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Pantropy
Pantropy is a hypothetical process of space habitation or space colonization in which, rather than terraforming other planets or building space habitats suitable for human habitation, humans are modified (for example via genetic engineering) to be able to thrive in the existing environment. The term was coined by science fiction author James Blish, who wrote a series of short stories based on the idea (collected in the anthology '' The Seedling Stars''). Fictional depictions * 1930—In the science fiction novel ''Last and First Men'' by Olaf Stapledon, when humanity migrates from Earth to Venus and later from Venus to Neptune, human beings are genetically engineered to fit the new environments in which they will be living. * 1944—One of the first science fiction stories about pantropy (the word had not yet been coined) was the short story "Desertion," by Clifford D. Simak, which appeared in the November 1944 ''Astounding Science Fiction''. In this story, human colonists living ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Habitation
Human presence in space is about humanity in space, particularly about all anthropogenic presence in space and human activity in space, that is in outer space and in a broader sense also on any extraterrestrial astronomical body. Humans have been present in space either, in the common sense, through their direct presence and activity like human spaceflight, or through mediation of their presence and activity like with uncrewed spaceflight, making "telepresence" possible. Human presence in space, particularly through mediation, can take many physical forms from space debris, uncrewed spacecraft, artificial satellites, space observatories, crewed spacecraft, art in space, to human outposts in outer space such as space stations. While human presence in space, particularly its continuation and permanence can be a goal in itself, human presence can have a range of purposes and modes from space exploration, commercial use of space to space settlement or even colonization and milit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terraforming
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on. The concept of terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. Carl Sagan, an astronomer, proposed the planetary engineering of Venus in 1961, which is considered one of the first accounts of the concept. The term was coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction short story ("Collision Orbit") published in 1942 in '' Astounding Science Fiction'', although terraforming in popular culture may predate this work. Even if the environment of a planet could be altered deliberately, the feasibility of creating an unconstrained planetary environment that mimics Earth on another planet has yet to be verified. While Venus, Earth, Mars, and even the Moon have been studied in relation to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish () was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his ''Cities in Flight'' novels and his series of ''Star Trek'' novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel ''A Case of Conscience'' won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies. Blish was a member of the Futurians. His first published stories appeared in ''Super Science Stories'' and ''Amazing Stories''. Blish wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen name William Atheling Jr. His other pen names included Donald Laverty, John MacDougal, and Arthur Lloyd Merlyn. Life Blish was born on May 23, 1921, at East Orange, New Jersey. While in high school, Blish self-published a fanzine, called ''The Planeteer'', using a hectograph. The fanzine ran for six issues. Blish attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this period. Futurian members Damon Knight a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the List of brightest natural objects in the sky, third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since Pre-history, prehistoric times. It was named after the Jupiter (mythology), Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium constitutes one-quarter of its mass and one-tenth of its volume. It probably has a rocky core of heavier elements, but, like the other giant planets in the Solar System, it lacks a well-defined solid surface. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than it receives from the Sun. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creole Peoples
Creole peoples are ethnic groups formed during the European colonial era, from the mass displacement of peoples brought into sustained contact with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, who converged onto a colonial territory to which they had not previously belonged. Often involuntarily uprooted from their original home, the settlers were obliged to develop and creatively merge the desirable elements from their diverse backgrounds, to produce new varieties of social, linguistic and cultural norms that superseded the prior forms. This process, known as creolization, is characterized by rapid social flux regularized into Creole ethnogenesis. Creole peoples vary widely in ethnic background and mixture and many have since developed distinct ethnic identities. The development of creole languages is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the emergence of Creole ethnic identities; however, the two developments occur independently. Etymology and overview T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Plus
''Mars Plus'' is a 1994 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl and Thomas T. Thomas. It is the sequel to Pohl's 1976 novel ''Man Plus'', which is about a cyborg, Roger Torraway, who is designed to operate in the harsh Martian environment, so that humans can start to colonize Mars. ''Mars Plus'' is set fifty years after the first novel. Young Demeter Coghlan travels to Mars, now settled by humans and cyborgs, and finds herself amidst a rebellion by the colonists. Plot In ''Man Plus'', set in the not-too-distant future, with threat of the Cold War becoming a fighting war, people plan for the colonization of Mars to escape the seemingly-inevitable Armageddon According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies .... The American government begins a cyborg program to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyborg
A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Cyborgs and Space in ''Astronautics'' (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and American scientist and researcher Nathan S. Kline. Description and definition "Cyborg" is not the same thing as bionics, , or ; it applies to an organism that has restored function ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man Plus
''Man Plus'' is a 1976 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. (Note: unless otherwise noted, all statements in this article regarding the contents of ''Man Plus'' are based on the book itself). It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1976, was nominated for the Hugo and Campbell Awards, and placed third in the annual Locus Poll in 1977. The story is about a cyborg, Roger Torraway, who is designed to operate in the harsh Martian environment so that humans can colonize Mars. Plot In the not-too-distant future, the Cold War threatens to turn into a fighting war. Colonization of Mars seems to be mankind's only hope of surviving certain Armageddon. To facilitate this, the US government begins a cyborg program to create a being capable of surviving the harsh Martian environment: Man Plus. After the death of the first candidate, due to the project supervisors forgetting to enhance his brain's ability to process sensory input to cope with the new stimuli he is re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel ''All the Lives He Led''. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited '' Galaxy'' and its sister magazine '' If''; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. His 1977 novel '' Gateway'' won four "year's best novel" awards: the Hugo voted by convention participants, the Locus voted by magazine subscribers, the Nebula voted by American science-fiction writers, and the juried academic John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas ''The Years of the City'', one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years. For his 1979 novel ''Jem'', Pohl won a U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surface Tension (short Story)
"Surface Tension" is a science fiction short story by American writer James Blish, originally published in the August 1952 of ''Galaxy Science Fiction''. As collected in Blish's '' The Seedling Stars'', it was revised to incorporate material from his earlier story "Sunken Universe", published in ''Super Science Stories'' in 1942. Plot summary A human colonization ship crash-lands on a distant planet which is Earth-like but whose only landmass is completely covered in shallow puddles of water and mostly microscopic life forms. Normal humans could not survive on this planet, so the crew must genetically engineer their descendants into something that can survive. (Blish coined the term pantropy to refer to this concept.) They create a race of microscopic aquatic humanoids to complete their mission and colonize the planet. The majority of the story concerns one group of these genetically engineered colonists and their intelligence, curiosity, and evolving technology. In particu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City (novel)
''City'' is a 1952 science fiction fix-up novel by American writer Clifford D. Simak. The original version consists of eight linked short stories, all originally published in ''Astounding Science Fiction'' under the editorship of John W. Campbell between 1944 and 1951, along with brief "notes" on each of the stories. These notes were specially written for the book, and serve as a bridging story of their own. The book was reprinted as ACE #D-283 in 1958, cover illustration by Ed Valigursky. Simak published a ninth ''City'' tale in 1973 called "Epilog". Starting with the 1980 edition some (but not all) editions of ''City'' include "Epilog". Plot introduction The fixup novel describes a legend consisting of eight ''tales'' that the pastoral, pacifist Dogs recite as they pass down an oral legend of a creature known as ''Man''. Each tale is preceded by ''doggish'' notes and learned discussion. An editor's preface notes that after each telling of the legend the pups ask many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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