge of animated nature is confined to what we learn by experience on the earth, yet it is a most entertaining, and by no means unedifying, occupation, to seek to apply to the exceed ingly diversified conditions prevailing in the other planets, as astronomical observations reveal them to us, the principles, types, and limitations that govern the living creatures of our world, and to judge, as best we can, how far those types and limits may be modified or extended so that those other planets may reasonably be included among the probable abodes of life. In order to form such judgments each planet must be examined by itself, but first it is desirable to glance at the planetary system as a whole. To do this we may throw off, in imagination, the dominance of the sun, and suppose ourselves to be in the midst of open space, far removed both from the sun and the other stars. In this situation it is only by chance, or through foreknowledge, that we can distinguish our sun at all, for it is lost among the stars; and when we discover it we find that it is only one of the smaller and less conspicuous members of the sparkling host. We rapidly approach, and when we have arrived within a distance comparable with that of its planets, we see that the sun has increased in apparent magnitude, until now it enormously outshines all the other stars, and its rays begin to produce the effect of daylight upon the orbs that they reach. But we are in no danger of mistaking its apparent superiority to its fellow stars for a real one, because we clearly perceive that our nearness alone makes it seem so great and overpowering. And now we observe that this star that we have drawn near to has attending it a number of minute satellites, faintly shining specks, that circle about it as if charmed, like night-wandering insects, by its splendor. It is manifest to us at the first glance that without the sun these obedient little planets would not exist; it is his attraction that binds them together in a system, and his rays that make them visible to one another in the abyss of space. Although they vary in relative size, yet we observe a striking similarity among them. They are all globular bodies, they all turn upon their axes, they all travel about the sun in the same direction, and their paths all lie very nearly in one plane. Some of them have one or more moons, or satellites, circling about them in imitation of their own revolution about the sun. Their family relationship to one another and to the sun is so evident that it colors our judgment about them as individuals; and when we happen to find, upon closer approach, that one of them, the earth, is covered with vegetation and water and filled with thousands of species of animated creatures, we are disposed to believe, without further examination, that they are all alike in this respect, just as they are all alike in receiving light and heat from the sun. This preliminary judgment, arising from the evident unity of the planetary system, can only be varied by an examination of its members in detail. One striking fact that commands our attention as soon as we have entered the narrow precincts of the solar system is the isolation of the sun and its attendants in space. The solar system occupies a disk-shaped, or flat circular, expanse, about 5,580,000,000 miles across and relatively very thin, the sun being in the center. From the sun to the nearest star, or other sun, the distance is approximately five thousand times the entire diameter of the solar system. But the vast majority of the stars are probably a hundred times yet more remote. In other words, if the Solar system be represented by a circular flower-bed ten feet across, the nearest star must be placed at a distance of nine and a half miles, and the great multitude of the stars at a distance of nine hundred miles! Or, to put it in another way, let us suppose the sun and his planets to be represented by a fleet of ships at sea, all included within a space about half a mile across; then, in order that there might be no shore relatively nearer than the nearest fixed star is to the sun, we should have to place our fleet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, while the distance of the main shore of the starry universe would be so immense that the whole surface of the earth would be far too small to hold the expanse of ocean needed to represent it! From these general considerations we next proceed to recall some of the details of the system of worlds amid which we dwell. Besides the earth, the sun has seven other principal planets in attendance. These eight planets fall into two classes—the terrestrial planets and the major, or jovian, planets. The former class comprises Mercury, Venus, the earth, and Mars, and the latter Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. I have named them all in the order of their distance from the sun, beginning with the nearest. The terrestrial planets, taking their class name from terra, the earth, are relatively close to the sun and comparatively small. The major planets—or the jovian planets, if we give them a common title based upon the name of their chief, Jupiter or Jove—are relatively distant from the sun and are characterized both by great comparative size and slight mean density. The terrestrial planets are all included within a circle, having the sun for a center, about 140,000,000 miles in radius. The space, or gap, between the outermost of them, Mars, and the innermost of the jovian planets, Jupiter, is nearly two and a half times as broad as the entire radius of the circle within which they are included. And not only is the jovian group of planets widely separated from the terrestrial group, but the distances between the orbits of its four members are likewise very great and progressively increasing. Between Jupiter and Saturn is a gap 400,000,000 miles across, and this becomes 900,000,000 miles between Saturn and Uranus, and more than 1,000,000,000 miles between Uranus and Neptune. All of these distances are given in round numbers. Finally, we come to some very extraordinary worlds—if we can call them worlds at all—the asteroids. They form a third group, characterized by the extreme smallness of its individual members, their astonishing number, and the unusual eccentricities and inclinations of their orbits. They are situated in the gap between the terrestrial and the jovian planets, and about 500 of them have been discovered, while there is reason to think that their real number may be many thousands. The largest of them is less than 500 miles in diameter, and many of those recently discovered may be not more than ten or twenty miles in diameter. What marvelous places of abode such little planets would be if it were possible to believe them inhabited, we shall see more clearly when we come to consider them in their turn. But without regard to the question of habitability, the asteroids will be found extremely interesting. In the next chapter we proceed to take up the planets for study as individuals, beginning with Mercury, the one nearest the sun. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Garrett Putman Serviss (2006). Other Worlds. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18431/pg18431-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

The masters of practical electrical science 

Of the relation which the Prophecy of John hath to those of Daniel

Of the power of the eleventh horn of Daniel's fourth Beast, to change times and laws

Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1931, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . VOL. V, No. 2 - The Reader's Corner The Reader's Corner "Absurd" to "Superb" Dear Editor: Unfortunately, I missed the January number of your very excellent magazine, which I consider superior to any of its type. I brought seven copies—February to August—with me on my vacation, and have so far read the first three from cover to cover. The February and March numbers were almost above reproach, but the April number contained two stories so surprisingly poor that I can only conjecture the Editor was ill at that time. They were "The Man who was Dead," by Thomas H. Knight and "Monsters of Moyen," by Arthur J. Burks. For Mr. Knight there is no hope. To him I can only say "Stop trying to write and get a job." I am a rapid and omnivorous reader, but never have I read a story so utterly bad as his. He gets the booby prize. Arthur J. Burks, although a master artist in comparison to Knight, is pretty poor—terrible, in fact. His style is dull, repetitious, and stilted. His melodrama is exaggerated to the point of nauseating absurdity. His characters are lifeless and unnatural puppets. So much for the faults. Among the best Science Fiction stories I have read is "The Planet of Dread," by R. F. Starzl in the August number. I also very much enjoyed the "Dr. Bird" stories by Capt. Meek, and indeed all the others, barring the two I criticized in such a helpful, friendly spirit. Leinster and Cummings are old favorites of mine. I prefer your present cover but disagree with your attitude towards reprinting the older works of such authors as George Allen England, Serviss and Cummings, which are now unobtainable and would, I believe, be received with pleasure and applause. Congratulations—Joseph S. Stull, 291 Barrington St., Rochester, N. Y. P.S. Since I wrote I have read the May and June numbers—both perfect. C. D. Willard is a superb storyteller. Wrong Numbers Still! Dear Editor: I agree with the rest of your readers in the good things they say about your magazine in "The Readers' Corner." There is one story, however, "The Planet of Dread," in your August issue, that gives me a rather sickening feeling of disgust. The trouble was in the climax. After the hero has wandered over quite a portion of the planet Inra, he arrives at some mountains where, lo and behold! an unexpected space ship drops from the clouds to an unfrequented ledge of rock and makes a rescue. After this sensational climax comes an equally thrilling anti-climax—the hero is offered three years' salary for his story. To accuse the future world of doing such a thing is an open insult to our posterity. Ten per cent of my high school freshmen took just such an ending to their first themes. As that story took up about one-seventh of your space and your magazine cost twenty cents. I figure you owe your readers three cents on that issue. But, due to the fineness of the rest of your stories, I am willing to forget your debt as far as I am concerned. I am happy to see that you are beginning to print articles. I read with interest the one about Mechanical Voices for Telephone Numbers in your September issue. But can't something be done about wrong numbers? The article states that a person dialed the number 8561T. Two seconds later the loud-speaker spoke up, clearly, in an almost human voice, 8651T. Wrong number! Must this evil be with us always! I am NOT in favor of reprints. You are printing stories every month just as good as any of those suggested to you. I have read most of those classic scientific stories referred to. The best stories along this line have not been written yet. Keep your space clear for them. Let us have young blood with new ideas. Let our authors eat. Good stories were never written on an empty stomach. I believe yours is the highest type of the few magazines that lay a greater stress on the brains of the hero than on his good looks. But, for the sake of one of your ardent readers, let that hero use his brains to get himself out of whatever he has gotten into. Don't let a space ship swoop down from above to rescue him. That type of story reminds me a lot of the one where Jonah was rescued from the deep by the timely arrival of the friendly whale. By the way, there's a suggestion for a reprint. I will admit that it would be just about as new to me as some of the others that have been suggested in this "Corner."—Richard Lewis, 448 Marion St., Knoxville, Iowa. Not So "Green" in Ireland Dear Editor: I suppose it's not often you get a letter from an Irish "Paddy," but here's one now. Here in Cork we don't get magazines like Astounding Stories regularly, but I got the May issue to-day and could not stop until I had devoured it from cover to cover. "The Atom Smasher" is a story which I have been hunting for for years. When I had finished it, I had to sit back and leave out all the breath which I was holding in in a prolonged "whew!" If ever I get the luck to find another Astounding Stories I'll burn up the pages looking for the name Victor Rousseau. Next in order I liked "Brigands of the Moon" and "The Jovian Jest." Thought the story "Into the Ocean's Depths" an awful fairy tale, but otherwise good reading. The painter of the cover design is a real artist and I wish to express my appreciation of his wonderful rendering of a difficult subject.—Fitz-Gerald Grattan, 11 Frankfield Terrace, Summerhill South, Cork, Irish Free State. Worthy His Evening and Pipe Dear Editor: I have read my first copy of Astounding Stories, the September. The first paragraph in the first part of "A Problem in Communication" assured me that I had found a book worthy of my evening and pipe. Read that paragraph and you will find Dr. Miles Breuer is most brilliant in his philosophy and clever in the application of that philosophy in his masterpiece of the science of communication.—Don L. Schweitzer, 1402 Bancroft St., Omaha, Nebr. "Taking a Claw Hold" Dear Editor: Was just reading the September issue of A. S. and find it ranging first among the Science Fiction magazines now printed. I'm certain your "Jetta of the Lowlands" is going to be a masterpiece of Ray Cummings. He is my favorite writer. I did not like "Earth, the Marauder." It was too much drawn out and very dry. "Brigands of the Moon" was excellent. I wish you would print my letter, as I'd like any one, male of female, interested in science to write to me. Would you kindly oblige me? I'm glad to see girls taking interest in your magazine, as it shown science is taking a claw hold on everyone—Harold BegGell, 29 Stewart St., Washington, N. J. This and That Dear Editor: In the October issue of Astounding Stories, Mr. Woodrow Gelman casts vote No. 1 for reprints. Well, here is vote No. 2. I intended to reply to all your arguments against reprint, but Mr. Gelman has done this very satisfactorily, indeed. I only wish to make a few additional comments. You say that only one out of a hundred haven't read reprints . Fifty out of a hundred would be more correct. Five years ago there wasn't a single magazine devoted exclusively to Science Fiction. Now there are six of them, more or less. These magazines have converted thousands of readers into Science Fiction fans. These readers ought to be given a chance to read the old masterpieces. Even those who have read them would be glad to reread them. With the exception of the reprints you have pretty near carried out all the readers' wishes. You have put in a readers' department, increased Wesso's illustrations, given us many interplanetary stories, and given us the stories of the leading authors of the day. Surely you can give us reprints when the demand for them is so universal. The ones I want are those written by Cummings, Merritt, Rousseau and Serviss, and I am sure that the rest of the readers want them too. If you are still doubtful, the fairest thing to do is to conduct a vote among the readers. I hope that you will pardon me for being so persistent, but I am sure that you are working in the best interests of the readers and that you will accede to a great and growing popular demand. Now about the latest issue of Astounding Stories. "The Invisible Death" is the best novelette you have printed up to now. With the exception of Ray Cummings, the best author you have is Victor Rousseau. I am glad to see that there is another story by Rousseau scheduled for next month. Murray Leinster is a close third, and I hope to see more of his stories soon. The second part of "Jetta of the Lowlands" was better than the first. "Stolen Brains" was also excellent. Keep on printing the Dr. Bird stories. I like them very much. Although the stories were splendid, the cover illustration was poor. I believe that this is the worst cover that Wesso has ever drawn. The main fault with it is that there is no science in it. It would be more appropriate for one of those detective magazines. "The Invisible Death" has many other interesting scenes from which Wesso could have chosen a more fitting subject. However, Wesso is your best artist and you ought to keep him.