Very Short Introductions

The Eye of the World. The Beatles. At Dawn We Slept. When China Rules the World. Napoleon: A Life. Five books I’ve read over the past year – numbering 832, 992, 912, 848, and 976 pages respectively. All together it took me 160 days to get through those five diverse books, those 4,560 pages. That’s over a month a book.

That’s also unacceptable. While I enjoyed each read, and each read taught me new and different and even exciting stuff, that’s just too much precious time devoted to very specific, very narrow topics. If I was a poli sci major, then that China read is justifiable. If I taught high school history, then the Pearl Harbor and Napoleon books would be essential. But I am not a political science major or a history teacher. Nor am I a fantasy novelist or a musician, at least professionally.

I read for relaxation and to mollify an almost insatiable curiosity. And if you find yourself sharing this predilection with me, I’d like to share a very interesting discovery:

Very Short Introductions.

I became aware of these at my local library a few years back, when I read Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction, and then completely forgot about it. “Very Short Introductions” are small paperback books, usually between a 100 and 150 pages, aimed at an educated general readership, each about a specific topic, topics that range all across the spectrum. Begun in 1995, there are currently over 600 titles. From biographies to philosophy to religion to science to history to literature – you name it, there’s a Very Short Introduction out there on it.

Next week the family is doing its annual pilgrimage down to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Instead of bringing one or two clunky doorstops to bog me down on the beach, I’m going to bring a dozen of these books and read whichever ones jump out at me in the moment. I’ll wager I can put away three, maybe four during the vacation, completely satiating that annoying curiosity that keeps me jumping hither and thither.

From the library, based on what was available, I borrowed “Very Short Introductions” on:

Cosmology

Film

Galaxies

Goethe

Hinduism

Kabbalah

Kafka

The Laws of Thermodynamics

Mormonism

The New Testament as Literature

The Old Testament

Thomas Aquinas

A nice, wide swath of the Dewey Decimal System. Enough for whatever mood might strike me at any given moment over the seven days we’ll spend down south. And, as always, I will report back any interesting discoveries hidden betwixt those very short pages …

Soar

Patch, not quite eleven, is an aspiring writer, but she also has a poet’s soul. A few weeks back we had a power outage one night, and she cranked out four poems. Some time before that, I came across a half-dozen or so others scratched on loose leaf paper. She may have more in notebooks not privy to her father’s (proud) eyes. When I first heard this poem on that candle-fueled night (and it was a hot one in early July), I figured this would be a good way to personally conclude my Apollo scribblings on this blog.

However, once she allowed me to peruse the text, I realized it was not so much about rockets launching astronauts as it was rockets launching nuclear payloads. Bombs. Oh well. Seems someone must have read a little bit about the 50s paranoia of bombs raining down overhead. But, ironically, isn’t that what started this whole Space Race thing, way way back in October of 1957, a race that culminated in twelve men walking the lunar surface twelve years later?

“Soar”

   by Patch

Rockets fly on

Soaring up till dawn

Those glassy eyes stare through the cracks

Seeing the rockets fly on makes them relax

Their terror of the bombs disappear

The bombs’ sorrow echoes still leer

But the rockets fly on

Soaring up till dawn

They know they’re okay

But in whispers they still say

Independence is theirs

The bombs were their cares

The bombs are gone

Their ugly, silent song

Rocket fly on

Soaring up till dawn

(A long, long way from “Creepy Bat” …)

Next Moon Walkers Will Speak Mandarin

China, it seems to me, will be the next country to land men on the Moon, at least how things stand geopolitically right now. The United States is not serious about returning, and Russia does not have the resources.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) was formed in the murky depths of late 1950s Cold War communism. Focusing primarily on missile launch capability, it was not until the 90s that the agency turned to manned space exploration. That goal was not fully realized until October of 2003, when China launched her first manned flight, Shenzhou 5.

Over the next decade, eleven Chinese men and women have traveled out into space.

In the early years of this century, the CNSA began work on the CLEP – the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. Much like the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs of the 60s and 70s, CLEP is using incremental goals to get the Chinese to the Moon, with a deadline of 2029.

The first step were lunar orbiters. Chang’e 1 was launched in October of 2007 and made China the third nation to successfully send hardware to orbit the Moon. Chang’e 2, also successful, followed three years later.

Chang’e is the name of the Chinese moon goddess.

In December of 2013, Chang’e 3 launched and successfully soft-landed on the moon thirteen days later. Five years after that Chang’e 4 lifted off and landed at the south pole of the far side of the Moon on January 3 of this year. Chang’e 4 contains a lander and a rover and has been exploring the lunar surface since that time. In fact, Chinese engineers expect it to operate for several years, though the mission has been planned out to last twelve months.

Chang’e 5, a sample return mission, is slated for launch in December of 2019.

Chang’e 6, 7, and 8 will be orbiters and rovers looking to scout out the Moon for manned exploration. They are scheduled for lift-off at intervals between 2023 and 2027. And, if that’s not enough to keep Beijing busy, the CNSA is also planning to complete its Earth orbiting space station between 2020 and 2023. (China’s first prototype station, Tiangong-1, was intentionally burnt up on re-entry in April of 2018, after seven years in orbit serving as practice for docking with Shenzhou spacecraft.)

And once Chinese feet step on the moon, an outpost will possibly be built, perhaps with international cooperation, perhaps not.

Now, China is a closed society, and how much of this should be viewed as Pollyanna-ish or with massive grains of salt remains to be seen. But she has sent eleven people into space and has orbited and landed on the Moon. The momentum seems to be there.

The question remains, will the United States wake up at some point in the next decade?