VII.

Science Fiction and Science

Two major events brought science fiction general recognition as a literature of relevance: the explosion of the first atomic bomb in 1945 and the successful landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, of two American astronauts. Atomic bombs (and atomic energy) and space flight had been two of the major subjects of science fiction almost from its beginning, but they had been ridiculed by traditional critics and even many scientists as “mere science fiction”. Their realization and the recognition by many people of the way in which life is being changed by science and technology have contributed to what Asimov has called “a science-fiction world”. This awareness was intensified in July 1976 when a space vehicle landed on Mars and transmitted to Earth the first on-site photographs of another planet, and in November 1980 when the American spacecraft Voyager I flew by the planet Saturn and transmitted some 1 billion miles back to Earth photographs of remarkable clarity. It was further stimulated in 2004 when United States President George Bush announced proposals to build a permanent lunar space station and send a man to Mars. Scientists and explorers have credited science fiction by Verne and others with starting them on their professions. Space exploration by Soviet scientists was influenced by the writings of the Russian author Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (Beyond Earth, 1920), and German rocket research was inspired partly by the works of the German author Kurd Lasswitz.