The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society Expanding the Mind

elcome to Odyssey 40. This please send it to [email protected] another book by Nick Kanas, and we edition is packed with great will have a poem by BIS Fellow Stephen new articles and a new author Our regular columnists also feature in Ashworth, who is another author appearing Wto Odyssey, Rachel Armstrong FBIS, who this issue. John Silvester reviews a book in Visionary. Also, with the forthcoming some of you may remember from her by BIS member Nick Kanas, and Richard Olympic Games in mind, Richard will be story in Visionary, the BIS science fiction Hayes takes us on a quest for life on devoting his Radical Vectors column to the anthology. Her new story Breeding Back – a perpetual subject of interest to the dark side of future sports and competitive is brilliant, and we hope you will like it too. Society. games. All in all, it should be interesting! Should any of our readers feel they have something to contribute to Odyssey then In the next edition John will be reviewing Terry Henley FBIS

Radical Vectors: Richard Hayes FBIS examines the Lure of

hat may have lived, or may even in 1997, all the combined rovers since had live now, on the Red Planet is a still covered no more than the distance of constant source of fascination. a marathon. In the meantime, the Mars WIn 2014, Abigail Hutty gave a memorable Odyssey orbiter has detected subsurface BIS presentation on Life on Mars? The ESA hydrogen, possibly in the form of water ice, ExoMars Programme. She explained how along with water and carbon dioxide ice at the ESA rover mission to Mars, scheduled the Martian poles, and Curiosity has found for 2018 with its first roving on the surface in water ice of up to 2 per cent by weight in soil January 2019, should look at areas such as samples – actually quite a large amount. The river deltas which might once have harboured signs of an environment where life might once life. have existed are there, and the ESA rover might surprise us with yet more evidence in The scientists involved have a keen eye for due course. likely locations, avoiding dusty areas where the rover’s drill will be ineffective, and bearing Of course, research into the possibility of life in mind that anything at the surface would having once thrived on Mars has been going Proceedings of the BIS Symposium in 1998. have been long ago killed off by radiation and on for a long time. The papers presented at a Cover image courtesy JPL/NASA. the chemicals prevalent there. The Curiosity BIS symposium on the subject in 1998 were rover has already analysed the published as The Search for Life on Mars, could help to provide evidence of life, as and found evidence of perchlorate – a salt of edited by Julian A Hiscox, and are as relevant well as significantly assist the processes chlorine and oxygen – which is fairly toxic and today as they were then. of colonization and terraforming, as Kim also distinctly unhelpful when trying to test Stanley Robinson envisaged so dramatically for organic carbon. The rover will probably Amongst several intriguing papers, Martyn J in his Mars trilogy of science fiction novels. need to drill down two meters or more to find Fogg’s Artesian Basins on Mars: Implications To emphasize the point, NASA provided anything. for Settlement, Life-Search and Terraforming evidence only last year that salty water predicted the existence of pressurised may still be flowing on the But there’s still a lot of the Martian surface groundwater at comparatively shallow nowadays. to be explored. Abigail pointed out that, depths, possibly in the Hellas basin or the beginning with the Pathfinder rover back northern plains. The presence of liquid water And in On the Inevitable Emergence of Life

