gnu@sun.UUCP (06/17/83)
If anyone should go up in the shuttle, it should be Heinlein. His works inspired many of the current engineers, technicians, and designers who have put us where we are on the edge of space. He's also quite old (over 80) and won't achieve his 70-year dream of making it into space, unless we send him there quickly. He wrote a story in 1939 about the aged "father of space travel", Delos D. Harriman, who isn't allowed into space because of government regulations and his deteriorating medical condition. Harriman secretly outfits a down-on-their-luck engineer and pilot and they smuggle him to the moon, where he dies, happily looking back at Earth, just after touchdown. The story is "Requiem", and it appears in _The Past Though Tomorrow_, among many other places. I think that the least we, as a society, can do for Mr. Robert Anton Heinlein is to make a place in the Space Shuttle for him -- and soon, before it's too late. John Gilmore
myers@uwvax.UUCP (06/19/83)
Arthur C. Clarke should get a spot on the shuttle before Heinlein. I'm basing my opinion solely on the basis of the quality of their respective recent writings... "Fountains of Paradise" is a damn sight better than Heinlein's recent trash. Of course, most of Clarke's old stuff is better than Heinlein, too. My apologies to devout Heinlein fans. Jeff Myers@uwvax
REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (06/20/83)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> It would be a shame if Heinlein died on the shuttle, thus marring our perfect in-flight record (we lost some astronauts during training, and thre during a fire onboard Apollo on ground, but none yet in space or during actual launch or landing; Russians have been less fortunate). But on the other hand it might be fitting for Heinlein to die in space. I think we ought to check his health first, and then really think this out before we do it. But since he wrote the story about just this sort of hack, persumably he had plenty of time to think about it, and really does prefer dying in space to dying on Earth never having been to space. -- Has he been asked if he still wants to go to space even if it kills him? (However it would be a shame if he died during ascent, thus never being to space alive, only as dead cargo.)
gcsherwood@watcgl.UUCP (Geoffrey C. Sherwood) (06/20/83)
I frankly doubt the idea has much chance (a snowball's chance...) but what the hell. I do disagree with the Clarke vs Heinlein observation. Agreed, Fountains of Paradise is better than Heinlein's recent stuff. However, Heinlein at his best (such as Moon is a Harsh Mistress) is superior to anything penned (or typed, whatever) by Clarke. I like Clarke's stuff too, but Heinlein (at his best) is far better. - geoff sherwood - - U. of Waterloo -