Author Kim Stanley Robinson Talks China and Lunar Settlement in Novel 'Red Moon'

Author Kim Stanley Robinson Talks China and Lunar Settlement in Novel 'Red Moon'

Author Kim Stanley Robinson Talks China and Lunar Settlement in Novel 'Red Moon'







		In the new novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, "Red Moon"(Órbita, 2018), readers launch 30 years into the future and follow the lives of humans living and working on the Moon In the book, China has become the first political and technological entity that inhabits the natural satellite of the Earth in a long and serious - long term. 

		The novel begins in the last stage of the trip to the lunar surface of a small crew, including the quantum engineer Fred Fredericks and the poet, expert in feng shui and reporter of trips of celebrities Ta Shu, who become fast friends as they They advance towards the bright moon ahead of them. Readers get into Fredericks' shoes as he struggles to keep his balance in the lunar gravity and complete the task he was sent to the moon to do. But a quick and surprising turn of events unravels the positive image of the heroic return of humanity to the moon, revealing the intimate, dangerous and politically sticky reality of inhabiting the moon. 

		government and private space agencies around the world they are working to get humans back to the moon. And with "Red Moon," the famous science fiction novelist Robinson offers a captivating look at what our next lunar steps might look like.

The[[Lunar missions of China explained (infographic)]



	Space.com: What inspired "Red Moon"? 



	Kim Stanley Robinson: Well, a couple of things. First, I am interested in China and what it is doing now, in what it is now. And I wanted to write about that, without realizing before I started how difficult it was going to be. And then, secondly, I've been writing my entire career about the humanity that inhabits the solar system, and I also wrote a book, "Aurora"affirming that we can never leave the solar system to go anywhere else. 

		I never paid any attention to the moon. I thought I could complete the portrait essentially by completing the solar system tour

		I also know that China is really very likely be the political or technological entity that will first inhabit the moon in a substantial way. Then, everything came together and it seemed to make sense. 



	Space.com: What kind of research was done to create that image in the novel? 



	Robinson: I went to China myself, because I had never been there before. It was a very limited visit, or two visits actually. I only saw three cities. I saw Hong Kong, Beijing and a coastal city called Xicao. That at least gave me personal information and some visual and sensory impressions of what I was writing.

		Those visits were very important. I made a lot of friends that I did while I was there, and I asked them questions and got the widest variety of answers possible, just as I would if I came to the United States and asked a variety of people questions. 

		In addition, the Chinese space agency is willing to promote itself like any other government bureaucracy, and they had their Change Program [China’s lunar exploration program]. They have a lunar project at this time, so I was able to investigate a little about what China is doing in its lunar efforts. 

		And then, also, I went back to watching the Apollo program. The American Apollo program is pretty well documented with an extraordinary film shot on the moon. That helped me better imagine how it will be when we get back to the moon. It was the usual type of research and reflection. 



	Space.com: What do you personally think of the possibility and probability of colonization of the moon and how will it shape humanity? 



	Robinson: To tell the truth, I do not believe that it changes or shapes humanity at all. I think it will end up being very similar to Antarctica. The similarities with our exploration of Antarctica returned again and again, to the point where I think it is a very good analogy, even if it is not entirely correct. 

		If you are thinking about the moon and you use the analogy of the New World, of the Europeans who travel to America, you are completely wrong. The moon is going to be more like Antarctica. At this time, there are scientific stations throughout Antarctica. Well, how has humanity changed that? It does not have at all. And the moon is going to be the same way.

		What I found is that the moon is almost useless. You can not make money there, and this is, of course, in our global capitalist society, a big obstacle. You can not make money there, in any way, form or form. You have to spend money. He establishes a station there and then does not get a return on his investment.

		So, once you understand that it goes back to science, we like to set up scientific stations all over the planet now to learn more about Earth, and the Moon will be good for that. Then there will be scientific stations on the moon, mainly at the poles, because that's where there is permanent sunlight. So, you have solar energy, and there is also water. There is ice in some of the craters of the north pole.

		We will set up scientific stations at the North Pole, and then we may have geology, a bit of astronomy and some radio communications, and much later we may use the moon as a bus station. go to another place in the solar system. If you intend to go to Jupiter or whatever, launching from the Moon makes a lot of sense if you have a launch pad. But that comes later.



	Space.com: Thinking about the future of humanity on the moon, what realistic dangers could arise? 



	Robinson: Well, they are reduced to cosmic radiation; indeed, living on the moon for a long time will be like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day in terms of cancer risk. To minimize that, you would be spending much of your time around 30 feet [9 meters] Underground. About 30 feet of rock will protect you against that cosmic radiation in the same way that the Earth's atmosphere protects us here on the surface of the Earth. Then, it would be an underground life, many tunnels. Geologists are pretty sure that there would be lava tunnels... Underground tunnels in the moon that were created by the flowing lava. We see collapsed tunnels that make us think that.

		The other danger would be, of course, the vacuum, and a third danger would be that [lunar] The dust is actually much finer than dust on Earth. That could be really hard to keep out of your habitats and out of your space suits and your lungs. And it is a material so fine that it will cross the blood-brain barrier. So, life on the moon can be really bad for your health. And then, also, finally, the low severity is 16 percent. [of] The gravity of the Earth, so that perhaps living at 16 percent of the Earth's gravity would be detrimental to you in the long term. I would not be surprised 

		You'll have people going up there, a few years ago, or maybe a few weeks, a few months, and then they'll go back to Earth. It will not be a long trip. It will not be a difficult trip.

		So colonization is the wrong word. That word has all kinds of bad connotations, anyway, how to conquer a local population, kill them and subject them to a horrible life ... the human habitability of the moon is probably a business of scientific stations.



	Space.com: Do you think traveling to the moon will feel as standard as traveling by plane, as it seems in the book, when Fred and Ta Shu arrive at the book for the first time? 



	Robinson: I think that could happen. We are pretty informal about air travel, despite the fact that you have 30,000 feet [9 kilometers] above the planet and if something should fail with the machine you are in, you would die. 

		Right now there are half a million people in the air, and at one point these days, 500,000 people are within 30,000 feet of a machine that has to work to keep them alive. Nobody thinks twice. 

		The technological capabilities we now have to reach the moon, land on the moon and then return are really much stronger than they were when we did it in the early seventies. And I think it could normalize quickly.

		Rational people, for fun, would go to the moon and not think twice about the dangers involved.





						


Buzz Aldrin in front of the lunar module Apollo 11. Kim Stanley Robinson was inspired by the Apollo missions for his new book, "Red Moon".

            						    Credit: Neil Armstrong / NASA 




	Space.com: What do you expect readers to remove from "Red Moon"? 

		I think the main thing I want you to take away from my book "Red Moon" is that China is really interesting and important and nobody understands it, and I mean not only the Americans, who definitely do not understand it, but even the Chinese. the people themselves

		It is a large and powerful society in rapid change. It's unstable and dynamic and it's super interesting. 

		That is first. ... The moon itself: I think people will leave with the same kind of feeling I had, which is small, dangerous, interesting but not important in human affairs. 



	This interview has been edited by largo. You can Buy "Red Moon" on Amazon.com.



	Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook Y Google+. Original article about Space.com. 

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