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 1 on Mars, Michael J and Allan J Hall hiding the real photos which revealed that argued that the circumstances on the planet features such as the Face were constructed some four billion years ago should have led by intelligent beings. inexorably to the formation of metabolizing cells. The evidence continues to build up that The period in the late 1990s covered by evidence of some form of life may still be Bergreen was a time of great achievements found under the surface of Mars. with Mars Global Surveyor and the Pathfinder rover, but also one of the memorable failures The possibility of life on Mars, even in its with Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar most primitive state, has a strong impact Lander. But the inspiration was strong. He on the direction of space exploration. The felt that the vision of life on Mars amongst the supposed discovery in 1996 of nano-fossils scientific community could be traced back to in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite, which the speculations of Carl . Even in the almost certainly originated on Mars, may late 1960s, when the missions had have given NASA a focus which had been confirmed a barren and apparently lifeless lacking since the Challenger Space Shuttle Martian surface, Sagan considered that disaster a decade earlier. The Pathfinder the possibility was still worth pursuing. And rover the following year was seen as the first scientists were, in turn, influenced by science stage of a new impetus. Sadly, there has fiction. Bergreen mentioned the impact of Ray been considerable debate since on whether Bradbury’s 1950 novel The Martian Chronicles the structures identified in the meteorite could – Sagan considered it to be the best novel indeed only have arisen from a biological A different, but imaginative, assessment of life written about Mars, depicting the planet’s input, as Grady, and Pillinger on Mars. Published by Michael Joseph 1998. inhabitants as serene, intelligent beings. explained in The Search for Life in Allan Hills 84001, also amongst the papers from the BIS Bradbury’s science fiction undoubtedly symposium. The question is still not resolved Drawing on the vast range of material contains some powerful descriptions of Mars today. available at the time, the book drew as it might have been. In his 1966 story conclusions which many would find surprising The Lost City of Mars, we see the amazing The scope for exercising the imagination – the existence of an advanced civilization wonders left behind by a sophisticated, but is particularly wide where this subject is on Mars which may have come to an end long-dead, civilization, and his 1949 story concerned. HG ’ 1898 novel The War as recently as 20,000 years ago due to a Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed – surely of the Worlds undoubtedly set the scene comet colliding with the planet, at the same one of the most evocative titles of all time – for an advanced Martian civilization on a time as catastrophic events occurred on depicts quite a different sense of the impact dying world, facing the threat from depletion our own Earth. It focuses on the strange, of a previous peaceful Martian society on the of resources. The fiction of Edgar Rice and supposedly artificial, structures in the somewhat unwilling colonists from Earth. , beginning with his first Barsoom region revealed by the 1976 Viking book A Princess of Mars in 1917 and which orbiter photographs, including the infamous And he was certainly not alone in imagining has become well known recently with “Face on Mars”, which are actually probably Martians as, in many ways, the equal of, if not the 2012 film John Carter, is perhaps the due to lighting effects. superior to, any intruders from Earth. Stanley archetype of adventure set in a desert Mars G Weinbaum’s 1934 story A Martian Odyssey where exotic civilizations have developed. This is not intended as fiction and, to be fair, describes a particularly amiable alien who You get a flavour of this from John Silvester’s Hancock has revised his opinions in the light befriends the explorers, and turns out to be review in Odyssey 17 of Robert Crossley’s of subsequent scientific evidence, but the far more intelligent than they might have first 2011 account of the literary history of the key point is that using one’s imagination is thought. No such beings actually exist on planet, Imagining Mars. important when we consider the past of our Mars, sad to say, though the inspiration of neighbouring world. And even so, there still such tales lives on in our continuing interest And applying the imagination is exactly what remain some questions to be answered about in the subject. has led to some of the more extravagant certain of the odder features on Mars, as theories about Martian civilizations of the Horace W Crater explained in The Mounds of But a rather sad aspect is that enthusiasm past. Graham Hancock has, for many years, Cydonia – a Case Study for Planetary SETI in for the prospects of life on Mars may been a researcher in the field of ancient the January 2007 issue of JBIS. occasionally result in excessive caution civilizations and unconventional theories on on the part of scientists. Bergreen refers events in prehistory and the existence of the There is an obvious downside, though. The to an occasion in 1998 when Mike Malin, paranormal. biographer and journalist Laurence Bergreen who ran the Mars Global Surveyor camera was given unrestricted access to NASA system, was reluctant to release pictures One may not always agree with his scientists researching life on Mars for his of an apparent silt deposit on a Martian conclusions, but his thoroughness is fairly 2000 book The Quest for Mars: The NASA hillside for fear that the public would leap unquestionable, and his books are always Scientists and Their Search for Life Beyond to the conclusion that it was evidence of interesting and thought-provoking. So when, Earth. They were clearly unhappy about a sea, and encourage undue speculation in 1998, he published The Mars Mystery – a having to devote so much time to mapping about the existence of microbial life. Public Tale of the End of Two Worlds with his co- the Cydonia region using data from the Mars understanding of science must never be authors Robert Bauval and John Grigsby, one Global Surveyor orbiter. Sadly, even then, restricted by perceptions of its inability to knew he would have something to say. conspiracy theorists insisted that NASA was understand.

