Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  But even when defending this austere intellectual position, he appreciated the parallel development of industrial products—especially computerization—and the application of space science to things like agricultural analysis and ocean prediction. He was pleased to know that John Pope, perhaps the brainiest of the astronauts and one of the most experienced, was putting his training to use.

  CIRCADIAN DISORIENTATION

  by John Pope, Ph.D.

  The subject matter of this book is simply defined. Three times in recent years I have been ordered to fly nonstop from Capetown at the southern tip of Africa to London on the western edge of Europe, and because I stayed generally within the same time zone, I arrived at my destination only as tired as the very long flight demanded. Actually, since I sleep well on planes, I reached London quite rested and able to go immediately to work at the American Embassy for nine hours, then to the theater, and finally to a formal dinner.

  During this same time period I was ordered three times to fly nonstop from Tokyo to New York, a flight of about the same duration, but because I was crossing ten time zones, my pineal gland secreted melatonin so abnormally that it required me four to five days to bring it back into balance. I therefore arrived in New York exhausted and disoriented and was insecure until my circadian orientation reasserted itself.

  This book explores the phenomena cited, drawing upon animal experiments, the accumulated experience of airline pilots who make flights across time zones, and especially the reports of American and Russian astronauts who repeatedly crossed twenty-four time zones in ninety minutes.

  The word circadian is derived from the Latin circa diem or about a day and refers to the mysterious twenty-four-hour rhythms which control all brain outputs—behavioral, autonomic or neuroendocrine—of all animals or humans who live on Earth with its twenty-four-hour alternation of light and darkness. We must assume that were our day only ten hours long, as on Saturn, our circadian responses would correspond to that timing.

  Our specific problem is: What causes circadian disorientation when we cross time zones? And what can be done about it?

  Mott leafed through the manuscript hurriedly to ascertain how Pope with his astronomical training had attacked the problem, and he saw with interest that John speculated that flying from New York to Tokyo was more troublesome than flying the same distance in reverse order:

  It may be that when we fly from east to west we are flying against the motion of the Earth. Perhaps we fight against this dislocation, adjusting to it incrementally. But when we fly west to east, we are flying with the motion of the Earth and are seduced into accepting its domination, continuing to accept it long after we have ceased our flight. A simpler explanation might be that most people find it more difficult to get up early than to get up late.

  He was halted in his skimming by the fascinating case histories of race horses flown practically nonstop from breeding farms in Delaware to race tracks in New Zealand and Australia:

  At both the Christchurch and Melbourne race tracks where I conducted my studies, I found that trainers had to be extremely careful with imported American horses, keeping them in artificially lighted surroundings which conformed to the day-night timing of their Delaware homeland for at least three weeks. Gradually the electric lighting became synchronized with the real lighting outside, at which time the horse could step out into his new environment with no apparent disorientation.

  Pope was best in his careful analysis of two kinds of space travel, Gemini-type low orbiting, in which an Earth-oriented time zone was crossed every three and three-quarter minutes, and the far thrust into outer space which could be conceived as flying an immense distance within roughly the same terrestrial time zone. One of Pope’s trenchant paragraphs amused him:

  We must remember, in evaluating these data, that only thirty human beings in world history have experienced travel of this second type: three men each in Apollos 8, and 10 through 18, and each man an American. No Russian so far has ventured into outer space; each of that country’s daring cosmonauts has been confined to low Earth orbit, so their experience does not yet impinge on what we are discussing here.

  Finally Mott came to the missing chapters for which he would be responsible. Chapter XII: Travel to Mars; Chapter XIII: Travel to Proxima Centauri; Chapter XIV: Travel Outside the Galaxy. When he saw the titles and visualized what must be said to enflesh them, he felt that surge of excitement which had overcome him when General Funkhauser inserted him among the geniuses at Langley: ‘I’m being granted a second life … a second time.’

  With an almost adolescent ardor he plunged into the three subjects, accumulating a bewildering array of technical studies and applying to them his own imaginative analyses. When three Americans blasted off from Canaveral for their journey to Mars, say in the year 2005, when that great surge of energy which marked the 1960-1970 epoch was re-created by some driving force as yet unidentified, they would be starting on a journey of about 200,000,000 miles one way at a speed of 25,000 miles an hour, which would then be feasible. The trip would take about 330 days out, two months on the surface and 330 days back, or just about two years:

  If prudent, they will maintain their natural circadian rhythm, basing it on Central Standard Time at Houston and adjusting their schedules to it. Of course, they could establish over that period of time a circadian rhythm coincident with the Mars day of 24 hours and 37 minutes, but the slight advantage of achieving this would scarcely repay the effort.

  It was when he attacked the second problem of sending humans out to Proxima Centauri, the flare star closest to Earth at 4.3 light-years or 2.52 × 1013 miles (25.2 trillion) that he realized the irreversible change which had come over him. He discovered it first when he looked at the books he had assembled, for he found among them a score of the best science-fiction works:

  Good God! That damned Randy Claggett made a sci-fi nut out of me. And look at my stuff! Each book is what they call heavy metal, the hard-core scientific prediction of the machines and processes for real space travel. None of the soft-core analysis of future civilizations. This is vintage Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein. Daring men in a crate heading into the challenge of outer space.

