A plaque sits on the Moon, attached to the descent stage of the Lunar Excursion Module Eagle. It reads “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind.” I was nine years old when Apollo 11 landed, utterly inspired that night by humanity’s greatest adventure. Yep, the use of ‘men’ and ‘mankind’ is of its time but it encapsulates the purpose for which NASA was established in 1958.
The line For All Mankind is used for the title of the TV series about the space race, now returning for its fifth season on Apple. What makes the series particularly gripping is that it builds an alternative history of the space race, starting in Episode 1 with the Russians beating Apollo 11 to the Moon by a few weeks. The joy of alternative history is that the familiar narrative is off the table, and within the bounds of plausibility anything can happen. So FAM can mix fictional characters with real ones and change the outcome of well-known events. At intervals it also weaves actual events into the narrative to nail the story to reality and stop it veering into fantasy. It’s the same fun I had writing the Hugh Clifton Blackshirt books.
FAM plots mix soft science fiction with soapy back stories, life-or-death adventures and elements of Cold War thrillers. As the early series are set between 1969 and 1995 it offers a mirror to how society has changed – institutionalised sexism, racism and homophobia are taken for granted by many characters but fought against by some. There’s a lot of smoking and drinking which looks increasing odd in the rear view mirror.
I plunged back into rewatching FAM series 1 to 4 so I’m fully ready for Season 5 this week. Its also a way of satisfying my space bug instead of re-watching The Martian yet again and bridging the weeks until I can see Project Hail Mary at the cinema. After Christmas I listened to the brilliant audiobook of the Andy Weir hard SF novel and was anxious the film wouldn’t do it justice. The reviews suggest it’s one of the best films of the year so far, so that’s encouraging.
But isn’t exploring space a waste of money, people ask?
We all perhaps have a fantasy of what we’d do if we were the president of the USA, Russia or China. We have billions of dollars at our disposal, the best-equipped labs, top-tier scientists and engineers and the power to get things done. We could direct all that skill and resource at solving the climate crisis, cracking the secret of fusion power or landing humans on Mars. That president would stake a claim in the history books as being the one who took humanity forward, peacefully, for the good of the whole planet. But no, the preference is to bully, intimidate and invade neighbouring countries. Rockets that should be heading for the stars are raining on towns. Brave young men and women who should be astronauts and space colonists risk their lives in combat. The legacy is death and destruction and hostility that will linger for generations. We stopped tagging conquerors as ‘the Great’ many centuries ago, yet those at the top still harbour nineteenth-century ideas on what makes a leader truly great.
Personally, I’d be like the (fictional) President Wilson in FAM who gives NASA the brief to land on Mars and build a colony, much as President Kennedy’s vision drove the Apollo programme. Inspire wonder and pride in our achievements as a species. But both in fiction and reality there are massive practical challenges. It may not prove biologically possible for people to survive on Mars or in deep space for extended periods. This in itself would provoke the awful thought that we have ventured as far space as our species will ever get and we’re stuck on Earth forever – an idea I explored in the earlier blog ‘Against a Dark Background’.
To those who say aiming for Mars is a waste of resources, consider how world governments are expending their resources this week. Then consider what more hopeful statement underpinning a human endeavour could there be than ‘We come in peace for all humankind’.
Photo – taken from my back garden using a simple Canon EOS bridge camera on a tripod.