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 2 Moon, A Brief History by John Silvester FBIS

n a recent visit to the BIS library, I proved to be closer to reality. came across a recent addition, an attractively presented pocket-sized For example, his Moon journey was Ovolume about the Moon by Bernd Brunner. undertaken by three men, and he correctly The author describes it as a “brief history of predicted that the United States would be the imprint the moon has left on the human the first country to orbit the Moon, and the imagination and of the enduring fascination it journey would begin in Florida. Also, Verne’s has evoked.” spacecraft took 242 hours and 31 minutes on its journey, whereas Apollo 8 spent 147 hours Non-technical in nature, the book examines in space, and its weight came close to that of the Moon through history, science, and Verne’s spacecraft. literature. There are chapters on the way humans have looked at it, thought about it, As well as being a good read, this book is dreamt about it, mapped it, written about it, an excellent repository of fascinating facts worshipped it, and, of course, visited it (both associated with the Moon. For instance, in in reality and in the imagination). There is a 1765 in Birmingham The Lunar Society, a description of what it must be like to stand on club for business people and intellectuals the Moon’s surface. started up (perhaps an early equivalent of the BIS?), and met on the first Monday after Because of its smaller size we are all aware the full moon for a period of fifty years. Its from the Apollo film footage that there is membership boasted the likes of Erasmus less gravity, the horizon is nearer, and the and Matthew Boulton, and it chose regolith dry due to the absence of water. that date so that moonlight would assist However, we may not have appreciated that ISBN No: 9780300152128 its members on their journey home in the light and darkness as we experience them Published by Yale University Press absence of street lighting. on Earth are reversed. The sky would always be dark, even during the day, and the colours sets it apart from Earth would be the Although the author opens by describing the of the Lunar surface would vary dramatically, prevalence of `circular’ features of all sizes. Moon as “a bleak, gloomy lifeless celestial depending on the angle of viewing. body....” this is not the tone he takes with his There is a chapter on imagined journeys to subject matter. He has produced a positive The ‘soil’ might appear light grey or brown, the Moon through history. Of course, it is and readable little book of thirteen chapters, but black when viewed close up. Moreover, not till the time of Jules Verne that we get which includes ninety-three unusual black everything would have crystal clear clarity anywhere near to realistic visions of space and white drawings and pictures. Moreover, irrespective of distance, because of the travel. We can credit him with at least moving it has one more asset for which I was absence of atmosphere. As to the geography in the right direction with his ‘cannon’ method particularly grateful, the complete absence of of the Moon, one noticeable aspect which of propulsion, but some of his other thinking tiresome notes.

Breeding Back by Rachel Armstrong FBIS

east’s strong impatient limbs continued now. They’d be back with nets, barrels and to carry him over the slippery rocks at etorphine. a gentler pace. He was unused to the Bsudden stillness. Ketone sweetened droplets That bloody stuff. condensed on his tongue. His thick, blackened toenails gripped the vertical rock face like His guts would spill from his mouth within sandpaper. Moving surprisingly gracefully for seconds of the first cruel dart. Made him sick such a large beast his nostrils flared as he as a dog. Sicker. He’d had more than his fill drunk in the pine, berries, bird guano, fungi, of it. compost and forest musk. Beast quickly disappeared between the There was nothing following him. boulders into his makeshift crib to evade capture. He listened to the forest breathing. The forest’s music lulled him. His lids Not anymore. His thin mattress was made of bird feathers, thickened. It was hard to stay awake. leftover fur from meals, straw and dried His yellow eyes glittered under splitting leaves, which kept the bitter damp from Dandelion clock seeds dithered. A large clouds and he scooped a few handfuls of his bones. Head on his deadly paws, he banana slug moved its slow mouth over spring water. How sour his breath tasted surveyed the wooded terrain below. vegetable fragments from Beast’s scant food

