Space Future In Fiction: From Myth To Positivism

Abstract

The article analyzes the idea of space habitability, discussed in the world and Soviet fiction of the XX century. Several science fiction writers’ visions of the space future are compared. Sporadic manifestations of space knowledge penetration into social consciousness are characteristic of various types of cultures and different historical eras. The idea that someone can reach the sky, cosmic spaces, and the solar system planets has an ancient, at least antique tradition. Individual thinkers made a great contribution to the creation of the theoretical prerequisites for the emergence of cosmic school of thought. Russia’s development feature in this sense was that only there cosmism becomes a certain spiritual, and later a philosophical tradition. The science fiction of the 20th century considered issues related to scientific and technological progress. Writers were trying to predict how a new type of person would emerge. He would be a communist society member, a fighter for scientific and social progress. Technical devices would free people from hard work, and they could devote themselves to rest, travel, and education. Statistical office would organize the labor, work would be automated as much as possible, and relations between people become sincere and harmonious. Science fiction writers believed that people would become equal partners for intelligent beings in the Universe and would be able to unite in the information community for mutual assistance. In fiction, the idea is traced that only various minds types union, whose knowledge mutually complement each other, is capable to comprehend the universe.