—Michael Forgaris, 157 Fourth St., Passale, N. J. "Not Spoiled by ... Editor" Dear Editor: There is one advantage that Astounding Stories has over all of the other Science Fiction magazines. It does not overburden one with an exposition of scientific facts. Too often a story is ruined by a lot of dry textbook stuff that turns an exciting story into a lecture. In Astounding Stories we can soar away on the wings of imagination, escaping the humdrum everyday world to new and amazing adventures. The hours fly away like the speed of light, and upon finishing the book our only regret is that we have to wait a whole month before another issue takes us aloft again. Having unburdened myself thus far, I think it is most fitting to comment upon your latest (October) issue. To my mind, the stories in order of merit are: "The Invisible Death," "Stolen Brains," "Jetta of the Lowlands," "Prisoners on the Electron," and "An Extra Man." I certainly am glad to see Ray Cummings writing for your most excellent magazine. He is an A-1 author. It does not make a particle of difference to me about the size of the magazine, but I wish you would have smooth edges like those of your Five-Novels Monthly. Am glad to see that "The Readers' Corner" is enlarged. I always turn to this first, even before reading the stories. This is a most entertaining department, and I'm glad it is not spoiled by any perfunctory remarks from the editor. How about publishing Astounding Stories twice a month?—E. Anderson, 1765 Southern Blvd., New York City, New York. Roses, Daisies and Violets Dear Editor: In appreciation of an enjoyable evening of reading—which extended, by the way, into the wee, sma' hours of early morning—I thought to drop you a few lines, speaking of the high regards your magazine. Astounding Stories, has won from me through merit alone. Your October number particularly fitted into my reading mood last night. After the daily grind of newspaper work, it might seem odd that relaxation is sought in "more reading"—but it has been my experience, and that of many of my co-workers. I find, that the relief from the high tension of our trade comes from the change in the character of what we read, rather than in "something else," such as physical recreation. Fiction relaxes where "news" has keyed up. And in the Science Fiction of your magazine's stories of super-science, I find the keenest periods of mental enjoyment through the admirable selection of Astounding Stories' mixed adventure, unique travel and prophetic science. In this I am not alone—a number of my acquaintances have reveled likewise in your magazine at my suggestion. I have not quite settled in my mind as to whether you have trained your writers to exploit this special field of magazine fiction, which you occupy so successfully, or, in your editorial capacity, have so well selected the stories that bear the hallmarks of this peculiar interest that appeals so strongly to my leisure hours. By whichever road your success has been reached is immaterial—Astounding Stories has registered with me in a degree which should be flattering to your editorial supervision, if I represent, as I think I do, that large class of magazine readers who prefer and seek a science-coated outlet from the humdrum of every day living in mental adventure and travel-thrill reading. Have I presented clearly why and how much I like your magazine of Astounding Stories!—E. P. Neill, 910 East Ave., Red Wing, Minn. "Much Easier to Turn" Dear Editor: Once more I am impelled to give a roar. The last few issues have been filled with letters from readers who are evidently not satisfied with a "different" magazine. If they do not like to read "our" magazine then let them quit, but don't let a heckling minority spoil a real treat. My particular growl this time is directed towards Robert Baldwin and others of his ilk, who squawk about the size (i. e. length and width) of the mag and the uneven pages. The size is perfect (and just because the craze for standardization has hit some of the other Science Fiction mags and they have gone ga-ga over being an awkward shape, that is no reason for your going ahead and spoiling this one) and the uneven pages are a relief when reading because it is much easier to turn over a leaf when they are of a slightly different width. However, to take some of the sting off, I must say some of the ideas of said Mr. Baldwin are O. K. Enlarge the mag—of course you will, as readers increase and sales go up. Larger, as he says, "It will be worth the other jitney." Put ads in the rear. Have full page illustrations when possible. But another thing he is absolutely wrong on. Please do not adopt the antique method of continuing a story on page umptyump. Some of the readers are still yowling for reprints. Well, it is true that some reprints would be very acceptable. However, as most of the really good old-time tales of Science Fiction can be procured in any good sized library, why bother to print them and thus decrease the space allotted to our new authors, some of whom are even better than Wells, Verne, etc., much as I like the old masters. By the way, my "enlarge" in the second paragraph means in thickness (amount of reading matter), not shape. Wesso has always been good, and he seems to be improving, though he and others might be still better if they would carefully read the descriptions of persons and animals of other planets before picturing them. I don't wish to make this blurb too long, so will not be specific, but you and others probably have seen the same as I, where the illustration has not been true to the description. It might interest you to know that I have been instrumental in getting several new readers for Astounding Stories. Long live "our" new mag.—Robert J Hyatt, 1353 Kenyon St., N. W., Washington, D. C. Ow! Ow! Ow! Dear Editor: I have just looked at "The Reader's Corner" in the October issue of Astounding Stories. It disgusted me. What you print there—only letters praising your magazine to the skies?—or do you occasionally print a brickbat? I've bought your magazine each time since it was first printed. And many times I've felt like quitting. Why? There are a number of reasons. First, you print stories that have nothing to do with science, such as "The Soul Master." Second, your illustrations are poor. They would look better if they were full page ones. Wesso is the best artist you have. Gould and Sabo are just plain cartoonists, and mighty poor ones at that. Third, you print stories that give a weak and implausible scientific basis. Diffin, Gee, Leinster and several others err in this respect. Fourth, rotten paper—it goes to pieces after being handled. Fifth, no editorial or science questionnaire. Your authors will not starve if you print reprints. Rousseau and a lot of others write for other magazines. And reprints would occupy such a measly space that they could hardly be called down for being printed. Your magazine has some good features: a good cover; good authors like Breuer, Vincent, Meek, Ernst and Starzl; clear type; and handy size. If anyone thinks I'm wrong—well my address is given. This challenge includes the editor. I sincerely hope you will improve your magazine—Edwin C. Magnuson, 1205 E. Ninth St., Duluth, Minn. Suggestions Dear Editor: I have read your excellent magazine ever since it came out, and though it needs a few corrections like the others, A. S. is nearly perfect. Why not have your pages evened up, and add a department of science on subjects such as Rocket Propulsion etc., so the readers could become familiar with the mystifying problems stated in the stories? Have the advertisements in the back, and don't change your artists as their work is satisfactory. Robert Baldwin of Illinois has an excellent list of suggestions. Why not have a page devoted to the pictures and biographies of your writers, and full page illustrations? Why not have a space for good reprints and charge a nickel more? I am sure it will be appreciated by readers. Why don't you put out a Quarterly, twice as thick or containing twice as many stories for fifty cents?—A satisfied reader—Hume V. Stephani, 37-1/2 Wood St., Auburn, New York. "The Readers' Corner" All readers are extended a sincere and cordial invitation to "come over in 'The Readers' Corner'" and join in our monthly discussion of stories, authors, scientific principles and possibilities—everything that's of common interest in connection with our Astounding Stories. Although, from time to time the Editor may make a comment or so, this is a department primarily for Readers, and we want you to make full use of it. Likes, dislikes, criticisms, explanations roses, brickbats, suggestions—everything's welcome here; so "come over in 'The Readers' Corner'" and discuss it with all of us! —The Editor. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Various. 2009. Astounding Stories of Super-Science, February 1931. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30124/30124-h/30124-h.htm#Readers_Corner . This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Reader's Corner 