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 3 stores. It rudely slurped its stolen meal. He the chopper, weighed him and conjured a mixing the codes of extinct creatures with didn’t mind. The pulsing muscle was simply thorough assessment of his details using contemporary species has certainly been an protein. small instruments, scanners, lights, clicks and innovative response to the failed rewilding beeps. process.” Omnivore. His mane was clipped, his mouth swabbed, “So, that means he’s human?” He mostly ate leaves. Yet, he dreamed of claws sawed, his tail unfurled, toes counted, meat - a delicacy – raw. the shape of his tongue categorized and “No. Far from it. He shows less genetic bright lights probed his still gaze. Then his homology with our species than our closest A spider scratched details into its web, jaws were clamped in a muzzle. relatives chimpanzees. The difference improving on the integrity of its instrument. between the two genomes is actually not As it made its repairs, it plucked a symphony The deep sickness swelling in his entrails 1%, but about 4%—comprising around 35 on its threads extending an invitation to reassured him that he was still alive. million single nucleotide differences and any passing insect that would join in its somewhere close to 90 megabases of improvisations. Once the opiate wore off, he’d barf on them. insertions and deletions. He’s a biological All of them. collision of creatures. But they are weakened He should eat something. organisms. They can’t breed. And they don’t A series of stops and transitions ensued. even know they are genetically different. Recently, he’d begun ‘civilizing’ his appetite. Beast was bundled from one container to If questions are asked, we say there is a He’d found a way of making small fires another. Each vessel assessed him again general increase in infertility. This draws and tried singeing his food in them. He had and packed him off with a slap and packing further discussion to a quick close owing to developed a taste for the charred bitter black sticker. overpopulation issues.” seasoning and smoky infusions, but he was not yet so advanced that he could not easily “Danger! This way up!” “But hasn’t anyone used commercially enjoy a meal without them. Today there was available kits to examine their genetic no ceremony. It was too risky to go outside. Darkness and jolting ensued. Beast vowed codes?” He swallowed a part decomposing pheasant to save his vomit for when he might be able – feathers, beak, feet and all. to use it. “They probably have, but the markets don’t provide anything sufficiently sophisticated to Sweet. “Oh! You’re a beauty!” read this genetic dark matter. They interpret it as ‘nonsense’. But reading, not detection, Beast’s breathing slowed in the darkness and The white coat hooked her hair behind her of the sequences, is key. If you know what his long-lashed lids began to loll. ears making them wing out at the top. you’re looking for, these codes are far from nonsense. They are re-evolution at work: re- Several flies were playing ‘follow my leader’ Like an overgrown mosquito, the coat running the tape of life.” in a curious circular formation. unsheathed the multiple stylets of a large needle and drew blood from Beast’s superior Beast blinked unnoticed. Dogged. vena cava. She instinctively sucked on her fingers as the precious juice was transferred The white coat tagged his ear and he Around and around they ran, like beads of into a series of colour-topped test tubes. remembered not to flinch as he felt the mercury. loosening grip of the neurotoxin on his flesh. “Let’s see what we’ve got here?” Captors were already here. Springing on to Paralysis melting. the rock face, Beast scrambled up the slimy The coat beckoned to a colleague. They precipice. stared at a screen together, which turned “Some have gone feral. Call it instinct. Or their faces pale blue. environmentalism. Back to Nature. Whatever The tiny insect drones were already in silent you want. People are crazy enough to believe pursuit, triangulating the coordinates of his “Not at all what we expected. Interesting anything nowadays. But to keep the genetic location. It would only be seconds before the chimera indeed.” programs active we need to secure the carbon bird arrived. Damn them. Beast knew quality of the genes. This particular specimen what happened next. Chewed nails pointed at screens. appears to have an extremely good profile. He’s expressing a strong phenotype. See Before he felt the rotor’s gust against the “His baseline genetic chassis is Homo that patch of fur, the curled incisors, pointed shaggy fur patch between his shoulder sapiens with 5% dire wolf, 3% auroch, 0.5% tongue and rudimentary tail. This is evidence blades, or the bullet smash its poisons quagga, 0.2% Heck horse, 0.01% mammoth of proteins actively being expressed. The past into his flesh, he knew he was falling. and I do wonder if there is some saber tooth is alive. One to watch.” The neurotoxin prevented him losing tiger. Can’t be certain. Odd profile. A proper consciousness as the nets swept around him. monster.” Beast meditated on his breathing. His eyes burned faint golden lights on to the glossy His eyes glared through burst blood Their heads bobbed over the data. laboratory surfaces. He watched his own vessels at the human inspectors. pupils squeeze into vertical lines, gathering “The idea of breeding back extending beyond focus, empathetically expressing the pain he They hauled their catch into the belly of the resurrection of entire extinct species by was in.

