Physics is no respecter of human desire. It’s unfortunate that:
- the Earth’s escape velocity is what it is,
- the exhaust velocities of rockets currently available to us aren’t as high as we would like,
- and the rocket equation is what it is.
This means that a lot of fuel and reaction mass must be consumed to put a comparatively small payload into orbit. Thus, one current coping mechanism: using micro-electronics to cram as much capacity as possible into the payload available.
Would it be possible to miniaturize astronauts as well? In real life, not so much. But SF succeeds where real life disappoints. Consider these five works that imagine low-mass astronauts…
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth (1953)
Having transformed the Earth into a capitalist utopia in which every person’s consumer potential is optimized, Earth’s corporate eyes fall on Venus. Grim reality intervenes. The rockets available are insufficient to deliver a conventional adult male scout to Venus.
Enter Jack O’Shea. He’s only thirty-five-inches tall (he’s an adult little person) and he consumes a third of the supplies needed by other astronauts. O’Shea succeeds where others would have failed. True, the Venus he explored is a nightmarish hellhole, not the paradise Earth would have preferred, but selling it to colonists won’t be O’Shea’s job. That task falls to society’s heroes, ad men like Mitchell Courtenay.
Modern readers might wonder why Earth didn’t use a robot probe. The simple answer is the book was written before compact electronics were available. The authors assumed that humans would of course weigh less than clunky machinery. Or at least, small humans would.
Capitalism may frequently suck, but it is willing to extract value from anyone, regardless of age, creed, race, willingness, and in this case, stature.
Blast Off at Woomera by Hugh Walters (1957)
Had the British-Australian space program sufficient time, they would build a rocket able to deliver an adult male to orbit. As alien structures of uncertain intent have appeared on the Moon, there is no time to develop larger rockets. What the space program needs is a qualified crewmember who can be crammed into the existing vehicle.
Seventeen-year-old Chris Godfrey is bright, educated, an orphan with few relatives to complain if he does not survive, and most importantly, he’s just four foot, eleven inches tall. Godfrey is the ideal candidate for the orbital mission… if the dastardly Reds do not succeed in sabotaging the mission.
Readers might wonder if qualified women were considered. They were not. Interestingly, unlike many SF novels of this era, the text suggests that such women did exist—Chris’ aunt Mary is a capable woman, as is intelligence agent Miss Darke. It seems likely that Chris would have had a distaff analog. However, certain cultural blinders seem to have kept the space program from considering women1.
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey (1969)
Central had no use for most of Helva, but quite a lot of use for some of Helva. Having determined to their satisfaction that the deformed baby was cognitively suitable for the role intended, Central’s doctors discarded Helva’s body and installed her brain in interstellar ship XH 834.
Converting Helva into a Brain was expensive. Maintaining Helva is expensive. If Helva works very hard, she might pay off her debts. What hard work will not protect her from is the reality that Brains are almost immortal, while their human crews are not, or from the grief that follows when beloved humans died.
Readers worried that the setting is a bit ableist can rest assured that, in fact, the setting is enormously ableist. One cannot help but notice that the comprehensive prejudice shown towards people like Helva facilitates certain economic ends, which might explain why attempted reforms fail abjectly.
Joe 90: “Most Special Astronaut” by Alan Perry and Tony Barwick (1968)
When a manned supply rocket goes off course, mission control has no choice but to order it to self-destruct2. This leaves the two astronauts in the orbiting space station with just three days of air. Supplies must be delivered… but no astronaut is available to pilot the mission.
Enter nine-year-old World Intelligence Network agent Joe McClaine. Thanks to his father’s invention, the Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer3, skills from qualified persons—such as injured astronaut Charles Drayton—can be temporarily decanted into Joe’s brain. The orbiting astronauts will surely be saved… but it may be best if they don’t suspect that their lives are in the hands of a nine-year-old.
Joe’s age and stature is an asset from WIN’s point of view, but not because of fuel efficiency. Most of Joe’s missions, many surprisingly grim given that the protagonist is nine, are espionage-related. Few people would suspect a boy of being a highly skilled secret agent, neurosurgeon, or pilot.
Rocket Girls by Hōsuke Nojiri (1995)
The Solomon Space Association4 LS-7 rocket is satisfactory in all ways, save for its tendency to violently explode when launched. The LS-6 is more reliable but its payload is insufficient to deliver SSA astronaut Haruyuki Yasukawa to orbit. SSA is at an impasse… until a chance encounter with Japanese schoolgirl Yukari Morita.
Yukari is bright, small, available, and desires something only SSA can provide, the current location of her long-lost father. Blackmailed into crewing the LS-6, Yukari proves an adept astronaut5… and in short order, so does Yukari’s half-sister Matsuri. One can never have too many backup girl astronauts, given the possibility of fatal mishaps in space.
By modern standards, Rocket Girls is a short novel. Nevertheless, it contains the full plot of a much longer book. It is a tribute to what can be accomplished by an author who embraces improv’s No Blocking rule. It does not hurt that SSA has an impressive clarity of purpose and a comprehensive disregard for minor distractions like “ethics.”
Have I overlooked obvious examples (aside from Rocket Girls’ sequel)? Feel free to name them in comments below.
- I believe this oversight was addressed after the formation of the world space program UNEXA ↩︎
- Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s TV series were often surprisingly cold-blooded, and their Joe 90 is no exception. ↩︎
- My personal explanation for the rotating actors in the Bond franchise is that MI5 uses BIG RAT to impress Bond memories from successful missions into the brains of new host bodies. ↩︎
- The author’s painstaking research into the Solomon Islands and its peoples appears to have consisted of checking the spelling of the Islands’ name, and determining that its latitude was suitable for his purposes. ↩︎
- SSA tends to see consent as an obligatory but annoying impediment… but not only does Yukari agree after only a little unethical suasion, her mother is fine with her daughter’s occupation. After all, life is short and Yukari could get run over crossing the street. Why not invest precious moments in an important program? Rocket Girls is pre-Truck-kun, so crossing the road was not the death sentence for Japanese persons that it is today. Nevertheless, Rocket Girls is not the only Japanese SF work featuring a protagonist whose mother supports their child entering a dangerous field on the ground that death is inevitable but meaningful work is not. ↩︎
