Alan L. Bean, RIP

For those of us who have been space-mad since childhood, there are certain heroes who stand out; Alan Bean was an Apollo hero and naval officer. He stepped on the Moon from aboard Apollo 12, the fourth person in history to walk on the lunar surface. He was also an amazing space artist, and his paintings adorn such places as the Smithsonian Institution.

Alan Bean died yesterday after a short illness, but at age 86, he lived a long and fruitful life.  I remember running across his paintings in catalogs from Novagraphics back in the 1980s. Then, I found out he was a member of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, a group of space artists many of whom I have met or know personally.

A Hero and his Inspiration for All

Alan Bean’s travels to space inspired a generation of us, along with the exploits of his astronaut teammates. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to go to space. In fact, he and his teammates made it look so easy I figured I’d be on the Moon by the time I went to high school. That didn’t happen, of course, so I settled on the next best thing: exploring space by writing about their work and the discoveries made by astronomers and space travelers from around the world.

I’m not the only one; many of us writers were inspired by people like Al Bean and Carl Sagan, and Sally Ride and many many others who sought to turn our eyes skyward. We honor him with our work, whether it’s science writing, space art, videos for planetariums, or simply finding other ways to tell the story of space exploration.

As most readers know, I just published a book about space exploration that’s aimed at folks who know they want to know more but haven’t followed it avidly.  Astronauts are a huge part of the story I told. They should be. Those people are the ones who risked it all to push the frontiers of human exploration. They are, in a very real sense, the heroes we needed to do that work. And, each generation of astronauts and cosmonauts has inspired new ones. The people who go to Mars (who are probably now in high school or college) follow in his footsteps.

Pay a Hero’s Memory Forward

The best thing we can do to memorialize the passing of Alan Bean is to pay forward the knowledge that he and others have fought to gain for us. Many of us who went into astronomy and space owe that lesson to the generations that follow us. It would make Al smile to think of his legacy being paid forward.

How Did We Get Here?

Lately (as in the past couple of years), I’ve been fascinated with the growth of space exploration around the world. Sure, it may have begun with a race between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union, but in the past decades, more than 75 countries have gotten involved in the “space biz”.  Clearly, heading off-planet is a growth industry, albeit one that costs a LOT to get into for most countries. Yet, everybody seems to be jumping on the bandwagon, and it’s pretty clear that the new frontier continues to beckon.

Writing a Book about Space Exploration

So, I wrote a book about space exploration. At first, the publisher wanted a straightforward history. However, as I got to thinking about it, I realized that a true history doesn’t stop at a certain point. It may begin in the distant past, but it ends up just being a fraction of a second ago. It’s basically “now”, offset by an infinitesimally short period of time.

The book I wrote, called Space Exploration: Past, Present, Future became not just a “potted history” of space exploration. It evolved as a look at all the ways that our current space-faring civilization on Earth has gotten to where it is. 

But, it’s more than that. It’s part of our society in ways that you don’t think about. For example, as I wrote in the introduction:

   There are also aspects of living in the Space Age we don’t always associate with it: literature and cultural expectations, for example. The ability of a civilization to do great things is also affected by its foresight and interests, which are often expressed in its literature. For space exploration, that literature is science fiction and its writers take us on some incredible journeys of the mind.

   Who knows where else their vision will take us? Humans have always dreamed about exploration of the unknown, whether it was the next valley, the next country, the next continent, or beyond Earth. We’ve always imagined what it would be like to fly like a bird, go to space, walk on another world. This is where science fiction comes from – the dreams of exploration.  Science fiction has often been called the “history of the future”, with its including all-too-believable tales of space exploration and the people involved.

Beyond the Tech

Space exploration is echoed in our art as well. Think about space art, space music, space-based movies and TV, and so many other expressions of “cosmic travel”. Also, think about the legal and political ramifications of space exploration. They’re inevitable outgrowths of space travel: wherever humans go, we bring along our social and cultural institutions.

It’s all of a piece: humans and space travel. Not terribly different from humans and exploration of other lands in centuries past. It’s what we do. And, that’s what I examine in my book. I invite you to check it out (see the link above). We need to continually look back at our past, even if it’s one second ago because it’s what makes our future. Happy reading!