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 4 “It’s uncomplicated to follow these Trojan watching them. I have seen them even break surveillance camera with a force that tore sequences up, right?” down into tears and say that they are unhappy the muzzle from his face, Beast stood up. being assessed in such ways. However, they He grabbed a white coat that was hanging “Oh, we’re not worried about that. These do respond to intense training programs. But by the door, picked the mechanical system chimeras do not have the full range of human in reality, chimeras are just beasts.” with his broken claws and walked out of the emotions or intelligence. They have poor laboratory. language skills, are clumsy and find it difficult Another white coat stuck their head into the to relate to people. For example, I’ve seen laboratory waving some papers. Beast caused no harm, or wanton damage as them get very upset when they’re not in control he left, completely evading detection by the of a situation. When I use a tambourine to “Doctor, I wonder if you’d come and take a security system. get their attention, they may be startled, start look at these results. The dire wolf fraction growling, or lash out. This is unsurprising, needs re-evaluation. It may be stronger than Confident. as, after all, they do not possess a human the first readings indicate.” brain. So, they have a limited understanding He began the long journey back to his crib of social situations. Sometimes they don’t ask The self-locking door slammed. Beast was and the solitude he preferred. permission to speak and shout out. They may alone. even misread the intentions of others. I have Several minutes later the alarms began to noticed them looking at me to check if I am Projectile-vomiting opiate stained bile on the scream.

Stumbling Blocks on the way to Mars - Propulsion, Propulsion, Propulsion by Terry Don

he TV programme Location, Location, noted they were working on advanced solar- VASIMR Location notes that choosing a good electric propulsion systems (SEP). Currently The Ad Astra company have also been location is the most important item in SEP power levels were only at 5-kilowatt awarded a contract for a system that is Tbuying a house. Similarly, when travelling to (kW) level, but by clustering together more different from that of AerojetRockedyne and other parts of the Solar System, propulsion advanced versions up to 100 kW was MSNW . It employs an engine that shows is king and more important than any other feasible. promise of being both efficient and generating factor. In recent articles I discussed the higher thrust called the Variable Specific problems that radiation and lack of gravity The problem is how to produce that power, Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). pose for travel to Mars. These problems loom with solar cells the only current candidate. In This engine uses radio waves to ionize and large because with current methods of liquid addition, although SEP is more efficient than heat a propellant, and magnetic fields to propulsion, any Mars trip will take up to 9 a chemical rocket, it has low thrust and hence accelerate the resulting plasma to months. What if the trip time were reduced to very low (although continuous) acceleration, generate thrust. A flight version is scheduled 4 months or less? What if the technology for and will not reduce transit times. SEP is only to be tested on the ISS in 2016, where it will this had already been demonstrated? really suitable for sending cargo to Mars and demonstrate that it can boost the orbit of the not humans. AerojetRockedyne and MSNW station. During a visit to AerojetRockedyne last May, have now been awarded contracts to study NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said that 100kW class SEP systems. The problem in using VASIMR type engine he would like to greatly reduce the time it takes to get to Mars to 4 months. He noted that enabling astronauts to get to Mars will take all the spacefaring expertise the United States can muster, including advanced propulsion technologies such as solar-electric engines and perhaps even nuclear rockets.

