Stranger Than Fiction

The very first time I picked up a book by my favorite science fiction author, Robert Heinlein, I didn't like it. The book was Number of the Beast. It had been recommended by a friend, but I just didn't' see where Heinlein was going with all the drivel about who was in charge of what on the Gay Deceiver. There were only four people, for crying out loud. Zebadiah, Deety and her Dad, and Hilda were running for their lives, and all they could talk about was marriage and rank. Come on. Four people. Get in the Gay Deceiver and get away from the black hats, or the lot of you deserve to be blown to smithereens!

Eventually I slogged through the pecking order chapters and began an adventure that changed the way I think about fiction. The more I read in the genre, the more I saw this theme of selecting the appropriate crew for the mission into the unknown. See, when a small group of people is suddenly isolated from their family, friends, boss- in short, from the entire cultural fabric of civilization- that tiny group becomes civilization unto itself. They have to provide all needs for each other, professional and psychological, and do so very far away from home. There's a lot of discussion about who should be chosen based on skill set and social lubrication. Do we send all men? All women? Couples in even number? Married or unmarried?

In 2005 Technovelgy.com addressed this issue and quoted from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land to illustrate the similarities between problems faced by Heinlein's fictional mission to Mars and the actual mission to Mars being proposed in 2005.

So when I read about Astronaut Lisa Nowak in the news, it brings to mind questions that science fiction writers have been asking for a long time: what's the best way to avoid conflict in social systems when a small group of people loses contact with our established social supports? The buzz about a mission to Mars in 2005 produced several articles on the challenge of keeping a group of people far from home for a proposed three years. Jay C. Buckley cited psychological adaptation first in his list of biomedical dangers to the crew. You got it, psychological concerns came before bone and muscle mass loss and cellular damage from radiation. Buckley believed the psychological challenge could be overcome through the use of training and a careful selection process. The reason you'll find Nowak in the "science and space" column of USA Today instead of on the crime blotter, is because she looks like an example of bad selection process. NASA mentions this problem in the article I cited above, saying

NASA spokesman Doug...Peterson said it's also too early to know whether NASA's process for choosing astronauts would be affected by Nowak's situation....Astronaut selection is highly rigorous.

Yet NASA flight surgeon, Johnathan Clarke, says
the agency has turned a blind eye to both astronauts' mental troubles and their extramarital affairs


So as little as I enjoy the details of the psychological breakdown of a woman and the resulting assault, it's clear that this news story will be in the minds of those who select the pioneers of the future, and those who are writing about them.