Women have made about 11% of people who’ve made it into space. Despite this, it actually makes more sense to put women in space. Generally they’re smaller and lighter which means they use up fewer resources – not critical in a short trip but on a long mission could prove vital – on average men required around 20% more calories a day and woman expend less than half the calories of men despite similar activity levels.
Science fact and science fiction packed my bookshelves, and when I turned to writing short stories as a teen, the call of space made itself felt in the subjects I chose. Even now, more than 40 years later, I can see that my story Scattered Across the Stars was heavily influenced by that HMSO publication; it features both a meteorite and a tentative explanation for mankind's fascination with the universe beyond our own tiny globe.
Here in the final section of our Uncharted Constellations anthology, we discover an insistent unease, and sometimes downright cynicism, about the mission ‘to boldly go’ into the universe beyond. The psychology and politics of space colonisation are teased out in these fictive pieces. The arrogance. The price paid. The risks when technology, or humans, break down. With wit, weirdness and some goosebumps, our writers plunge deep into space - where no-one hears you scream. Or DO they?
If we are to colonise the Moon in the 21st century and send crewed voyages to Mars, we need to know this venture is for ALL of us. It’s the human story, or it’s not worth telling. Any successful long-term mission will have to draw upon the skills of a multi-cultural and gendered crew, in order to deal with the challenges, psychological, social and technical, of deep space exploration. Our 'Uncharted Constellations' anthology writers approached this theme by celebrating space history’s ‘Hidden Figures’, as well as crafting science-fiction that imagines that bold future for all of us.
The scientists and storytellers, who paved the way for the 1969 lunar landing, always saw that feat as a stepping-stone to the wider cosmos. Yet for their political masters, the decade’s dash to the moon was the end-point of this Cold War race. It has taken another 50 years to make Lunar and Martian colonies a serious possibility with NASA's Artemis mission and Elon Musk’s planned crewed mission to Mars, both in 2024. What does this mean for our identity as a species? Are we all citizens of the world now, or of the universe?
Were the astronauts of the 1960s human pioneers or Cold War warriors? Undoubtedly the prevailing narrative has been one of stoical men strapped into tin boxes and flung into an adventure whose dangers and discomforts most of us could barely imagine. A glamour clung to the Apollo astronauts, who were mythologised before they even flew. Icarus-like, they lived hard and dabbled with mortality. The mythology of the Apollo era is teased apart in the first section of our 'Uncharted Constellations' anthology, titled Moon Warriors.
This week, we revealed our front cover design for Space Cat's forthcoming anthology, 'Uncharted Constellations'. We'll be trailing this book-rocket through our summer skies, before inviting you to a live launch on our new You-Tube channel on Sunday 13th September. But right now, we're going to part the veil of that purple gaseous cloud and take a peek at the hidden stars inside the nebula. Twenty writers made it onto the final roster and our Preface introduces each of them, along with some key themes of the collection. As the back-blurb says, ' between the strangeness of space and the loneliness of long-distance missions, you will find the human heart refracted in a myriad of ways.'
It's all party hats and helium balloons here in the Space Cat module this weekend! Bring on the LED candles and microwaved chocolate cake! We can't quite believe that it's only twelve months since we staggered onto the launch pad with our little indie micro-press. And we're delighted to be marking our one-year anniversary, not just with baked treats, but with a cover reveal for our first anthology. Step aboard for a peek!
A warm hello to all our SCP readers & supporters. We hope you are keeping safe and as well as possible in these strange circumstances. Even as we are 'sheltered in place' and isolated, we Earthlings have never been more reliant on each other. Let's try to weather this global storm with as much grace and compassion as we can.
So exciting to be sifting through all the submissions for our Race to the Stars anthology. It's been fun reading these independently and now we come together as editors to hammer out a shortlist together. Editing pencils at the ready!
Space Cat Press 