This would limit astronauts’ radiation exposure during the trek to Mars and reduce the amount of water, food and other “consumables” such a mission would require. It appears that Bolden was not just speculating as this November NASA awarded several new contracts for advanced deep space propulsion systems.

Solar Electric Propulsion Bolden’s statements were echoed by the AerojetRockedyne’s Vice President of Advanced Space & Launch Systems who

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 5 to go to Mars is the very high power “nuclear thermal propulsion to enable rapid thrust with a specific impulse of 850 secs level required needing either a nuclear transport of crew to Mars” and development during a running time of some 90 minutes power plant or very large and efficient of “high energy, modular power systems of burn time. As the third stage of a Saturn solar panels. It has been calculated that for exploration missions”. To date, they 5 it was calculated that a NERVA rocket a VASIMR engine would require a power have completed fabrication and testing engine could have lifted 2-3 times that of an density of about 1000 watts per kg to of new graphite composite fuel element equivalent chemical stage into Earth orbit – be feasible. Now, this is some 10 times for a 2,800K hot hydrogen flow system up to 140,000 kg. better than existing solar arrays – but for potential nuclear thermal propulsion over the next 20 years who knows what elements. This would enable eventual The problem in reviving a NERVA type improvements will be made? The alternative development of a nuclear fusion rocket or engine is that there is much antipathy to is a nuclear reactor to generate the power, of a nuclear generating system as a power using anything “nuclear” especially in the and the US did start development of the source. USA. However Russia and China may have Prometheus reactor in 2005 which was fewer problems in going down this route. The projected to generate over 200 kW of Now, we have been here before. Back in Russians especially have produced many power. Unhappily, the project was cancelled the 1960s, NASA designed, developed and nuclear powered generating modules for in budget cuts. Thus VASIMR may be tested the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle military satellites and are quite capable of one to watch for the future if a sufficiently Application (NERVA) a nuclear fission rocket producing a “NERVASKI”. powerful power source can be found. which was an engine candidate for an upper stage for later versions of the Saturn 5 moon My favourite is the nuclear fission rocket to The Nuclear Rocket Option rocket. Unfortunately it was not pursued and enable flights to Mars. The technology was The mission of NASA’s Human Exploration cancelled in 1973 due to a combination of shown to work in the 1960s and we now have Operations Mission Directorate’s finance, public aversion to nuclear power much better materials and computing power. (HEOMD’s) Advanced Exploration Systems and, ultimately, cancelation of the Saturn 5 The major problem is convincing the anti- (AES) division is to develop technologies for itself. NERVA demonstrated 250,000 lbs of nuclear lobby that it is safe to launch.

Observation Point Richard Hayes FBIS examines the Art of Alex Storer

he classic images of science fiction space art provide us with depictions of spacecraft as they might exist one day. We recall paintings from the 1960s onwards which showed the Texploration of space by huge ships that would penetrate the depths of the cosmos, carrying their human – or alien – passengers and crew for purposes that were often left to our imagination.

But the overwhelming message was one of the tremendous extent of the endeavours of civilized beings in conquering the universe in which they find themselves. And humanity might yet have its part to play in that.

In this recent picture from Alex’s collection, a spacecraft orbits a heavily cratered moon, the distant sun of this star system casting its light across the scene. The vast size of this vessel’s engines tell us that it has travelled far to reach this point, but they are now cold and silent – it has reached its destination.