  As he looked at the collection he had to acknowledge what had happened to him: Engineers don’t bother with this idle speculation. Scientists do. Which means I’ve become a scientist, against all my better instincts. And it was as a scientist, the new breed of astrophysicist who lived among the farthest galaxies, that he placed before him only one book, his bible, Allen’s Astrophysical Quantities, and from its recondite data he began to construct the patterns that men would some day follow in adjusting to the problems of traveling for 4.3 years at the speed of light over a distance of 25.2 trillion miles to the nearest star.

  Circadian rhythms will be just as important a problem as time dilation, and how the space travelers organize their capsule universe will be significant. Suppose they go the route of suspended animation: they will have to reinsert their sentient bodies into a specified circadian system, for if they do not, they will find themselves disoriented to the point that they might not be able to function during the precise period of readjustment when maximum brain efficiency will be at a premium.

  As he drafted the detailed flight plan to Epsilon Eridani, the fascinating star only eleven light-years distant (65 trillion miles) he could feel the reality of such proposed travel and its problems become not abstract intellectual puzzles but specific difficulties to be overcome, and one night he threw down his pencil and cried, ‘God, how I wish I could live into the century that will accomplish such things!’ But as soon as he uttered this lament he was ashamed of himself, and he turned off his desk lamp and went in the other room to join Rachel, who was sitting prim and quiet in a straight-backed chair listening to Pachelbel.

  ‘I’m so damned grateful,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’ she asked without moving.

  ‘That I was permitted by fate, or chance, or God’s
planning to live into the age when aviation was invented—into this explosive period when men could go to the planets.’

  ‘And to be a part of it all. That counts, too.’

  ‘I was so damned fortunate.’ His voice broke and for some moments he stood silent, listening to the intricate canon as if it were an orderly echo from outer space. ‘We were lucky.’

  When he had his three chapters outlined and the research material on which they must be based identified, he started writing with a desire to summarize all known knowledge about man’s probable reaction to travel in space, and he had pretty well completed his two-year trip to Mars when his former superiors in NASA called with another short-term project, one which could constitute the capstone to his life’s work: ‘Stanley, we’re being badgered from many sides to make an authoritative statement as to the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. The UFO contingent is after us, the L-5 specialists, half a dozen religious leaders who demand that we state definitely that life can exist only on Earth, and lots of people who’ve seen Star Wars four times. If we convene a workshop with top-drawer participants, will you chair it in your customary non-hysterical way?’

  Mott wanted to leap into the phone to grasp the speaker’s hand, to say yes immediately, but caution warned him to find out more about the composition of the workshop.

  ‘Only the best, Stanley. Nineteen—like Sagan, Asimov, Cameron of Harvard, Bernie Oliver of Hewlett Packard, John Pope of Fremont State. Maybe we can get Freeman Dyson of Princeton. Then we’ll give you two dozen NASA experts for the technical reports. And we’ll invite about two hundred official observers—Army, Air Force, church groups, the sci-fi wizards—and we’ll hold three plenary sessions which the general public will be free to attend.’

  For a long moment Mott could not respond: from his childhood days he had speculated on the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence and at critical moments in his life had addressed the unseen beings as if they could hear him. But he had never made up his mind as to the probability of their existence, and this opportunity to clarify his thinking, and that of the scientific community, was a joyous one. At last he would be free to reach out to the ultimate horizons.

  ‘You there, Stanley?’

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  He went to work preparing several guidance papers to be circulated before the nineteen official members met, then hurried to the millionaire’s estate in Vermont, now a study center belonging to Harvard, where the four-week session would convene. With almost childish pleasure he supervised printing the plaques used to identify rooms to be occupied by men he had known for decades: Ray Bradbury, Frank Drake, Kantankerous Kantrowitz, Gerard O’Neill of Princeton, Nobel winner Lederberg, small, ultra-brilliant Phil Morrison of MIT, who had written a book on the subject, and Riccardo Giacconi, who had a mind like a restive volcano. It would be a reunion of what Rachel affectionately called ‘our crazies of the far out,’ but they would not preempt discussion, because the two hundred observers would contain disputatious experts prepared to challenge anything. Conspicuous would be the Reverend Strabismus heading the group of churchmen; at one time he had known as much science as any of them and was indeed the only man in the group who had written two doctoral theses in the fields to be discussed.

  It would be difficult to hold these intellectual stallions in rein, but Mott would try.

  Before Mott could devote full attention to his new job he was diverted by a shocking interruption. Senator Grant, with the generosity which had marked his incumbency in Washington, waited until Fremont officials had certified the election of Mrs. Penny Pope as their new senator, then resigned. The state governor was free to appoint Mrs. Pope to the remaining weeks of his term, whereupon Grant rushed her to Washington to be sworn in as his replacement, thus ensuring her permanent seniority over other first-term members of the Class of 1982.

