Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

films. If there is an Earth-size planet out there, it is at least three times as

distant as Pluto, and a gas giant would have to be six times as far. Negative data

win

no prizes but they are the bedrock of science.

Until James W. Christy on 22 June 1978 discovered Pluto’s satellite, Charon,

it was possible for us romantics to entertain the happy thought that Pluto was

loaded with valuable heavy metals; the best estimate of its density made this

plausible. But the mass of a planet with a satellite can be calculated quite easily

and accurately, and from that, its density.

The new figure was much too low, only half again as heavy as water. Methane

snow? Perhaps.

So once again a lovely theory is demolished by an awkward fact.

Nevertheless Pluto remains a most mysterious and most intriguing heavenly

body. A planet the size and mass of Mars might not be too much use to us out there .

. . but think of it as a fuel dump. Many stories and many nonfictional projections

speak of using the gas giants and/or the rings of Saturn as sources of fuel. But if

Pluto is methane ice or water ice or frozen hydrogen or all three, as a source of

fuel- conventional, or fusion, or even reaction mass-Pluto has one supremely

important advantage over the gas giants: Pluto is not at the bottom of a horridly

deep gravity well.

Finished calculating? Good. Please turn to page 368 and see why I wanted our

trip to Pluto to be a distance of 31.6 A.U.-plus other goodies, perhaps.

11. 1950 Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your

handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple inquiries, and

transmit vision.

1965 No new comment.

1980 This prediction is trivial and timid. Most of it

has already come true and the telephone system will hand you the rest on a custom

basis if you’ll pay for it. In the year 2000, with modern telephones tied into home

computers (as common then as flush toilets are today) you’ll be able to have

3-dimensional holovision

along with stereo speech. Arthur C. Clarke says that this will do away with most

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personal contact in business. I agree with all of Mr. Clarke’s arguments and

disagree with his conclusion; with us monkey folk there is no substitute for

personal contact; we enjoy it and it fills a spiritual need.

Besides that, the business conference is often an excuse to loaf on the

boss’s time and the business convention often supplies some of the benefits of the

Roman Saturnalia.

Nevertheless I look forward to holovideostereophones without giving up

personal contacts.

12. 1950 Intelligent life will be found on Mars.

1965 Predicting intelligent life on Mars looks pretty silly after those

dismal photographs. But I shan’t withdraw it until Mars has been thoroughly

explored. As yet we really have no idea-and no data-as to just how ubiquitous and

varied life may be in this galaxy; it is conceivable that life as we don’t know it

can evolve on any sort of a planet. . . and nothing in our present knowledge of

chemistry rules this out. All the talk has been about life-as-we-know-it-which means

terrestrial conditions.

But if you feel that this shows in me a childish reluctance to give up

thoats and zitidars and beautiful Martian princesses until forced to, I won’t argue

with you-I’ll just wait.

1980 The photographs made by the Martian landers of 1976 and their orbiting

companions make the prediction of intelligent Martian life look even sillier. But

the new pictures and the new data make Mars even more mysterious. I’m a diehard

because I suspect that life is ubiquitous-call that a religious opinion if you wish.

But remember two things: Almost all discussion has been about Life-as-we-know-it.. .

but what about Life-as-we-don’t-know-it? If there were Martians around the time that

those amazing gullies and canyons were formed, perhaps they went underground as

their atmosphere thinned. At present, despite wonderful pictures, our data are very

sparse; those two fixed landers are analogous to two such landing here: one on

Canadian tundra, the other in Antarctica-hardly sufficient to solve the question: Is