Even so, there is still much activity aboard the craft. Lights appearing through windows show that its occupants are busy going about their work, and its surface is covered with sensors and antennae which suggest that its role is to measure and analyse data.

We are left in little doubt that these space travellers are here to observe something, but we are not certain what that can be. It might be some feature on the surface of the moon below, or on its parent planet which lies outside our view. What we can be sure of is that the civilization that sent this spaceship to this remote location had the resources, and the will, to dispatch a sophisticated mission – possibly for purposes of scientific research, or perhaps for some more sinister reason.

Right: Observation Point by Alex Storer; www.thelightdream.net

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 6 John Silvester FBIS Reviews The New Martians by Nick Kanas

pringer, the well known publisher common purpose that united the crew on the of books on astronomy, space way out appears to have started to weaken, exploration and astronautics, has and they become irritated by things readily Sbranched out into science fiction in a new accepted on the outward “pioneering” journey, series called “science and fiction”. It says such as the lack of instant communication that the idea “was born out of the recognition with Earth. Two of the crew, Tolya and that scientific discovery and the creation of Juliette, start to find sexual solace with one plausible fiction scenarios are often two sides another, but then one of the crew members of the same coin”. Nick Kanas, an Emeritus is found to be suffering from bipolar disorder Professor of Psychiatry at the University of and has to be restrained. Thereafter the California, has written “The New Martians” author slowly builds up the tension, but for this series. He has studied astronauts suddenly releases it. Everything then begins living and working in space for more than to rattle along at a fine pace, and the book twelve years, and has been the principal becomes difficult to put down. investigator of two NASA-funded international studies involving the Russian Mir and the The story is anchored in reality and International Space Station. constructed with careful precision. Every Publisher: Springer aspect has clearly been carefully researched ISBN: 9783319009742 This story concerns the return to Earth for its feasibility, and things do not stray far journey of the first human expedition to Mars. from acceptable science. At slightly less than delay with Earth, which at its largest extent Although the venture has proved successful, 100 pages this is certainly not a daunting can be 40 minutes. Of course this could never there is undoubted disappointment amongst read, but unusually for science fiction there be truly replicated on Earth, because one the crew that no signs of life of any sort, past is also a Part 2, entitled “The Science would always have to allow for emergencies. or present, appear to have been found on the Behind the Fiction”. It takes a look at the Martian surface. The journey back therefore psychosocial issues a Mars crew are likely I can recommend this book as a good starts as something of an anti-climax, to face in their isolation and confinement, evening’s read. Should you wish, it is also tempered by inevitable home sickness. The particularly the big issue, the communications available on Kindle. What’s On

Who Owns the Moon? Guided Projectile Establishment Westcott – 70th Anniversary Celebration

9 March 2016 9 April 2016

Speaker: Michael Franks Venue: Westcott Social and Sports Club, Ashendon Road, HP18 0PD

Venue: 27/29 Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ 2016 Soviet/Chinese Technical Forum - Call for Papers

20-22 May 2016 Nell, Esther and Aunt Effie – The Story of the World’s First Liquid-Fuelled Rocket Venue: 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ

16 March 2016 BIS Space Conference at Charterhouse - Call for Papers

Speaker: Jerry Stone 21-23 July 2016

Venue: 27/29 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1SZ Venue: Charterhouse School, nr. Godalming, Surrey

A full list of events, with details and registration information can be found online: www.bis-space.com/whats-on

Editor: Terry J. Henley

Assistant Editors: John Silvester, Terry Don and Richard Hayes

Distribution and web support: Ralph Timberlake and Andrew Vaudin

Odyssey is published bi-monthly by the BIS and circulated by email. Feedback on the e-magazine is welcome, including suggestions for future issues, via [email protected]

Odyssey: The e-Magazine of the British Interplanetary Society: March 2016 www.bis-space.com 7