The Object Shot Forth Another Tentacle

'It is Some Horrible Inhabitant of Space, Something Unknown to us on Earth'

'Es un habitante horrible del espacio, algo desconocido para nosotros en la Tierra'

"C'est un horrible habitant de l'espace, quelque chose d'inconnu pour nous sur Terre"

'यह अंतरिक्ष के कुछ भयानक निवासी हैं, पृथ्वी पर हमारे लिए कुछ अज्ञात'

「それは宇宙の恐ろしい住人であり、地球上で私たちには知られていない何かです」

'É algum habitante horrível do espaço, algo desconhecido para nós na Terra'

'Đó là một số cư dân kinh khủng của không gian, một thứ gì đó chưa được biết đến với chúng ta trên Trái đất'

“这是一些可怕的太空居民，我们在地球上不知道的东西”

Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1931: VOL. VII, No. 1 - The Readers' Corner

The spaceport was nearly empty. In fact, Jack was not 100% sure there was any other organic life currently at this spaceport. Jack was way out in the Oort Cloud prospecting. There was not a lot out here but robots. In this kind of desolation, automation was the way to make a profit. There were robot guards everywhere, but also customer service bots of every stripe. Jack was not shocked to see he could actually get a very expensive massage from a robot. Jack shook his head on that one and paid for a ticket to Uranus. This spaceport was almost half a parsec from Earth, but the Oort Cloud was now well-trafficked. Ever since the Asteroid Belt had petered out, prospectors had made their way to the Oort Cloud. Fortunes in exotic metals and ores were just floating about waiting to be mined. This meant there were prospectors and miners crisscrossing the vastness in search of that one asteroid that could change their lives. A nuclear-powered spaceport was profitable even this far out. The incredible draw of mineral wealth was irresistible. Gold fever was never in short supply. It meant customers for the spaceport. Jack was just happy there was a shuttle passing by some time in the near future. He felt quite lucky to have gotten to the spaceport in such a timely fashion. The shuttle’s arrival was actually within a few hours. Jack wandered over to the Automat to get some unappetizing but nutritious sustenance. Though there was some amount of atmosphere in the spaceport, it was really not sufficient to breathe. A space suit providing general environmental protection and air to breathe was necessary when prospecting in the Oort Cloud. He also got some fresh water for himself and the suit. “Hey, Earther. You are far from home.” Jack felt a heavy touch on his shoulder. “What the …!” There before him was a squid in a spacesuit. A really big squid in an iridescent suit encasing a large head and ten arms. It was a Europan. The Europans originated on the Jovian moon, Europa. However, their largest population center was actually on Jack’s home planet Earth. The Europans had colonized the planet after the Great Cataclysm that had ravaged the solar system over ten thousand years ago. Humans had not even known the Europans were there for most of those ten thousand years. The Europans being from an ocean planet like Europa had colonized the sea floor. It was only when humans were on the verge of completely destroying the planet that the Europans were forced to reveal themselves. Like Jack, the Europan wore a spacesuit. It was odd to imagine the Europan’s suit being filled with seawater. It was fairly tight but it was filled with seawater. If Jack did not know the Europans lived underwater, it would not have been obvious the suit was filled with water. It was just a different kind of atmosphere. “A game Earther?” asked the giant squid through his translator voice box. He pointed to a table where a chess board was set up. Europans loved the Earth game of chess. Jack looked at the Europan and then the chess board. He had played many games over the years. It annoyed him that Europans tended to be better at a game the human race had invented. “Best two out of three Earther?” The Europan dropped several gold nuggets onto the table. “How has the prospecting been Earther? Can you match this?” Jack thought for a moment. The prospecting had not been good. If he lost the match, going home was much less attractive. “You have a clock?” After a moment he added, “…squid.” The Europan eyes glowed a bit at being called a squid. “My name is Xlatn and I do have a clock.” He extended a tentacle and then added, “…dirt-boy.” Jack smiled. He took no great offense. He had started it after all. The Europans slang for Earthers stemmed from their amusement at the humans naming their planet after a synonym for dirt. The Europans had an unpronounceable name for the planet Earth which translated to New Europa. Well if there was a clock then Jack thought he might have a chance. The Europans tended to be smarter on average than Earthers but not super quick thinkers. Jack’s experience told him he could goad the Europan into a fast time control to give himself a chance. He was going to need every advantage he could get. He reached into his pocket and matched the three gold nuggets the Europan had placed on the table. “My name is Jack and it is nice to meet you Xlatn.” He shook the squid’s tentacle. “Five minutes a side”, said Jack but the Europan had a counter offer. “No Jack, I would prefer one twenty-fourth of your planet’s rotation.” At least that was how the voice translator relayed it to Jack but he understood this to mean one hour for each side. Jack knew he needed to win this match or he would barely have enough gold to get home on the shuttle. In fact, if he lost he might as well turn around and go back out. “No, I need 1/48th of Earth’s rotation to be lured into this match. Take it or leave it.” Jack said firmly “Fine!” Jack asked, “Xlatn, am I white or black?” Knowing it was generally done by holding pawns of each color in closed hands and offering them to the opponent to choose. Jack wanted to portray himself as an inexperienced player. “I’ll give you a break, dirt-boy. You can be white.” He pushed a button and started Jack’s clock. Jack played a little-known variation on the white side of the Sicilian. He was able to take the Europan out of the opening book in only five moves. At move fifteen Jackson began a pawn push on his queenside to draw the squid’s pieces to that side of the board. The Europan responded by taking Jackson’s king knight on f6. Jack considered a recapture with his queen, though it was obvious the Europan would now be able to harass her with its minor pieces. Jack could see that it would take several moves to protect his queen. To make the situation worse, it looked as if the Europan would be able to force the trading of several pieces. With fewer pieces on the board, Jackson felt sure the squid’s superior number-crunching ability would end his chance at winning this game. Instead, Jack chose to double his pawns on the f-file by retaking with his g-pawn. Jack’s king’s position was now weakened by the opening of the file right in front of the monarch. Theoretically, this was bad, but Jackson had launched many successful kingside attacks during his childhood through this opening in his own castled position. The Europan continued to put pressure on Jackson’s queenside. Rather than protect his queenside pawns, Jackson played his king to h1, so he could place his kingside rook on the open g-file. As the Europan gobbled up pawns on his queenside, Jack doubled his rooks on the g-file. By move 23 it was apparent to Jack that despite being down three pawns he would be able to force checkmate in four moves. The Europan offered up his tentacle, “Good game, dirt-boy.” Jack shook his tentacle and with a wry smile said, “Rack’em up again squid” The Europan chose the non-committal move, Nf3, to open the next game. Jackson had no great love for the black side of a Queen’s Gambit, but he invited the Europan into a pseudo-Queen’s Gambit. Jackson’s answer was d5. The squid quickly played c4, offering the gambit pawn without the preparatory move d4. Jack snatched up the proffered pawn with barely a moment’s thought. The squid responded with a shocking move, Na3. The white knight on the side of the board looked very ugly, but it was theoretically playable. Jack considered the implications of the knight move. Though ugly, the move was effective. The knight attacked Black’s extra pawn. The knight was only one move away from one of two potential outposts. Jack thought he might wish to trade his