"Venture to the Moon" is a group of six linked

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short stories by English writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in the British newspaper ''

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'' in 1956. The stories describe the first crewed mission to the Moon in 1975, as a joint American-Russian-British mission, and are narrated in first person from the point of view of the British team commander. Despite the death described in the third story, they are written in a humorous vein. They are collected in ''

The Other Side of the Sky ''For the Memoir by Farah Ahmedi, See The Other Side of the Sky: A Memoir'' ''The Other Side of the Sky'' is a collection of science fiction short stories by English writer Arthur C. Clarke, originally published in 1958. The stories all ori ...

''.

Plot summary

*"The Starting Line" tells of the launch of the first lunar expedition jointly by British, American and Russian

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

s which have been assembled in Earth orbit. The plan is for all three ships to leave Earth orbit and land simultaneously, but the narrator has secretly been ordered to depart ahead of the other two ships. *"Robin Hood FRS" tells of the efforts by the joint expedition members to recover an automatic supply rocket that has landed just out of reach, through the unorthodox method of utilising one team member's archery skills. *"Green Fingers" describes how a Russian team member - a botanist - secretly engineers plant life that could survive on the Moon's surface, and the accident that causes his death. *"All that Glitters" deals with a

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...

who discovers

diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...

on the Moon - only to learn that back on Earth, synthetic diamonds have just been successfully created at negligible cost. *"Watch this Space" tells how a scientific experiment conducted on the Moon - creating a giant sodium cloud that is made luminescent by the Sun's rays and visible from Earth - is sabotaged by "the greatest advertising coup" in history (strongly implied to be by

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). *"A Question of Residence" tells of how at the end of the mission one of the ships would have to stay behind to clean up their equipment while the others return and get the early glory, and how the British team end up volunteering... in order to take advantage of a legal loophole so they can sell their stories tax-free.

Reception

Damon Knight dismissed the stories as "remarkably trivial.""In the Balance". ''If''. December 1958, pp.110

References

*Clarke, Arthur C. The Best of Arthur C Clarke; 1956 - 1972. Published 1973

External links

* {{isfdb title, 65137 * ''Venture to the Moon'
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1956 short stories Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke Short stories set on the Moon Science fiction short stories