Author Interview: Are We Ready for Outer Space? Is Outer Space Ready for Us?
My newest work, Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses, and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe (Pegasus) will be available online and at bookstores in August 2020. Trident Media literary agent Mark Gottlieb's interview with me begins: What is it about the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1940s/50s) and the New Wave movement in science fiction (60s/70s) that has fascinated many of the scientists and billionaire space explorers today? Did the "pulp era" (20s/30s) have any sort of role to play, or was that much too early on? I’d credit the pulp era for spawning interest in spacefaring (and time travel and robots and multiple dimensions—very big in the 1930s). Pulp magazines like Amazing Stories didn’t just nurture the idea of interplanetary travel—writers for Hugo Gernsback’s Science Wonder Stories started the American Rocket Society in 1930 and it quickly became more than just a fan group. Its members devised their first test liquid fuel rock