dark-squared bishop for the pugnacious white knight. By offering his own king pawn to white’s king knight, Jack could remove white’s queen knight. Many great players have believed that bishops are inherently better than knights, because of their ability to cover large areas of the board. Just enough good knight players are born every generation to keep this from being proven irrefutably over the board. The squid snatched up Jack’s king pawn. Jack traded his dark-squared bishop for one of the Europan’s knights. This led to a wide-open crazy position. Jack had created a number of long-term weaknesses just to stay even on material. The position was rife with danger. Combinations rose and fell in Jackson’s mind. There would be no need to worry about long-term problems because this promised to be a short decisive struggle. There were so many tactical options that Jackson had a hard time concentrating on just one at a time. “Queen to g3,” said the Europan. The white queen slid across the board. The squid smiled confidently from across the other side of the table. Jack’s rook was in danger of capture. It did not look like he could not save it without being checkmated in five forced moves. In fact, to prevent checkmate, Jack would have to trade his queen for the Europan’s advanced knight. The outcome was certain now. A queen for a knight and pawn was an overwhelming advantage. Jack reached his hand across the table. At the same time, he toppled his King with his other hand. “Well done Europan” said Jack. “I hope I can give you a better game in the finale.” The Europan smiled broadly and shook his hand. The Europan had played well in the last game. Jack knew he would have to play more creatively in the third game if he wanted to win. Jack opened with the Scandinavian Gambit. His experience with it had convinced him the opening was playable. Theoretically, it was not the best opening but it took the Europan out of its normal opening repertoire fairly early. The Europan was forced to expend more than the usual amount of time for the first ten moves. Well into the middle-game both the Europan and Jack had time problems. The time control was approaching and the position was wild. Jack’s king had not been able to castle and the Europan’s queenside pawn structure was a disaster. Technically though, material was even. Jack felt like it would be advantageous to trade down into the endgame, because of his superior pawn structure. The time control was fast approaching. Jack was determined to not lose the game on time. Jack had timed the squid’s last few moves. If it continued at its current calculation rate there was a good chance it would not make the time control. Of course, Jackson himself was in the same boat. He had to make ten moves in the next three minutes. The position was too complex to feel confident about anything. Jackson zipped his bishop one square back to a1. It accomplished nothing, but he put the time pressure back on the Europan. The squid started thinking. Jackson scanned the board trying to use the other’s clock time. He could try to anticipate the squid’s response and be working on his own. Suddenly, he thought he saw a very powerful move for the Europan. It looked like a single pawn push in the center would cause Jack’s position to implode. He felt sick. The squid moved and quickly hit Jack’s clock. Jack did not understand why the squid did not push that pawn. Before making another move, Jackson tried to see if the pawn move was as dangerous as he had originally thought. After nearly two minutes ran off his clock he saw why the Europan had not pushed the pawn. It was the linchpin of the squid’s kingside defense. Once moved, the pawn opened up the long diagonal for Jackson’s light-squared bishop. Jack could force checkmate in three after the pawn push. Jack had less than a minute left now, but he felt better now that he knew the situation. He quickly moved his bishop up one square on the same diagonal. The squid was really “sweating” now. The Europan had seconds left. Jack sat smiling from the other side of the board. The seconds were ticking by. Jackson looked at the readout on the clock. The clock displayed all zeroes. There was a loud beep. The Europan slammed the table with his tentacles. He chipped off part of the table onto the floor. Europans were quite strong when not under the constraints of many thousands of feet of water pressure. Jack started to wonder if he was going to get paid. “Good game, dirt boy.” The squid extended a tentacle. Jack smiled. The Europan collected the gold nuggets from the floor and pushed them toward Jack. “I don’t get beat often and certainly not by a dirt-boy…errr… Earther.” “I was quite lucky. I only had two seconds left myself. I think you would have beat me if there were a few more minutes on the clocks. I was saved by my Mother-in-Law’s Tongue.” Jack grinned. “What does this mean? There are so many colorful idioms of Earthers. The translator box does not always make sense.” The Europan gave him a quizzical look and appeared to shrug all ten arms. “For example, what is this Cold as a Witch’s Tit or When Hell Freezes Over.” Jack laughed. He laughed heartily too. He had a pocketful of gold and this Europan was friendly and funny AND a good chess player. “What is this Saved by My Mother’s-in-Law Tongue? What does this mean?” The Europan gave him a weird look and said, “ The translator makes it sounds somehow sexual. How is your Mother-in-Law’s Tongue lucky? Does she speak for you in some positive way or this is some Earther sexual more?” Jack was really laughing now. “No, No! See those plants over there in the glass cases.” Jack pointed to walls of glassed-in leathery-leaved plants enclosed behind large glass panes. “Those are Snake plants also known as Mother-in-Law’s Tongue.” “So?” replied the Europan. “Well in the early days of human asteroid prospecting there were a lot of accidents. A lot of people who should not have been operating spacecraft were trying to find the next golden asteroid. The unfortunate fellow who found the next golden asteroid also crashed on it. He had no oxygen when his tanks exploded on impact.” “So this Earther died?” asked the Europan. “Nope, he survived because his daughter had given him a little bit of Mother-in-Law’s Tongue. She had read they were good at helping clean the dirty atmosphere inside a prospecting spacecraft. Actually many early prospectors had carried them for this very reason. When he crashed the Snake Plant or Mother-in-Law’s Tongue was trapped with him in a small crash pod which was only partially damaged. “ Jack continued with more details. He loved this story of extraordinary luck. It seemed like humans did have a bit more luck than other races in the Solar System. “The damage to the pod allowed dirt from the asteroid to be forced into one side of the pod. Both the pilot and the plant also landed there. This was how it was discovered there was a whole race of flora in the Solar System which react to a lack of atmosphere by further exhalation from their leaves. There are plants that can survive the vacuum of space to spread through panspermia. If they have sunlight, water, and gold-laden soil to create their own mini-atmospheres.” “Gold is so necessary for everything we do here in space, isn’t it?” said the Europan. “It is strange that it is so important but it makes us money.” The Europan’s whole body shook as if he was having a hearty laugh. He reached into a pocket of his suit and showed the human he had many more gold nuggets. “Yes, I do not care why gold is important, just that it is.” “Yes, and it saved this young prospector’s neck. In the presence of the exhalations of a human, the process is incredibly fast. By the time the pilot’s personal oxygen ran out the snake plant had grown exponentially and created a livable environment. Hence the term Saved By My Mothers-in-Law Tongue means to escape certain death or defeat by the narrowest margins or simply pure luck.” “Awww, I see” The Europan smiled and pointed out to the darkness of space. “There is our ride my friend.” Jack looked out toward the extended tentacle and saw the shuttle approaching. He jiggled the gold nuggets in his pocket. He wondered if the Europan played poker. “Yes my friend, it is a long ride to Earth but at least it’s all downhill from here.” Jack laughed as he made his way to board.