  On the afternoon of the swearing-in Senator Pope asked Mott if he could report to her new office, and when he reached there he found the Popes and Senator Grant in sober discussion. After an unusually brusque greeting Penny said, ‘I’ve asked you three friends to give me some hard advice. I’ve been assigned to the Space Committee and I wish you’d tell me, Dr. Mott, what NASA’s program ought to be.’

  Mott bowed formally to the new senator and said, ‘America must pursue a set of clearly defined, practical goals in space.’

  With impatience at such a wobbly answer she snapped, ‘And what are they?’

  ‘I can tell you exactly, but I did not want to seem pushy.’

  ‘Please push. In as few words as possible.’

  ‘Solar-polar mission to study the Sun.’ He paused, expecting to be asked what that might be, but Senator Pope nodded, indicating that she knew.

  ‘A mission to greet Halley’s Comet.’ Another nod. ‘The great space telescope. Retrieval of rock samples from Mars and, before long, a manned mission there. Intense study of gossamer flight, ramjet flight, solar-powered flight. Certainly the establishment of a permanent station in space. And above all, continued research in aeronautics.’

  ‘Are they practical? Given the present state of the art?’

  Mott deferred to Professor Pope, who said, ‘Each one could be done.’

  ‘But could they be financed?’ she pressed, and this time Mott indicated that Senator Grant should respond.

  ‘In the present economy, we can’t afford even one of them.’

  ‘Not even the aviation studies?’

  ‘Private industry should assume that burden,’ Grant said, and Mott winced.

  ‘Where did we use to get the money, Norman?’ Penny asked. ‘Those billions your committee and mine lavished on Gemini and Apollo?’

  ‘That was an easier world,’ Grant said with some sorrow. ‘In those days we believed we could do anything. We’re no longer that kind of people.’

  Senator Pope leaned forward, bit on a pencil, and studied each of her advisers. ‘I fear that what Senator Grant has said is true.’ Mott gasped. ‘I’ve been studying the budget … seen the immense cost of programs that can’t be cut. I find no margin left for space.’ Now Mott had to protest, but she cut him short: ‘That is, beyond the housekeeping functions NASA is already performing.’

  ‘That’s hardly enough to justify a major branch of the government,’ Mott said.

  ‘Exactly,’ the new senator agreed, and she looked at her old friend with a harshness he had not seen in her before. ‘It’s quite possible that NASA should be closed down … completely.’

  ‘But you were our principal supporter,’ Mott cried.

  Senator Pope ignored this and asked Grant, ‘What’s your advice, Norman?’

  Grant cleared his throat. ‘I’ve never said this in public, and I didn’t reveal it even to you, Penny. But before he died Senator Glancey told me, “Norman, I think NASA should be quietly buried in the Department of Defense.” I think so, too.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Mott protested. ‘That would be entirely wrong. A reversal of all the good decisions Eisenhower made to get us started.’

  ‘In his day he was right,’ Grant said, ‘and you remember that I spearheaded his program. But in our day the situation is totally changed. Mission, budget, public support and military need, all different. Dr. Mott, your agency should be dismantled. Aviation and communications to private industry. Shuttle to the military. Close down the rest.’

  ‘And what happens to science? To the inquiring mind of man?’

  ‘Universities can assume responsibility for that,’ Grant said.

  Stanley Mott was courteous to senators, but he was not awed by them; he had seen too many awful mistakes, and now, since these two seemed determined to commit a colossal one, he could not stay silent. ‘If you do what you’re suggesting, you commit the United States to second-class citizenship. We have problems of the most profound importance—’

  With some asperity Mrs. Pope interrupted: ‘If we do what you suggest, we’ll go broke.’

  ‘I’m amazed at your re
versal of attitude,’ Mott protested.

  ‘If I could butt in,’ John Pope said, ‘and if you’ll excuse the expression, I think the Korean newspaperwoman said it all in her book.’ He nodded gravely to his wife, who glared at him, then smiled.

  ‘A free nation is capable of surviving one challenge after another, as America proved so clearly in meeting her Depression, World War II, the creation of an atomic bomb and the flight to the Moon. But it will rarely respond to the same challenge twice, as it proved when it behaved so cravenly during the Vietnam war. It needs the excitement of change, new dangers to be overcome, new frontiers to be pushed back. With John Pope’s return from the dark side of the Moon, America terminated her space episode and retreated to a quiet corner to conserve her resources until the next challenge exploded.’

  Senator Pope nodded. ‘We challenged the Moon, and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and we won. Now we must wait for the next great adventure. NASA has made its contribution.’ And the meeting ended.

  In 1975 NASA had explored the possibility of life in outer space in considerable depth, with many of the same experts on the committee, so they required no indoctrination, but the new members, especially those not trained in the sciences, did, and at the opening plenary session, with nineteen committee members present, and forty-three NASA contributors who would provide much of the detailed study, Mott laid down the ground rules:

  ‘We are commissioned by our government to make a simple, clear statement as to the probability of life elsewhere in the universe. The outward circles from Earth, each of which must be explored, are the Moon, the planets, our Galaxy, the other galaxies, the quasars and black holes of recent definition, and anything that lies beyond.