Was Neil Armstrong a Trekkie? Did ‘Wagon Train’ fan fiction help inspire us to go to the Moon? And might Luke Skywalker create a better future for humanity than Jesus?
Thirty years ago, I was privileged to interview someone who had just been selected for astronaut training by NASA. He spoke to me of how Star Trek and other sci fi from his childhood had inspired him to pursue a career in the stars.
A dozen years later, another astronaut – Neil Armstrong, no less – attended a Star Trek convention and spoke in praise of its inspirational impact:
“So, I’m hoping for my next command, to be given a Federation starship…
“…I am an engineer. And if I get that command, I want a chief engineering officer like Montgomery Scott. Because I know Scotty will get the job done and do it right. Even if I often hear him say, ‘But Captain, I dinna have enough time!’
“So from one old engineer to another, thanks, Scotty.”
21st July (Australia time) marks the anniversary of Armstrong (and Aldrin)’s landing on the Moon aboard the Apollo 11 lunar module, the Eagle – one of the most significant historical events in living memory. The 1969 flight of Apollo 11 (and the overall space program) was the culmination of dreams that began the first time we looked up into the skies. Perhaps Lucy – our distant ancestor who left her footprints in an African gully in prehistoric times – stumbled and fell to her death as she gazed distractedly upward at the Moon, where Armstrong would leave his own footprints some uncountable millennia later. Or so we can ponder – as perhaps Lucy pondered. Such is the stuff of which dreams and imaginings are made.
Such dreams fuel our passions – or reflect them. The aforementioned Star Trek TV series was marketed as a rebooted Wagon Train TV series set in space – pioneers and explorers travelling to the stars. And as Wagon Train fan fiction was being written over subsequent years, men were landing and walking on the Moon. Did such aspirational dreams fuel reality – or did they reflect it? In this vein, it is interesting to be mindful of the similarities (and differences) between the lunar travellers in the classic sci fi novel by Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon and the actual Apollo Moon program a century later.
“Ever since I saw the moon landing as a young teenager, I was determined I would go into space one day.” – Richard Branson
As humanity prepares to return to the Moon – a generation after Apollo – aboard the Artemis program, we can speculate about the cultural shift from naming a moonshot program after a mythical male God (Apollo) in the 1960s, to his mythical female counterpart (Artemis) in the 2020s. Like the space program itself, our astronaut selection and cultural norms have become more inclusive of diversity and much more. Artemis was not only a Moon goddess, but also deity connected to nature and the environment – suggesting that we are more open to understanding our place in the cosmos within a perspective of respecting our planet and its biosphere. As a species, we are changing, evolving… perhaps the communication technology spawned by Apollo has brought us closer together as a human family and as a participant in an active biosphere of organic, sentient life.
But the tendency to link the space program to mythology is itself changing in our culture. Our literature that most closely resembles and portrays space – science fiction – is a modern, interesting, and exciting form of secular story-telling. Its birth as a modern-day art form coincided with the height of the Apollo program, with the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey; and subsequent hard-science speculations (Contact, Interstellar, Gravity), which help us to glimpse the numinous in our cosmos.
Herein lies a warning and a challenge: we must be careful to remain creators of our dreams and not just consumers. Luke Skywalker and Doctor Who must not be only our imaginary heroes: they must be our role models in real life. We must follow their example to confront hardship and make the world a better place.
“For change to happen it does not only need to change opinions, there needs to be a way for the changed opinion to be turned into action.”
– Timothy Underwood, When Can Fiction Change the World?
Does sci fi inspire science, or does science inspire sci fi? We all need arts, music, writings and culture to inspire us and to fully optimise our human experience and potential. I would suggest that sci fi is a form of fan fiction, interacting with science and scientists to offer contributions (culturally and scientifically) to upcoming scientific, cultural and technological revolutions.
Meanwhile, ponder the Internet and IT or mobile phone technology that allows you to read this blog. You can thank Neil Armstrong and the army of Apollo engineers and scientists who led the scientific revolution that shaped your world today. Now, imagine how Artemis and its technology will change our culture, our technology, our dreams, and the next generation.
©2023 Geoff Allshorn