I Was Saved by My Mother-in-Law's Tongue

Fui salvado por la lengua de mi suegra

Pre-hispanic America birthed sophisticated theories in ancient astronomy. The Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas possessed tables, calendars, and exquisitely precise systems to describe and determine the movement of planets, stars, celestial objects, and constellations. Even the Olmecs, which predated all three ancient empires, left artifacts that stump one and many archeologists about their precise knowledge about the stars. Today, modern-day scientists and engineers remain puzzled about the architectural and technical feats of the ancient empires in the Americas, which mirrored an unprecedented astronomical precision. Despite the rich cultural, astronomical, and engineering legacies from three powerful pre-hispanic empires, a testament to the creative achievement across the region, only a handful of scientists and engineers in Latin America have participated in modern space missions beyond low-Earth orbit. Time Machine (2017). Marco Vargas. This story is about the rekindling of the fire in Latin America that can be traced for millennia. This story is about those daring to deploy a small propellantless mission to reach Jupiter in less time. Currently, any round trip to Jupiter , so the success in reaching Jupiter quickly and without propellant could change our understanding of what it means to travel across vast distances in our Solar System at a fraction of the cost. would take numerous years and deeper pockets and budgets JOVE: A Trailblazing Propellantless Mission The is a novel solar-powered mission that will use the solar wind's momentum, speed, and direction as the propulsive thrust to reach the Jovian system in 30 days. Solar winds are the surges of plasma and ionized (charged) gas continuously emitted by the Sun, which vary in intensity, density, and composition but are always present across the expanse of the solar system. Jupiter Observing Velocity Experiment (JOVE) JOVE is proposed by an interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers in the United States and Latin America (Ecuador and Costa Rica). They compose the Practical Interplanetary Propulsion group at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Nuclear Future Flight Propulsion Committee. JOVE rendering. Image credits: B. Freeze, J. Greason, R. Nader et al. JOVE will be designed with a compact 16U micro satellite architecture that includes two high-temperature superconducting coils 9-meters in diameter. These coils are responsible for engaging the “Wind Rider” propulsion system. The Wind Rider system has been experimentally demonstrated on the ground. For the mission, the spacecraft would use the superconducting coils to generate a large rotating magnetic field (RMF) that interacts with the solar wind for thrust and Jupiter’s dense magnetosphere for deceleration. Most of JOVE’s hardware will be built by the , which has ample experience designing powerful and compact hardware for the Cubesat market, including (350Whr). This type of battery will operate the telemetry beacon to measure and transmit data. In addition, the small scientific payload will include the SPAN-Ai sensor developed at the University of California, Berkeley, to study the solar wind’s velocity and the dense plasma in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. It will also include a rearview camera to capture Jupiter. Ecuadorian Civil Space Agency (EXA) one of the highest energy density batteries for Cubesats JOVE’s schematics. Image credits: B. Freeze, J. Greason, R. Nader et al. JOVE’s launch must occur when Jupiter is directly in opposition to the Sun on November 2, 2023, or December 7, 2024, to engage the Wind Rider propulsion system without a gravitational slingshot (gravity assist). After that, JOVE can get deployed into cis-lunar orbit or from an apogee of 60 - 90K km Sun-side by a traditional rocket launcher. Once in space, JOVE activates the RMF inside the two coils and deploys the solar panel arrays and the sunshade (to protect the coils at a certain distance). The team expects JOVE’s Wind Rider to speed up the spacecraft to a velocity close to 300 km s-1. JOVE rendering. Image credits: B. Freeze, J. Greason, R. Nader et al. Ronnie Nader There is no shortcut to becoming a spacefaring species. Advancing in-space propulsion is at the heart of becoming multiplanetary. According to Commander Ronnie Nader, we need to start building and testing practical propulsion systems that can take us to the outer planets in considerably less time and at substantially less cost. Commander Nader is Ecuador's first and only cosmonaut, the first civilian in modern history to complete the cosmonaut training at the GCTC ( ) with the support of the Ecuadorian Air Force (FAE). He founded the Ecuadorian Civil Space Agency (EXA) with headquarters in Guayaquil after his training in 2007 and has served as its Space Operations Director. Nader holds multiple senior memberships at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Space Security Committee, and the International Academy of Astronautics, among many others. ASA / T degree - Advanced Suborbital Astronaut Trained In 2019, Nader created the Practical Interplanetary Propulsion working group at the AIAA Nuclear and Future Propulsion Committee to develop advanced propulsion systems with realistic timeframes. Nader's inspiration stemmed from his professional and entrepreneurial experience in Latin America. Without the million-dollar budgets and infrastructure for advanced scientific pursuits in space, Nader has had to be resourceful and creative with what's available. Nader recruited the rest of the Practical Interplanetary Propulsion Group team at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. They started working on different concepts and followed specific rules. The group's rules can be summarized as follows: any revolutionary concept must be mathematically proven and built on precedents that have been simulated, made, or tested on the ground and in space. But, more importantly, the group must use the proven laws of modern physics. “It’s important to point out that the planets do not grow. The population does,” said Nader. “Furthermore, everything the planet produces is the limit of human ambition. But this doesn’t have to be true. The solar system’s riches could change how we live from a single-planet economy to a multiplanetary one. These riches could redefine the concept of poverty until it becomes obsolete, but only if we could reach it. In practical terms, the current challenge of the space business is that it takes a decade for any roundtrip. We need to make it affordable so that it’s possible to finance it. So, as a growing species that will soon be fully occupying its ecological niche, why don’t we consider the treasures in the Solar System within our reach? A single mineral could greatly impact Latin America’s economic development.” Nader points out the obvious. Businesses may quickly go out of business without any profit. For even the most open-minded investors, entrepreneurs, and potential customers, the long-term mindset implicit in a multiplanetary economy might still be too far out. JOVE’s test in space will be a stepping stone for the team seeking to reframe the conversation from deep space as a luxury to deep space as a necessity for an increasingly energy-hungry civilization. This reframing will require adjusting the perceptions that only traditional space agencies and large, well-funded corporations can deploy complex science missions beyond low-Earth orbit. For the Latin America region rich in finite natural resources and precious minerals, including lithium, and salt, among many others, the opportunity to venture into the vast beyond at an affordable rate would seem like an easy sell. Unfortunately, however, it is not necessarily the case. “Rocketry has always been considered the default solution for interplanetary travel. However, throughout humanity's space history, many technical and engineering decisions have had political connotations or interests tied to it at the expense of practicality. We want to remain loyal to the engineering and scientific design as initially intended, and with the freedom of choosing to stay independent.” The team expects to fund JOVE’s launch with funds from the private sector. Jaime Jaramillo For Jaime Jaramillo, making an interplanetary science mission for Latin America practical is vital. Jaramillo is the Space Operations Deputy Director of the , and the CEO of the with its base in Quito. EXA Quantum Aerospace Research Institute – QAS “It’s an honor to work in this group, specifically looking at practical propulsion systems for the Solar System. Consider how we could develop quicker the mining exploration missions bringing minerals back to Earth. It can be a great business for anyone in the region who wants to invest in it.” Jaramillo has already witnessed the value of transferring knowledge by working on JOVE. “Currently, deep space telecommunications are spearheaded by just a couple of systems tied to established space agencies, for example, NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) and Near Space Network (Near Space Network). But booking and scheduling in these systems, which traditionally have served only a handful of missions, presents a logistical nightmare as they don’t scale well. The waiting times for booking a slot often translate into many decades. So, a practical application of interplanetary travel means we must start working independently on ground systems independent of these large and established systems. That is something we have already learned just by working on JOVE’s design because, at EXA, we go all the way when we get involved. The lessons learned are already useful for the future, making our focus on this mission significant.” Adolfo Chaves Jiménez Adolfo Chaves Jiménez, a space systems engineer, professor, and researcher in Costa Rica, is part of JOVE’s navigation team — an essential and challenging mission component. The spacecraft’s orientation directly and profoundly influences its dynamics, navigation, and control. Without propellant, JOVE will navigate at high speeds with the solar wind’s varying parameters making JOVE’s maneuverability particularly difficult to anticipate. Many parameters necessary to generate practical navigation will only be known when the mission is launched. Chaves has expertise in both spacecraft orientation and orbital dynamics. Despite the unknowns, his role as part of the navigation team is to develop and monitor the onboard sensors that will determine direction throughout the mission and orbital mission software to ensure JOVE reaches its final destination. “There are many things that we have to solve from the conceptual and technological point of view,” explained Chaves. “But we're using the proven principles and systems that already exist to apply an efficient design mindset and test it.” For Chaves, the Internet and the advancements in computation, software, and simulation have changed how space professionals collaborate and get trained. Proximity is no longer a deterrent to working effectively with others. “I believe that skill and capacity for high-level space missions are evenly distributed worldwide. JOVE shows that many professionals in Latin America possess the same levels of competitive expertise as in other geographies. In fact, problem-solving for many of us in Latin America requires being highly creative and extremely practical, given the limitations in budgets and access to infrastructure. So there is a lot of scope in design and creativity because this type of efficient design is aimed at some particular aspects, and working on it will not be deterred by your nationality as in the case of working for only space agencies or in certain localities.” Chaves spoke about a deeply ingrained cultural and financial block that prevents space science and research from flourishing in the region. Part of this block, according to Chaves, relates to the feelings of being ill-equipped or unprepared in comparison to the more established spacefaring nations. However, and ’s history shows how forward-thinking scientists and engineers pioneered critical advances early in the 1950s, given the tools and equipment available at the time and sometimes alongside those in the United States. Argentina Brazil “I believe it’s innately human to explore. It’s a dream come true to work on shortening the distances between planets and influence humanity’s understanding of access to the solar system. The field, for me, has always been a demonstration test that reflects a society’s development at a particular time. In Latin America, we can be at the same level as others in industrialized nations because we can be very creative and do innovative things beyond solving beautiful technical problems.” Key takeaways: Daring to Plan Boldly Time Machine (2017). Marco Vargas. I have noticed that although the region’s space footprint still suffers from the silos in the financing, a lack of talent is not the problem. Nader, Jaramillo, and Chaves have been pioneering multiple regional efforts to make space research and development accessible. I have written about their plans to launch an all-Latin American suborbital flight crew ( ) and a . LATCOSMOS-C quantum network in space The JOVE team, including Nader et al., and the recognized researchers in the United States, will be uniquely positioned to leverage their expertise and broader networks to make this mission happen. Everyone can dream, but only those who dare to achieve will execute their plans. // Artist from the Santo Domingo province in Ecuador has been designing for more than seven years. Inspired by the mysteries and novelty of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the known universe, Vargas created the short motion graphics, . Marco Vargas Time Machine (2017) “It’s awe-inspiring to see how art and technology go hand in hand,” said Vargas. “Art offers a disruptive and prophetic vision of how the future will be while possibly anticipating countless possible scenarios in which science and technology are part of that reality written or illustrated by the artist. I would love to see a revolution in the space and technology fields in Latin America so that the region becomes more involved in proposing, developing, and creating technological assets that help accelerate growth and add value to this growing industry.” Full disclosure: I don't have any vested financial interests in the companies or projects discussed in this article at the time of publication (June 2022). I don't entertain affiliate marketing offers or paid endorsements that would influence my research for the article. If you've enjoyed reading this work, allow me to invite you to my indie space blog MONI-07B . It's ad-free, supported by readers like you, and, more importantly, showcases original research and artwork. Read more about why this is important . Be inspired by the possibilities of our future in space! Subscribe today .

