I retired from NASA (as Deputy Chief, KSC Education Office) at the end of 1996. I've now been retired more years than I worked for any one employer (the longest two, NASA 13, Boeing 11). And in some ways these so-called 'Golden Years' are indeed the best of my life. But there are also drawbacks and disappointments aplenty.
A few of the drawbacks can be attributed to the rapid pace of change in today's world. (Ray Kurzweil, now chief developer of future programs at Google, is fond of pointing out that that not only is the world rapidly changing, the pace of change itself has gotten faster.) Some of the disappointments, I like to think, derive from internal change, my personal maturation and growth. Books are a good example.
During my last twenty-five or so working years I accumulated a lot of books. Most went on the shelves with the expectation of reading after retirement, when I would have more time. My demanding job, a second family with two young daughters, and a driving need to devote all the spare hours I could find to free-lance writing limited my reading.
After retirement, as planned, I started pulling some of those waiting books off the shelves. And, time after time, discovered I couldn't finish one. (I've become willing to abandon a book fairly quickly if it doesn't grab me early and hold my interest.) Far too often, a novel that had looked interesting twenty years ago no longer held any appeal. This was particularly true in science fiction. I'm not going to mention names, but book after book I had anticipated enjoying, I no longer wanted to read. These varied from big names in the field to bright-future newcomers, but they shared one common characteristic. I found them boring.
The world of audio visual (AV) entertainment and information has been among the fastest changing industries in a fast-changing world. We went from LP vinyl to tape to CD to DVD to streaming AV (with of course a lot of overlaps) in just a few decades. And, as you might expect from Kurzweil's observation, each major change happened with less time between than the one before. The amount of music, entertainment and education/information increased greatly along the way, with access to same gaining almost exponentially in so-called developing or undeveloped countries.
Today I have millions of songs instantly available from several streaming sources, a hundred-thousand movies offered by some of the same companies, and a million amateur but often quite good AV productions on YouTube and others; some free, others for relatively small monthly fees. I've pretty much stopped buying CDs and DVDs. Why should I, when I can reach any one I want from the streaming services to which I subscribe. The 'Cloud' is the new home entertainment center. And it's cheaper by far than buying and building your own library.
From the time my father gave me my quarter allowance on Saturday, and I hitch-hiked to the only movie theater in the county, nine miles away on U.S. 90, I've loved movies. I paid a dime to get in, which bought me a western, a cartoon short, and usually a newsreel. The fifteen remaining cents (coke or popcorn was never even under consideration) left me with a choice. Buy a science fiction magazine from one of the stands at the two drugstores and depend on hitching a ride to get home, or ride the Greyhound bus for fifteen cents. The magazine always won, if a new one was available. And I never once walked the nine miles home. Someone always stopped for a preteen boy with his thumb out.
I wrote in an earlier blog post that most of us don't appreciate how much our lives have improved, despite the fact the 'middle-class' hasn't gotten a raise in thirty years. Today I can buy more good books than I have time to read, watch more movies (on a 60-in HD screen) than my eyes and butt can last through, and enjoy TV series where each episode is better than the movies I saw as a kid. (Not to mention a plethora of often fascinating popular science and informative documentary programs.) This richness of second-hand experience is part of makes these 'golden years' highly worthwhile -- but also cuts into my reading time.
I don't know how it goes with you, but I can truthfully say that preteen boy with his thumb out never dreamed that one day he would live such a rich and rewarding life. Perspective is all.
Photo credit: PMGreen
Stephen Pinker, a Harvard professor and author of several popular science books (The Blank Slate being perhaps the best known) last year wrote a short but potent article discussing the ongoing clashes between science and popular culture, religion, and the humanities. Pinker offers a coherent, insightful and penetrating look at these conflicts. For those of you interested in the real sciences, this is well worth five minutes of your day.
Sad to say, the conflicts haven't diminished much since the article appeared. If anything, the anti-science movement in the USA has grown stronger. Far too many people seem to vote based on what they feel in their gut (a nasty place, full of bile, partially digested food, and waste products), rather than reasoned decisions, reached after careful deliberation in the organ where decisions should be made, the brain.
