Allusions/references To Actual History and Current Science
This novel, and its prequel, uses concepts adapted from the Mars Semi-Direct mission profile proposed, and under active research, by the Mars Society. As such, these novels are two of the most realistic novels yet written that describe what the first crewed mission to Mars, and the program of which it is a part, might look like and how it might actually work.
Read more about this topic: The Fifth Man (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words actual, history, current and/or science:
“There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius.... They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)