Latin America Seeks its Riches in Space by Reaching Jupiter in 30 Days

América Latina busca sus riquezas en el espacio al llegar a Júpiter en 30 días

L'Amérique latine cherche ses richesses dans l'espace en atteignant Jupiter en 30 jours

लैटिन अमेरिका 30 दिनों में बृहस्पति तक पहुंचकर अंतरिक्ष में अपनी दौलत चाहता है

ラテンアメリカは 30 日で木星に到達し、宇宙での豊かさを求めています

América Latina busca suas riquezas no espaço atingindo Júpiter em 30 dias

Châu Mỹ Latinh Tìm kiếm sự giàu có trong không gian bằng cách chạm tới sao Mộc trong 30 ngày

拉丁美洲通过在 30 天内到达木星寻求其在太空中的财富

For The Good Of Humanity

As the title mentions, this is a quick recap of a community taught ML Engineer's journey. Milestones and a Full time Job 15th of October, 2019 marks a special milestone, actually quite a few milestones. So I considered sharing it in the form a blogpost, on a publication that has been home to all of my posts :) The online community has been too kind to me and these blogposts have been a method for me to celebrate any achievements big or small with the amazing people that I got know via slack groups, the fast.ai forums or even Twitter as well as , unfiltered although with a hand scratching the back of my head and the amazing community was nevertheless still too kind to me, even when I had failed one of my biggest dream interviews. share my failiures So, it’d be rude, If I didn’t share that I finally got an amazing full time opportunity at one of the companies that are the leaders in the "AI" space. I'm sure the company needs no introduction, so I'll skip the praise here. As I’m writing this post, I’ll be starting, in a full time role as a at . Even though a full-time role is something that I always envisioned to work towards, it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact. Also given a few other milestones that my blogposts as well as the have achieved, I’m really excited and extremely grateful to the ML Community online, which has always been very warm and welcoming to me. Machine Learning Engineer and AI Content creator, H2O.ai Chai Time Podcast I think this post will also allow me to do a quick recap of my journey, as you might know, I’ve always been open to documenting my failures and successes openly via this blog, with an aim to leave an open journey documented so that anyone who is in a similar situation as me can leverage from these posts and not repeat my mistakes. The journey comes before the milestones :) The journey In my previous post marking a few milestones, I had shared my rejection with ,but even before that my journey really started when I went to the internet to find more about interesting ideas and “latest” topics to study in college. I figured either I could complain about the University syllabus being too dated and not the most in sync with industry or I could go out and figure out what the Industry actually is, what is “Machine Learning”, what are “models”. And you can imagine the list. the Google AI Residency I took to online courses, did quite a wild number of them while still being enrolled in college. Then on 29th September. I got this email from halfway around the globe and I remember reading it at 4 AM (Yes, I wake up stupid early and then the first thing I do is read email sometimes) This has been my most dearest “Certificate” fun fact, in the “Chai Time Data Science” Studio: This is the only framed printout that exists. Although I'm not sure if it'd be visible in the RGB Fun there. This led me to another discovery cycle, because Jeremy is the best professor that I had ever come across. I ended spending a huge number of hours just “watching” the course. In retrospect, which should have spent on coding and “training lots of models” (Jeremy’s top advice from the Amazing AI Podcast by Lex Fridman) At the same time, I got the courage to visit kaggle dot com once or twice and I was convinced that I should invest into a “DL Laptop” (Since I was in college so a box wasn’t possible). and . Also, I needed quite a sum to get the laptop so I took again to the internet since I still had another year of college to go and I couldn’t do a “job-job” while being in college. That’s how my “Freelance”/Contractual work started. This in itself led to creation of a long trail of thread of discussions on the forums I finally got started with Kaggle in late 2018 Then during early new year, I got an email from Google that absolutely blew my mind. I made it to the final rounds of the AI Residencey interviews and then got rejected. By the time the letter had come through, I had ticked off a few of my “2019 resolutions”. Becoming a Kaggle Expert Creating a good Kaggle Kernel Writing 1 blogpost per week :) Implementing a few papers. So I decided to spend some time in the community, with no end goals in mind. I really wanted to give back to the community and since I had graduated from college, I had the time to talk to many amazing people and offer help via slack, by hosting study groups and even workshops. First “Remote Job”, Community Activities By the end of April, I had an amazing job interview experience. One of the amazing people that I knew via their community work: had posted about a role in their company. So I pinged them and had the coolest interview experience. A 45 minute video call, rather a friendly discussion about the responsibilities and my long term goals. The next call was the on-boarding one. Aakash N S Wait, let that sink in for a second. That’s what I mean when I mention that fast.ai community is really amazing. A company, founded by two fast.ai fellows, meet another fast.ai fellow in another city and after a small discussion, they work on the same team. HOW AWESOME IS THAT! The company, is titled Jovian.ml and really builds on top of a few fast.ai philosophies, it was really a natural fit but the founding team’s goals of community efforts and kaggle really echoed with me and the complete board. So the team let me work remotely and part time so that I could also split time on Kaggle and Community work. One of my really proud moments have been having contributed to one of India’s largest communities: Data Science Network and having organised one of India’s largest KaggleDaysMeetup till date. Blogging One of the most amazing aspects of fast.ai is the emphasis on blogging as a portfolio or project building exercise. The complete community and even Jeremy Howard himself really emphasise of blogging and that’s how I started blogging. At one point of time, I requested a few friends of mine: Dominic Monn and Tuatini Godard for an interview about their journey since both of them had been really helpful to me in answering my stupid questions and their journey was very inspiring to me. These interviews were very well received by the community so next I landed at an intersection: Either I could continue experimenting with technical articles, explaining concepts such as a CNN, a LSTM, Transformer, etc. or really focus on sharing these interviews because I felt this was really missing in the community. So I chose to leave creating tutorials and posts such as to people smarter and wiser than me and reached out to a huge number of “Machine Learning Heroes” that I really admired. “PyTorch basics in 4 minutes” I still don’t believe how, but this led to 25 blog interviews. Even though it was scary, since I was moving slightly away from sharing engineering and code-walkthroughs something that’d be expected of me, for the role of Data Science and ML that I was aspiring for but I still stuck to the interview series. Now that I had graduated and found more bandwidth, I decided to re-start the series but this time in a podcast: Video, Audio and Blog format. I’d like to clarify one point, I’ve never monetised these posts, neither will I ever intend to, nor did I expect the Chai Time Data Science Podcast to be a “business”, it was really a new medium for me to act as a medium (Too meta, isn’t it?) sharing these stories across 3 different formats to really allow the community all options to consume these amazing stories of “My machine learning heroes” Chai Time Data Science Podcast Again with the , I was at an interesting cross road where I chose to release the video, audio of the interviews, handling the editing (The most effort demanding task), interviews and releases. podcast Since I was really enjoying these interviews, I chose to make time by terminating a few freelance contracts/agreements and decided for a few months to give up 90% of my income and focus on making these amazing journeys more reachable. I’m really grateful to the Jovian team that let me continue the podcast while also working on “Jovian”. In fact, Aakash was also kind enough to setup a Zoom account via which the interviews happened. Without that, there wouldn’t quite literally have been the first set of interview releases or calls. I really enjoyed the process and now being able to talk to my ML Heroes for an hour or sometimes two. The podcast calls were really one of the best activities that I got to do. Even though this also made me take a trade off between Kaggle competitions and practising more coding, which I still somehow managed to squeeze in a few hours of, everyday. I think I really stuck to There will be a stage in time when your tasks become repetitive so really take it slow and understand your passion”. I’m really happy that I did that :) Tim Dettmer’s advice for fresh graduates: “You have time. Take it easy, enjoy the process, Enjoy learning. The Milestones I really want to share three milestones, a few points that I never really expected to happen: Hitting 1 Million Views across my blogposts. Yes, 1 Million! Imagine, starting an activity that an online course suggested, an online community taught you and then being able to share it with that NUMBER of people! I’m really grateful to Hackernoon where all of these interviews and all of my posts were warmly accepted and to David (CEO of Hackernoon) who helped me a lot with feedback during the initial days of my experimental posts. Instead of sharing any advice for blogging, I'll share the best one that I used. This has been my guideline for every single post. I’m also really thankful to everyone that read my posts and specially to the “Machine Learning Heroes” who kindly shared their journey with a Noob just starting his journey. 10k Podcast downloads hit 10k downloads after 1.5 months of going live! I’m not a podcaster neither a good stats person but that is a huge number for me and I’m really happy that the podcast as a medium reached a good number of audience and shared these great stories, advices. And I hope to continue maintaining the crazy release schedule that I had come with. Chai Time Data Science Fast.ai I saved the best part of my journey for the last section. :) Of all the stats that I mentioned above, this is probably the one that's I'm the most proud of, maybe even more than my Kaggle Ranks (Maybe) Dear fast.ai Team: Jeremy, Rachel and Sylvain and also the fast.ai family, (It’s an online community that I like to call a family). One of the aspects of being self taught or community taught is, my education would have been only as good as the community’s resources and advices. In my previous post, I wasn’t unfortunately in a position to really thank the fast.ai team but finally getting really a dream job, that I couldn’t even dream of (Too meta, again?) I think I’m in a position finally to give all the credit of my achievements to the fast.ai course, the library and the community. Many of the things that I learned: competing on kaggle, blogging, software engineering and deep learning, even little things such as how to read a paper, how to sift through a math equation and not get lost in Greek but figure out the code. Any of these things that I’m able to do, to an extent or maybe more, is all thanks to the exposure I got via the fast.ai experience. I’d confess that I may not have been the best student since I’m yet to complete the swift for TF lessons, even though I’m already working on a few blogposts on Swift and I’m yet to watch the V2 walkthroughs as well, so maybe I’m not the sincerest student in the fast.ai global classroom. Yet, I’m really really grateful to Jeremy Howard, Rachel Thomas, Sylvain Gugger and all of the amazing people I met via the forums. I’d also point out that things such as Kaggle are softly highlighted but heavily emphasised in the course, so it’s not a go to for all of the above points I mentioned, you might have to do your homework as well. But as they say, Nuclear energy is produced by Uranium and not the by products that happen, I think fast.ai is the uranium of this chain reaction that if you follow correctly, you might get amazing results! :) However, it wouldn’t have really been possible for me it I didn’t join the KaggleNoobs community, DSNet, ODS.AI and TWiMLAI ones as well. All of these have been an amazing learning point for me even though I didn’t contribute to as many conversations or latest paper discussions even since I had committed to the podcast release schedule. Yet, I’m really grateful that these communities and everyone from them were welcoming to me. Finally, I’d mention that when I say “online or community or self taught” (I prefer community taught out of the three words), I did follow and pursue a traditional CS Undergrad degree where all of my online learning started. But the real credit for my (Very little) knowledge of the Machine Learning world is thanks to online resources. I only engaged in my university courses where I truly enjoyed the syllabus and really skimmed the others, I’m not sure why but I did get a recognition with “IET Prize”, which as they mentioned “is provided by the universities to their most outstanding students”. My only advice to anyone in University would be really, follow your passion and don’t be afraid to ask for help, online or offline. My next role and next part in my Machine Learning Journey From the page https://www.h2o.ai/team I’m incredibly lucky and really excited to be starting a full time role as a “Machine Learning Engineer and AI Content Creator” at H2O.AI. This by no means is to classify me as an expert, the company itself is home to many amazing kagglers and world’s top data scientist and I’m really excited about the next part of my journey and ready to learn more. Thanks to the internet, fast.ai and online ML Communities for defining my path and Thanks to my parents specially who agreed to this completely crazy plan and even supported me when the podcast’s initial growth was slow or helping me get started with my first GPU. And even more my mother, who would always put up with a son who'd quite often spend a few days, in a room and consuming endless cups of chai in a high electric noise generating GPU situation. I’ll continue sharing my journey, via these blogposts at Hackernoon (And maybe Medium), unfiltered and regularly. And thanks to everyone who has been a part of this amazing journey with me. You can find me on Twitter @bhutanisanyam1 Subscribe to my Newsletter for a weekly curated list of Deep Learning and Computer Vision Reads

A Full Time ML Role, 1 Million Blog Views, 10k Podcast Downloads: A Community Taught ML Engineer