But speaking of real science, I've always believed that one of the more important functions of science fiction is to serve as an inspiration to actual working scientists; science fiction can look ahead, provide glimpses of what could be, not just what is. One of the better examples of this can be seen by anyone who tours the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. On the walls inside Blockhouse 26, which controlled the launch of the first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, you will see several plaques with quotes from famous science fiction writers. One, I recall, was from the works of Jules Verne; the others fade from memory.
If you're able to arrange such a tour (and the Air Force used to do them every weekend; best check now to see if they're still available), let me inform you that the pretty blinking status lights on the consoles have been restored for your viewing pleasure; we escorts turned them on and off as we entered and left the control room. If you can't make it, there's a quite decent YouTube video immediately available, though it shows only the control center, and not the exterior rooms in the blockhouse where the plaques hang.
Photo credit: LC-26_equipment by Bubba73 (You talkin' to me?), (Jud McCranie) is licensed under CC 3.0 / Resized from original
Most people are unaware that I'm the author of the first DAW novel.
The reason that fact is not well know is fairly straightforward. Don wanted to start his new line with some big names. He persuaded two of the then biggest, Andre Norton and A.E. van Vogt, to contribute to the opening set of four monthly books (a schedule DAW rigorously maintained after the startup). So a collection from Andre Norton, Spell Of The Witch World , became DAW Book No. 1, and my novel, The Mind Behind The Eye, DAW Book No. 2. Brian Ball's The Probability Man became No. 3, and the second big name's eponymous The Book Of A.E. Van Vogt No. 4.
Don had accepted my novel, then titled Gold The Man, while at ACE. I learned this (news to me, because he hadn't yet informed my agent) when I met Don for the first time, at the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston. I wasn't that thrilled that my novel would be published as an original paperback by ACE, at that time a notoriously chintzy publisher. In England it had been published in hardback by Gollancz, under my original title. (Don wanted a more SF oriented title, and changed it). But of course I smiled, and said how pleased I was. Actually, I had hoped and expected that my agent, Lurton Blassingame, would place it with a better house.
But then something very unexpected happened. I received a call from Don Wollheim saying he and wife (and co-editor) Elsie were coming to Orlando, and would like to see me while that close. I of course agreed, and a few days later Don and Elsie were sitting at my kitchen table.
I learned that Don and Elsie had driven to Merritt Island from Casselberry, where they had just persuaded Andre Norton to provide a book for DAW, the new publishing house they were planning to start. And Don wanted to take my novel with him when he left ACE, to publish under the new imprint. Since I hadn't yet signed a contract, this remained possible.
After a brief discussion on money and terms, I learned that DAW would pay about the same as ACE. I agreed to go with the new house, and to inform my agent of the decision. And then we celebrated by going out for dinner at a nice seafood restaurant in Port Canaveral. There I learned that one bit of knowledge Blassingame had shared with me didn't apply in all cases. In New York on the way to that Boston convention, I had scheduled a lunch with my agent and an editor. As we walked to the restaurant to meet said editor I asked Blassingame about protocol. Lurton told me the editor, who had an expense account, was always expected to pick up the check. If he didn't, the agent did. The writer never paid.
When the check arrived at the end of an excellent dinner, landing in the center of the table, Don suddenly became very interested in the medium-high waves coming in off the Atlantic. Perhaps he had good night vision, and saw a mermaid (braless) cavorting in the foam. At any rate, after waiting a couple of minutes I picked up the check. We returned home, and Don and Elsie left for Orlando, where they were spending the night.
To be fair, at World Con Toronto II in 1973, with DAW well established and thriving, I met with Don, Elsie and a small number of other DAW writers for lunch. When that check came, Elsie tugged on Don's arm and suggested that perhaps DAW should pick up the bill. Somewhat grudgingly, he agreed. Elsie was the more generous and outgoing of the two, a very nice person. Don could be curmudgeonly on occasion. But the one time I asked him for a personal favor, that Kelly Freas be assigned the cover for my second DAW Book (a pb reprint of my Doubleday hardcover, Conscience Interplanetary), he agreed (again grudgingly, because Kelly demanded and got $50 more per cover than their other artists). I bought the original from Kelly, and it hangs in our living room today.
