While reading this week’s module selections, I noticed two strong trends in the readings:
- The idea of human isolation and abandonment (“Cold Equations” and The Martian)
- Segregation/Prejudice as a result of technological advancement (“It’s Great to be Back” and “Down and Out on Ellfive Prime”)
I found these readings to be very interesting because they play with the idea of how humanity can be affected (positively and negatively) by scientific advancement on an individual and society-based level.
I found “Cold Equations” to be the most emotionally captivating of the three short stories. Understanding how the stowaway is trapped on the EDS with her inevitable death impending is a terrifying prospect for anyone to handle. I noticed specifically that this story focused on the idea of scientific and natural law. While humanity can create and alter laws developed through moral standards and legal codes, it cannot alter scientific or natural law without violating the properties of the universe. The stowaway must die in this scenario because the pilot of the EDS cannot alter the science of the fuel count or the increased weight of the ship. All of the humans in the story want to save the girl and they search desperately for some way to prolong the inevitable, but eventually it is futile because scientific law cannot and will not be altered by man.
I think that this story is so effective because it mixes the idea of human morals and emotions—or as Spock would say, ‘highly irrational emotions’—with the science of nature and physics (which at times can be cruel and unforgiving). It is established that the girl wants nothing more than to see her brother again. She is not climbing onboard for criminal acts as previous stowaways have done. Instead, she innocently thinks she can visit her relative. However, her innocence is not easily resolved through scientific law and the question of utilitarianism remains: should the pilot sacrifice the cargo and knowingly kill the seven colonists, or should the survivor kill the innocent girl? Unfortunately, as the advancement of science in the story is for providing for the greater good, the girl must be the sacrifice to resolve the tension between scientific law and human innocence.
“It’s Great to be Back” and “Down and Out on Ellfive Prime” illustrated a notion of segregation and prejudice, but in very different ways. “It’s Great to be Back” focuses on the prejudice experienced by those who lived on the moon. This prejudice arises in the story due to the Earth’s inhabitants believing that the Moon-dwellers live in underground, inhospitable conditions. At the end of the story, it is revealed by Mr. MacRae that those chosen to go to the moon are society’s intelligent elite—those that can perform in technological jobs who are needed to work on the moon. Ultimately, it can be presumed from the POV of the MacRaes that Earth’s inhabitants are jealous of those who are privileged enough to work on the Moon due to that privilege. In this case, the Moon acts as a place for the scientific elite and is used as a colony that separates the intelligent from the average.
This idea of prejudice against the elite is also detailed in “Down and Out on Ellfive Prime” where the “scams” are separated from the retired elite of the colony. In this story, the workers and the “scams” are working on two sides of the same social class. The workers are actively working for the elite to fulfill the purpose of providing for the retired upper-class. It’s noted that if these workers are not privileged enough, they will be sent back to Earth even if they’ve spent a majority of their live on Ellfive Prime. On the other side of the coin, the “scams” are workers who have found a way out of the official system and into the ‘black market’/underground on Ellfive Prime, also known as being “down and out.” As we learn later in the story, the colony needs to use the lower class scams to provide support after the land slide disaster, but the scams can never fit into life on the colony as a social group.
I believe that this story may show symbolism of groups throughout the world that have been oppressed. While many of these groups are needed to add to society’s worth, many of them struggle to be fully acceptedand integrated into society. The scams may never have the potential to integrate into Ellfive Prime’s society and so they must hide away as Zen does.
Finally, my favorite reading of the module rests in the hands of The Martian. I found that the nerd humor of Watney’s monologues (Dungeons and Dragons hurray!) combined with the constant battle against Mars and its atmosphere made for a really compelling read. One of my favorite themes of The Martian is the constant mention of scientific advancement under NASA and the ultimate combination of the world’s two scientific superpowers, China and the USA, working together to save Mark Watney. These aspects of the story were interesting because, as opposed to “Cold Equations,” human morality and emotion is used in conjunction with scientific law to advance scientific technology. Due to longstanding and constant competition, the United States would never think about working with China if it weren’t for the struggle of Mark Watney. However, because all eyes around the world are on Watney’s journey through the harsh Mars landscape, everyone is rooting for him to return home and NASA will do anything to draft a plan to rescue him.
While China’s goal is not primarily to save Watney (it’s to get a Chinese astronaut on an Ares mission), they are needed to help Watney return to Earth. Therefore, for one of the first times in scientific history, NASA teams up with China to rescue Watney—a combination of superpowers that happens above typical politics in the realm of science. I guess by the end of these readings, we can presume that science can both bring people together or tear them apart.
-Joseph Valerio