About a year ago, I was visiting Sri Lanka and had the pleasure of visiting Arthur C Clarke’s well-preserved office (you can read about my if you like). Anyone who’s read that piece knows that I grew up as a big fan of Clarke’s science fiction, so it was a thrill to be there and see his books and office. He lived in Sri Lanka for 30 years before his passing in 2008. visit here This year, I’m unable to travel so far, but visiting my parents’ house in the midwest got me thinking about the times that I used to read Clarke’s science fiction books while growing up — imagining I was off with some crew on a “romp through the solar system”. While there were some elements of Clarke’s books that are way out of our league even today (think star child or childhood’s end), there were always others that seemed like they weren’t too far away. So, this Christmas holiday, I wanted to write about a few things that Arthur C Clarke predicted in his science fiction and science-related works that have (mostly) come true (or will very soon!). Science Fiction Turns Into Science Of course, science fiction has always had a way of predicting the future, going all the way back to Jules Verne’s 1865 novel, . While he didn’t have it exactly right, Verne’s prediction that it would be the Americans who first got to the moon, firing off a giant gun (rockets didn’t exist) from somewhere in Florida, were pretty spot on. And who doesn’t know about the flip phone being a descendent of Star Trek, and today’s facetime and iWatch look a lot like Dick Tracy’s watch-phone, don’t they? From the Earth to the Moon The difference between Clarke’s science fiction and much of these others was that he often put more thought into and — relying on them not just for convenience, but drawing on both scientific literature and scientific necessity. Unlike the Transporter in Star Trek, for example, which was created just for convenience (so that the producers wouldn’t have to pay for special effects of shuttles going to planets and back, which were costly), Clarke usually had some well thought out reason for the science fiction elements in his novels. how these things could work why they were the way they were From ACC himself Clarke himself once said that “trying to predict the future is a discouraging, hazardous occupation”, and some credit ACC (as he’s know in the science fiction world) with having predicted everything from the internet to email to google! In this article, I’m going to stick to what ACC did best, write about outer space and aliens! Now I’m not claiming that Clarke was necessarioly the first to think of all of these things — in fact, sometimes he was just the first to put them into popular science fiction even when a paper or a concept existed before. So, without further ado, here are some predictions that have already (to different degrees, of course) come true: 1. The Gravity Assist Maneuver In the novelization of , which was written concurrently with the movie (released in 1968), ACC had the Discovery go to one of Saturn’s moon’s (Iapetus) and not to Jupiter. In the movie, Stanley Kubrick (who was collaborating with ACC and wanted to use the latest images from NASA) decided to go with Jupiter as the destination because they had pictures from NASA about what Jupiter looked like. Kubrick was worried that since they didn’t have as many images of Saturn, the film might look dated once NASA got more accurate images. 2001: A Space Odyssey This is all a bit of history, but I recall reading the novelized version and it was the first time I had heard of the “gravity assist” maneuver. In the novel, the Discovery spaceship uses Jupiter’s gravity to speed itself up on the way to Saturn. While Jupiter is “only” 500 million kilometers away, Saturn can be almost a billion kilometers further away (depending on the position), even though we are used to them being close together . On average, the ringed planet is almost twice as far. This means that the ship didn’t have to carry as much fuel to get all the way to Saturn. This idea of using planets to “assist” in slinging a spacecraft was actually used by NASA in many probes including the Mariner 10 and Voyager probes. In some cases the probes went inwards towards the sun and used Venus for gravity assist to slow down, while the Voyagers used Jupiter to speed up on their way to Saturn, just like in ACCs novel! In another of his novels, (which we’ll talk more about in a minute), an alien spaceship built in an asteroid is using the Sun for a gravity assist on its interstellar mission! ACC wasn’t the first to think about this — the Soviets actually used the gravity of the moon for a flyby of a probe in 1959, but his use of it around a planet was the first time many science fiction readers like myself heard about it! Rendezvous with Rama 2. The Communication Satellite. ACC proposed using a satellite in geosynchronour orbit for boucning off radio signals (src: Wikipedia) Arthur C Clarke, in an article for in 1945, proposed the idea of a geostationary communications satellite, which was a satellite that stayed in the same position relative to the earth. Such a satellite, ACC proposed could be used to bounce radio signals off of and send radio signals all over the Earth. The editor of changed his paper title to . Wireless World Wireless World Extraterrestrial Relays According to many sources, the idea wasn’t taken seriously at the time as no one knew how to get a satellite into what became know as the “Clarke orbit”. 20 years later, in 1965, the first communications satellite was launched into the Clarke orbit, and today there are over 300 satellites on this orbit! 3. The asteroid from outside the solar system. In 2017, a controversial object appeared in the night sky and was observed for a matter of weeks. It was determined to be the first known object that came from outside of our solar system. Its strange maneuvers and properties made scientists think it was an elongated (cigar-shaped) type of asteroid or comet or alien space probe — we couldn’t be sure which. Conception of our first interstellar visitor , ‘Oumuamua (src: CNN) The scenario that astronomers found themselves in seemed eerily similar to ACC’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama. In the novel, an elongated asteroid was adapted into a space probe by an alien civilization, and wanders through our solar system, planning to use the sun as a gravity-assist maneuver to get where-ever it was going. The probe was abandoned in the book and its sequels by the alien civilization. Astronomers first proposed calling the asteroid discovered last year, which sure looked like it could be an asteroid steered by an alien civilization, Rama. In the end, the name ‘’Oumuamua was chosen (a good name which means “heavenly messenger” or “messenger from the past”), and of course scientists went ahead and stated confidently that there was nothing alien about the object. It’s a year later and what do we know? The object did in fact swing around the sun, and its velocity increased in a way that wasn’t consistent with the asteroid or the comet hypothesis, leading some including Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb, professor and chair of astronomy, and Shmuel Bialy, a postdoctoral scholar, at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to speculate that it was an alien probe after all. It’s acceleration properties were more consistent with the properties of a light sail then either an asteroid or a comet! So, while we don’t know what it was exactly, the best hypothesis we have that fits the data at present is that it was an alien probe going through our solar system swinging around the sun? Sounds familiar? Maybe it should be called Rama after all! 4. Building Ships in Orbit. The Discovery from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (src: syfy wire) ACC predicted that it would be much easier to build large space-faring ships in orbit and to use shuttles to get astronauts up to the ships. This is how the Discovery was built in and its successors in the sequels as well. This wasn’t an ACC invention — many science fiction writers predicted this. Are we doing this today? Not exactly, but it’s within reach. There are companies who have sent up 3d printers to assemble large structures in space (Made in Space is the company that has printed the largest 3d printed object ever in preparation for printing large structures in space) , and there are near-term plans for inflatable modules which get assembled into large structures in space (think Bigelow Aerospace). Thus far, the ISS is the only such structure that is fully deployed, but this prediction is not very far off. 2001: A Space Odyssey 5. Hal and Conversational Artificial Intelligence. Who can forget the classic line from 2001, which came from HAL 9000, the on-board artificially intelligent computer: “I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that?” I’m sorry Dave, I can’t Do that — the HAL 9000 computer from 2001 (src: wikipedia) There has been an artificial intelligence explosion in the last 10 years, as machine algorithms are now being used to learn to do everything from drive cars to play video games. ACC wasn’t the first to predict machine intelligence; MIT Professor and Bell Labs fellow Claude Shannon was one of many who said that someday machines would be able to beat a human grand master at chess and write poetry. The chess thing has happened already, not so sure about the poetry. In the age of Sofia and so many different kinds of AI and virtual influencers and personalities, it seems like an intelligent computer like HAL from 2001, that can converse with us, is not that far off — give it 10 to 20 years say some experts. 6. Europa, liquid water, and life. In the sequel to 2001, called and its follow up , Clarke scrapped Saturn’s moon Iapetus and made the books sequels to the movie, rather than to his novel. In this sequel, a crew of soviet and American astronauts went to Jupiter to find the Discovery and find out what happened to Dave Bowman and his crew, who had disappeared. 2010: Odyssey Two 2061: Odyssey Three When they got there, one of the moons of Jupiter that is most interesting to them (and to the alien StarChild that Dave Bowman has now become) is Europa, which is found to be covered with ice with oceans underneath. The second book ends wiht a whopper: Jupiter is transformed into a small star and Europa is the reason why, because there is life that can develop here! In a now famous line from the end of 2010: All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa. Attempt No Landings There. In 2061, a crew actually goes to Europa, which has developed into a habitable planet thanks to Jupiter’s transformation at the end of 2010 into a small sun, called Lucifer from Earth. Leaving aside the super-intelligent aliens who were responsible for this, Clarke’s predictions about Europa being the most likely place for life in the solar system because of the presence of liquid water under the ice covering the planet has turned out to fairly accurate. Plumes of water have been seen on Europa (src: Space.com) Probes to the Jovian moons have shown that Europa has plumes of water that shoot up from the surface, and it’s estimated that it has a covering of water 100 km thick. Some estimates say that Europa may have more water than the Earth! Now, what might lie in wait in all that water under the ice? To quote the History Channel’s hit series, could it be … Aliens?? 7. Landing on a Comet. At the beginning of the novel 2061:Odyssey Three, published in 1987, in what I thought was a cool sequence, the spaceship Galaxy is landing on the surface of Halley’s comet which has returned to Earth in (do the Math and you’ll see why the novel was set in 2061!). Of course, there’s a lot more going on in this novel than the comet, but at the time, this part, along with the rest of the novel was thought of as science fiction. Today, we know that it’s not so far fetched. In 2004, the European Space Agency launched Rosetta, a space probe that was meant to study a comet. Twelve years later, in 2016, the probe not only surveyed a comet, 7P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, but it managed to hard land on the comet! I wonder what we’ll be doing in 2061?? OK so there you have 7 predictions that have either already come true, or are very likely to in a decade or two. Not a bad track record. But, of course, science fiction being science fiction, there are still lots of things in ACC’s novels and papers for us to aspire to. And those are just the ones that have or are likely to come true pretty soon! Wait until we talk about he Space Elevator (Fountains of Paradise), Diamonds in the heart of Gas Giants (2061: Odyssey Three), and interstellar colonization (Songs of Distant Earth), not to mention the tantalizing idea of artifacts hiding on the moon (if you were an ancient Alien visitor to the Earth, where would you put a communications device??). If you liked this article, please clap 20x and follow me.

The 7 Space Predictions from Arthur C Clarke That Came True!

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