Don and Elsie are both gone now, but DAW Books lives on, and is apparently doing well. Don had a long career as an editor and anthologist (with I think Elsie frequently working at his side, often without recognition), and remains an important figure in the field. And though it hasn't been chronicled in the books on SF history as terribly important, I'm proud of the fact the first novel DAW published was one of mine.
My signature rests on the Moon.
While it contributed nothing to the American space program, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from the above. It came about this way.
Shortly before John Young, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly lifted off on the Apollo 16 mission, many people at the Kennedy Space Center presented them with a 'bon voyage and good wishes' card. The physical card was quite large, with hundreds of signatures; and every ounce counts on a lunar lander. The card was reduced to a single microfiche, weighing less than an ounce, and that's what actually went aboard the lunar lander. (The microfiche itself was photographed, and paper copies distributed to all signers. What you see here is the front of the card.) When the upper half of the lander lifted off to return Young and Duke to the orbiting Command Service Module where Mattingly waited, the microfiche stayed behind in the bottom half.
None of my duties at KSC ever brought me into contact with Duke or Mattingly, but I did meet John Young. He and Robert Crippen (who later became my boss when appointed Director of The Kennedy Space Center) served on the task force preparing the NASA report on the loss of Challenger, where I was the lead writer. Later I invited Young to be keynote speaker at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando (I was on the Con staff as liaison to NASA), and he accepted. When commercial travel arrangements somehow fell through, Young hopped into a NASA jet and flew himself to Orlando. He gave a fine keynote speech, much appreciated by the audience.
I also met Charles Bolden, now the Administrator of NASA. At the time he was a Colonel in the Marines, a fighter test pilot detached to NASA. I spent two days escorting Charley on employee motivation visits, while he was stationed at KSC for a year as astronaut-in-residence. A great guy, Charley, friendly and approachable. He strongly impressed me with his support for education (I worked in the KSC Education Office) and his willingness to speak with anybody. I remember once a janitor, sweeping the floor in the foyer of a building we had just entered, dropped his broom and engaged Charley in conversation. The only relation between the two was that both were black men. After several minutes I had to urge Charley to move on, because we were holding up a large group waiting for us inside.
Charles Bolden returned to the Marines after completing four Space Shuttle missions, two as pilot and the next two as commander. He continued to rise in the ranks, finally retiring as a major general. He came back to NASA when President Obama appointed him Administrator, with an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Now he oversees a NASA that has completed the Space Shuttle program and entered a time of radical change, where private contractors, using their own space vehicles, will soon be ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station.
The only wholly NASA manned space flight program still in work is the Space Launch System (SLS), which will not likely fly its first crewed mission for another decade -- if ever. SLS is essentially a larger and more capable Saturn V, with a larger and more capable Orion spacecraft riding on top. The whole 'bigger and better' concept has many critics, me among them. I think this program is more likely to be canceled than completed, and actual missions to an asteroid, the Moon and Mars unlikely. I'm disappointed NASA couldn't come up with a more original and innovative way of resuming human exploration of the inner solar system. Several alternatives have been suggested, but none gotten very far.
Knowing how difficult human space flight really is, I had no expectations that I'd one day take a commercial passenger spaceship to the Moon, and walk over to stare at the Apollo 16 Lunar Module base, still holding the microfiche (hopefully undamaged). But I did think my grandson, perhaps . . . Now I can no longer support even that hope. I'm pessimistic that SLS will survive long enough to put people on the Moon again, and expect that unmanned robots will remain the only way to explore other planets for the foreseeable future. (The fact they are doing incredible work is one of the major arguments for canceling SLS and putting the money into more robots.)
I have no easy solutions to offer that will get humans back into exploring deep space. Wish I did.
