Space Stations

Entry updated 11 March 2024. Tagged: Theme.

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Stories of space stations or artificial satellites appear early in sf, the first example being Edward EverettHale's extraordinary "The Brick Moon" (October-December 1869Atlantic Monthly) and its sequel "Life in the Brick Moon" (February 1870Atlantic), in which the satellite of the title consists of many brick spheres connected by brick arches, and is launched, with people on board, by gigantic flywheels. KurdLaßwitz'sAuf Zwei Planeten (1897; cut trans asTwo Planets1971) has Martian space stations shaped like spoked wheels floating above the poles, but these are kept hovering by gravity-control devices of a somewhat implausible kind. The first detailed and thoroughly scientific treatment is in KonstantinTsiolkovsky'sVne zemli (written 1896-1920;1920; trans as "Out of the Earth" inThe Call of the Cosmos1963), a semifictionalized didactic speculation; it deals with free fall, space greenhouses for growing food, communication via space mirrors, and artificialGravity effected by spinning the station on its axis – indeed, much of the spectrum ofSpace-Habitat ideas that would first begin to appear in any profusion after World War Two, at a time when space travel byRockets was generally realized to be something actually likely to happen.

A highly influential book of popular science, dealing with (among other things) the construction of space stations wasThe Conquest of Space (1949) by WillyLey, illustrated by ChesleyBonestell, and it was after this that the space-station story began to appear commonly inGenre SF. However, the idea was not new to the genre, a celebrated earlier example being George OSmith'sVenus Equilateral stories, published inAstounding from October 1942, about aCommunications space station in a Trojan position (60° ahead of the planet; seeLagrange Point) in the orbit ofVenus; this relays messages between Earth, Venus andMars and is permanently staffed until rendered obsolete by technological progress within the series. Likewise, the space-station complex of Arthur CClarke'sIslands in the Sky (1952) is largely concerned with the maintenance and operation of three geostationaryCommunications satellites. RobertHeinlein'sSpace Cadet (1948) features the huge, iconically wheel-shaped "Terra Station" which offers all the facilities – including entertainment – of a smallCity in orbit.

The image of the space station presented through the 1950s was usually (though not always) as a way station, a stopping-off point prior to flights deeper into space. Another book by Ley was titledSpace Stations (1958). Such stations were envisaged as being in Earth orbit, the first place you reach after leaving Earth. We see this image of the stopping-off place quite often in movies, an early example beingConquest of Space (1955) and a later one2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); and of course in books, as in Arthur CClarke's already-cited children's novelIslands in the Sky (1952). Other 1950s books and stories in which the space station is totemic include RafeBernard'sThe Wheel in the Sky (1954); Jeffery LloydCastle'sSatellite E One (1954); DamonKnight's psychological melodrama about the trauma of meeting anAlien, "Stranger Station" (December 1956F&SF); Frank BelknapLong'sSpace Station No 1 (1957 dos); and James EGunn'sStation in Space (1958).

One version of the theme that might have been expected to play a far greater role than it actually has in genre sf is the space station as menace, as aWeapons-delivery platform in space easily able to target any point on Earth's surface; Wernhervon Braun suggested precisely this during theCold War. The notion has popped up occasionally in films, such asMoonraker (1979) with biological warfare andPrimal Scream (1988; vtHellfire UK) with a newPower Source that can fry people. An early novel to use the theme is C MKornbluth'sNot This August (14 May-1 June 1955Maclean's Magazine;1955; vtChristmas Eve1956), in which it is hoped that a military space station will evict the Russians occupying the USA. In DavidMcDaniel'sTechnothrillerThe Man from U.N.C.L.E. #8: The Monster Wheel Affair (1967), the villainous organization T.H.R.U.S.H. seems set to blackmail the world with a space station mounting thermonuclear weapons, though this proves to be a bluff involving an orbiting balloon in the shape of a classic Big Wheel. It is not made clear in the film2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) that the famous jump-cut from thrown bone to satellite shows (briefly, before shifting to aSpaceship) what is intended to be an orbital weapons platform – instruments of violence on both sides of theTime Abyss. The point is clarified inThe Making of Kubrick's 2001 (anth1970) edited by Jerome Agel.

Although the Earth-orbit phase of the space-station story has now largely been superseded, at least as a simplistic generator ofSense of Wonder, there is still inHard SF a sense of real nuts-and-bolts excitement when the actual building of one is envisaged, and books are still written on the theme; notable examples from the later twentieth century include DonaldKingsbury'sThe Moon Goddess and the Son (December 1979Analog; exp1986) and AllenSteele'sOrbital Decay (1989). Though more specialist in purpose, the defensive solar shield ofSunstorm (2005) by Arthur CClarke and StephenBaxter has similar qualities and generates a similar problem-solving thrill. Meanwhile, as the space station became absorbed intoGenre SF as one of its primary icons, these artefacts tended to pop up all over the place, not just in Earth orbit and not usually as the primary focus of a story. The setting of Louis Charbonneau'sAntic Earth (1967; vtDown to Earth1967) proves to be a space-station refuge from now-uninhabitable Earth. Unfortunately real-world constraints on what can feasibly be boosted into orbit led to Skylab (1973-1979), and its various successors up to and including the International Space Station (1998-current), being somewhat anticlimactic after the grandiose Big Wheel designs so often assumed in sf, perhaps most famously in2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

One iconic space-station motif has the space platform representing the anthropological observers in the sky, looking down at the primitives below, as in PatriciaMcKillip'sMoon-Flash (1984), where the superstitiously regarded flash of the title turns out to be the firing retro-rockets of spacecraft visiting the station. A particularly good example is Brian WAldiss'sHelliconia trilogy (1982-1985), whose observing space station, ironically named "Avernus", is central to the structure of the whole long tale, its "superior" observers standing for a civilization that is played out. The observers in StanisławLem'sSolaris (1961; trans1970; new trans2011 ebook), – twice filmed asSolaris (1971,2002) – are also played out and receive the come-uppance due to people who try to hold themselves aloof: their space station (not in fact orbital but held above the planetary surface byAntigravity) becomes a shambles as theLiving World beneath reconstructs in the flesh their most feared and desired memories and nightmares.

A more benign watch from Earth orbit is maintained by International Rescue'sThunderbird 5 space station inThunderbirds, and by those of the alien Monitor (later Monitors) and theJustice League of America Superhero team during various periods ofDC Comics continuity. Further television space stations appearStar Cops (1987) and form the actual settings of the rejected series pilotEarth II (1971),Babylon 5 (1993-1998) andStar Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999).

From the late 1970s the traditional space station – laboratory, observation post and jumping-off place – was at least partly eclipsed by the influence of Gerard KO'Neill, who inThe High Frontier (1977) advocated much larger space colonies intended to support a substantial permanent population:Space Habitats (which see). J GBallard's allegorical "Report on an Unidentified Space Station" (10 December 1982City Limits) explores a station that cannot be mapped since it is forever expanding towards isomorphism with the universe itself. [PN/DRL]

further reading