the children
2008-Nov-16, Sunday 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerI still haven't written the increasingly-belated script for my story (archive copy) about The Children. It's a sci-fi story about human nature. It's set in the near future on various spaceships with human crew intended to pilot them across generations of inhabitants. Each spaceship chooses a different type of society to survive the long haul, so we learn about the long-term consequences of their choices.
This space race is initiated by two events. First, scientists publish a list of all habitable planets (nitrogen atmosphere with oxygen, plentiful water, suitable gravity and temperature) within a limited range (perhaps 200 light years) from Earth. Second, the Christian Broadcasting Network announces plans to build a spaceship to go populate one of these planets in an attempt to create a proper God-loving society. The space race ensues.
Scientists here in the real world are already making fast progress. Besides deducing mathematically the existence of planets in certain orbits around other stars, they are now starting to image them directly.
An exoplanet is any planet orbiting a star other than our own sun. The first (red) image is of a young still-cooling planet orbiting Fomalhaut b, 25 light years away. The second (purple) image is of two huge planets orbiting HR 8799, 130 light years away. Since this image was taken, a different telescope has observed a third exoplanet at HR 8799.
None of these planets is habitable for humans, but it's just a matter of time until we find one that is.
This space race is initiated by two events. First, scientists publish a list of all habitable planets (nitrogen atmosphere with oxygen, plentiful water, suitable gravity and temperature) within a limited range (perhaps 200 light years) from Earth. Second, the Christian Broadcasting Network announces plans to build a spaceship to go populate one of these planets in an attempt to create a proper God-loving society. The space race ensues.
Scientists here in the real world are already making fast progress. Besides deducing mathematically the existence of planets in certain orbits around other stars, they are now starting to image them directly.
An exoplanet is any planet orbiting a star other than our own sun. The first (red) image is of a young still-cooling planet orbiting Fomalhaut b, 25 light years away. The second (purple) image is of two huge planets orbiting HR 8799, 130 light years away. Since this image was taken, a different telescope has observed a third exoplanet at HR 8799.
None of these planets is habitable for humans, but it's just a matter of time until we find one that is.
no subject
Date: 2008-Nov-16, Sunday 05:25 pm (UTC)And speaking of generation starships and your story about The Children ... you should seek out Ursula LeGuin's collection of short stories, The Birthday of the World. Most of the stories are Ekumen-oriented, but the last story is about a generation starship on the way to a nearby star system, and its told in a very believable and ultimately touching way.