In the following excerpts (normal text) from an article by Martin Pierson* which appeared in Cosmic Science Fiction Stories, Volume 1, Number 2 (May, 1941), we get a 'first-hand" account of life in a spaceship. In that age, it seems to be a predictive piece for SF fans looking to the stars as the new "unknown territory" with a social "Upward, ho!" attitude that precipitated the Race For Space in the 50s-60s. The image I get when reading this piece is that of a young boy, a Junior Rocketeer perhaps, in his Official Limited Edition Superspacehelmet with an X-10,000 DisintegratoRay Pistol in his hand. Standing over the child is a dour looking man in a khaki uniform and a brown bomber jacket, who in response to "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a space flier!" says:
"SO YOU WANT to be a space-flier?
My friend, if you only knew what you are asking for. Life in a space ship is no joke. Nor is it a thrilling adventure. You're all alone there; you get tired of reading. You can't play cards and the like because, first, there's no one with whom to play and, second, because the cards won't stay put. There's nothing to see; space scenery is sheer monotony. The whole ship smells; cooking's a rotten, messy job and the after effects are still more so...."
Already, this seems an adventure few if any would want to take. All alone in the vastness of space, just you and your human brain keeping company in the belly of a floating machine. Nothing to do but read. It's hardly Club Med. The narrator says later, "And, you know, there's nothing to do on a spaceship, outside of keeping alive. That's what finally gets you. But there couldn't be two people, even if the ships were made larger. Under those conditions, two people would hate each other in a week and murder each other before the voyage was over. Three or more people would be impossible." The one man inside performs basic troubleshooting functions, damage control, and perhaps the occasional button pushing. He gives us a brief job description: "But, out in space, there's nothing more you can do. Keeping the temperature steady doesn't require attention; you know it when it hits extremes. You don't navigate; you don't take readings, and you don't have to swab the decks or clean the place or oil the engines. You couldn't. On the whole, the life of the spaceflier is easily the dullest, most dreary and sickening, irritating, and unhealthy life you can get. That's why there's always an opening for applicants..." But where are they going, and why are they going there? The aliens, martian princesses, and giant spaceships with real gravity are simply imaginations of loonies of the previous century. "And you don't have adventures. If you did, no one would ever know because you couldn't possibly live to return and tell about it. Space ships whose allotted course is changed, for any reason at all, just never return." But still, prospective space-flier candidates have no asnwers to the where and why of space-flight. Are they scientifically oriented data-gathering journeys to other planets? Do we have Space Stations in the future, and these flights serve as cargo transfer opportunities? Do we go into space alone in our man-made machines as Our-Time early space travellers (monkeys, dogs, and astronauts) breached the atmospheric wall "just because?" No wonder we sent animals up there first. Would any human want to subject themselves to conditions such as these:
Everything that isn't battened down floats. ...The slightest slip of muscles and you're darting in one direction while the object shoots off in the opposite direction....And then there's debris...They float. They form into perfect little globes, if they're liquid, and take up an orbit, perfect little planets. If they're crumbs of food, then they become miniature meteors or planetoids. Cooking has to be done in the single room allowed for living in your space ship. Even though your food is mostly canned stuff, concentrated, there's enough that isn't. Water keeps escaping from you; hot coffee is murderous. ... If it got loose, you'd have a big ball of coffee, boiling hot; it would drift around, wetting and scalding everything it touched. And you'd run into plenty of grief trying to capture it.
Now re-picture the space ship, ten days out. Dozens of globes, tiny, oft-times virtually invisible, of water, crumbs, food, etc., floating about, getting in your eyes, your nose, your hair. Then, a final touch is added by the ventilation. You see, there isn't any.
The air is purified and re-purified as in submarines. Chemically, it's still breathable and that's all the designers wanted to know. But, to put it crudely, the air stinks. The air is foul and it stays foul. The smell of everything you've cooked remains in full strength. Living there doesn't help the atmosphere, either.
Bleah. So here you are stuck floating in a tin can, with no ventilation and a haze of floating debris. Star Trek this is not. Captain Kirk would never go through the indignities of chasing a ball of morning coffee. And have you ever noticed that no one on the Enterprise ever goes to the bathroom? The narrator says spacetravel makes you feel as though "your organs are drifting around," which evidently causes ailementary troubles and sleep disturbances, and that in turn contributes to stress and a generally dismal outlook on existence. The ship's temperature is not internally controlled, but is regulated by adjusting the position of reflecive/absorbant panels on the outside of the ship relative to the position of the sun. The result is a dichotomy of roasting and freezing that would drive a body insane.
Our intrepid traveller spends a bit more than two weeks in this zero-gravity torture chamber, and ends up with "a case of BO and halitosis such as no Listerine advertiser ever dreamed of in his palmiest days. [His] digestion is shot to pieces; [his] muscles lack exercise, and [his] eyes are bleary from too much reading, or too much looking at the practically unshielded glare of the stars outside." It looks less and less attractive as he goes on. The unkindness of space-flight is further illustrated by the narrator's final descripiton ot the return of the space-flier: "You're ornery anti-social, and grumpy when you get back. A 100% sourpuss. You're poison to your friends and family. It takes days really to get clean, and, until you do, no one wants to come near you; in comparison, the camel is a sweet-smelling, pleasant beast. There is no camaraderie among space-men. You can't make friends on the job, and there's nothing to talk about, for all you see on Mars is a small, dusty space-port out in the desert. Everyone has read about that." Finally an inkling of the man's purpose. There is a spaceport on Mars. But what is it for? Who lives there? Are there Martians? Come on Man! Tell me more!! So what if I am nasty to be around... After leaving me in a pool of questions for so long, wondering why on earth anyone in their right mind would venture into space when there is nothing to do and apparently nowhere to go, and drilling me again and again in the drawbacks of the space-flier's life, he dangles in front of me the carrot of Mars and now--mist of crumbs and boredom be damned--I WANT TO BE A SPACE-FLIER!
The speculations of space-travel in this piece come from a narrator situated in approximately 2040. In real-time, our advancements in technology have made space travel not only possible but undoubtedly a bit more comfortable than the author predicted. We still spend our time watching and reading stories of space travel, and imagine grandiose schemes of spaceports and docking bays, food replicators and holodecks, earthgravity and warp ten. Very little is said to dull the glossy sheen of space-life. The practical, everyday matters are overlooked in favor of greater social and personal issues and the ubiqutous alien threat to our noble society. However humorous, disgusting, intriguing those little things may be, they pale in significance to the fantasy of space, and yet if we truly wish to transfer some of that fantasy to reality, they must be dealt with. Human beings, dare I say especially Americans, appreciate the comforts of a clean and easy lifestyle. The Martian Carrot really isn't much of a reward for spending two weeks in a garbage can.
*Note: "Under a variety of pseudonyms, [Cyril M.] Kornbluth was the major contributor of fiction to Cosmic Stories; as Martin Pearson he even wrote an article entitled "So You Want to Be a Space Flier?" in which he humorously deflates romantic illusions about space travel by graphically describing the inconvenience of life in confined quarters without gravity and companionship." Raymond H. Thompson "Cosmic Stories" entry in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, Marshall B. Tynn and Mike Ashley, Eds. (169).
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