All posts by Gideon Marcus

Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 8, 1970] Slow Sculpture, Fast reading (the February 1970 Galaxy Science Fiction)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

A little off the top

And so it begins.  For eight years, NASA enjoyed an open budget spigot and, through persistence and endless shoveling of money (though a fraction of what's spent on defense, mind you), got us to the Moon.  Now the tap has been cut to a trickle, and the first casualties are being announced.

Black and white photo of Apollo manager George Low speaking into a microphone in front of a NASA press backdrop.
Apollo manager George Low at a press conference on the 4th

Of the 190,000 people employed at the space agency, a whopping 50,000 are going to get the axe before the end of the year.  Saturn V production is being halted.  Lunar missions are going down to a twice-per-year cadence (as opposed to the six in thirteen months we had recently).

Apollo 20, originally scheduled to land in Tycho crater in December 1972, has been canceled.  Astronauts Don Lind, Jack Lousma, and Stuart Roosa now get to cool their heels indefinitely.  Apollos 13-16 will go up over the next two years followed by "Skylab", a small orbital space station built from Saturn parts.  Then we'll get the last three Apollo missions.

After that… who knows?  If only the Soviets had given us more competition…

Oh, and in the silly season department:

Cartoon drawing of a man holding a newspaper looking out at an apple core shaped moon. The paper reads IT COULD SAY A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THE MOON TO THE VERY CORE. NASA SCIENTIST DECLARES INTENT TO PROPOSE NUCLEAR BLAST ON THE MOON.

On the 6th, Columbia University's Dr. Gary V. Latham, seismologist and principal seismic investigator for Apollo program, withdrew his proposal that an atomic bomb be detonated on the Moon.  You'll recall Apollo 12 sent the top half of Intrepid into the lunar surface so the seismometers Conrad and Bean had emplaced could listen to the echoes and learn about the Moon's interior. 

Latham got some pretty harsh criticism of his idea, so he dialed things back, suggesting NASA should find way to hit the Moon hard enough to create strong internal reverberations. Let's hope they don't use Apollo 13…

A sampling from the upper percentiles

The news may be dour on the space front, but the latest issue of Galaxy is, in contrast, most encouraging!

The February 1970 cover of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine featuring a long-haired abstractly drawn woman in a psychedelic art style that resembles stained glass.
by Jack Gaughan, illustrating "Slow Sculpture"

Continue reading [January 8, 1970] Slow Sculpture, Fast reading (the February 1970 Galaxy Science Fiction) →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[December 31, 1969] …for spacious skies (January 1970 Analog)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Pan Am makes the going great!

Thousands turned out in Everett, Washington, for the roll-out of the first jumbo jet ever built.  The "wide-bodied" Boeing 747 can carry a whopping 362 passengers; compare that to the 189 carried by the 707 that inaugurated the "Jet Age" a decade ago. Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) took delivery of the aircraft, which flew to Nassau, Bahamas, thenceforth to New York.

photo of an enormous jet, parked on the ground on a sunny day. There are also observing members of the public, of which there seem to be about 4. The top half of the jet is white with a horizontal turquoise stripe that extends all the way around. Above the stripe, there are the words PAN AM in large black letters. The bottom half of the plane is polished, reflective metal, and there is an open hatch on the left side, closest to the photographer. On the right side of the image, we can see the stairway allowing passengers to depart. On the left side of the image, there is a small barrier of folding wood signs between the photographer and the jet. The barrier surrounds a group of 3 trucks and 8 or so technicians, as well as the platform ladders that reach from the ground to the open hatch.

Originally scheduled for regular service on Dec. 15, things have been pushed back to January 18.  That's because 28 of the world's airlines have placed orders for 186 of these monsters, including American Airlines, which has ordered 16.  Since their shipment won't arrive until June, and as air travel is strictly regulated in this country by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which ensures fairness of rates, routes, and other aspects of competition, the CAB ordered a delay until Pan Am leases American one of its fleet.

As impressive as the 747 is, it constitutes something of a bridge, aeronautically speaking.  Very soon, we will have supersonic transports plying the airlanes.  Eventually, we may even have hypersonic derivatives of the reusable "space shuttle", currently under development at NASA.  The jumbo jet will allow for economical, subsonic flights until passenger travel goes faster than sound, at which point, the 747 will make an excellent freighter. 

These are exciting times for the skies!  And with that, let's see if we've also got exciting times in space…

John Campbell makes the going… hard

A beautiful color photo of the Saturn V launch, a syringe piercing the grey heavens, and a beam of fire below. The great orange cloud created by takeoff forms sharp relief against the Florida trees.

What Supports Apollo?, by Ben Bova and J. Russell Seitz

Apropos of the aeronautically pioneering theme, the first piece in this issue is a science article on what supports the Apollo, literally: the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building, where the three stages of the Saturn V are put together; the crawler that the rocket rides to the launch pad, and the 30-story gantry at the launch pad.

Continue reading [December 31, 1969] …for spacious skies (January 1970 Analog) →

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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 26, 1969] A Wreath of Stars (the best science fiction of 1969!)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


by Gideon Marcus

We at the Journey have a special treat for you this holiday season.  Look beneath all the discarded paper and shed pine needles and gelt wrappers—why, it's a complete list of The Best Science Fiction (and Fantasy) of 1969!  With SFnal output on the rise, there's a good chance you haven't been able to keep up.

Don't worry; we've got you covered.  Anything on this list is worth reading/watching.  Just peruse the Journey library, settle into your coziest chair, and enjoy the week before New Year's!

Full-page magazine advertisement for a reclining chair. It shows a woman with short black hair, dressed in comfortable pink clothes, sitting with her legs extended horizontally, supported by the reclining chair. She has a white cat on her lap. Next to her is a small bear-shaped sculpture that holds a bouquet of flowers in a raised paw and a tray of fruit on the other paw. The reclining chair is placed on a rug made of a polar bear skin. The illustration has the text: The Soft Life. Additional text below the illustration says: With a Stratolounger reclining chair... stain-protected by Scotchgard Repeller. The Stratolounger life is a whole new way of life. Relax,lean back, put your feet up on the ottoman that pops out. Watch TV or read while having a snack. Lean further back—enjoy The Soft Life! If you spill—just blot. Liquid spills, even oily ones, come right up. Scotchgard Brand Stain Repeller protects the Stratolounger's decorator fabrics. If a stain is ever forced into the weave, it will spot clean and generally, there's no ring. See these and other handsome Stratoloungers in a host of fabrics protected with Scotchgard Repeller at leading furniture and department stores. Below this text are photographs of three varieties of reclining chair. The first one is light brown. Next to it, the text says: Mediterranean Reclining Chair—sleek, cane sliding, richly finished wood, luxuriously reversible seat cushion. Approximately 170 dollars. There is an asterisk at the end of this text. The second photograph is of a light orange reclining chair. Next to it, the text says: Traditional Reclining Chair—richly tufted back, luxurious loose-cushion seat, tapered walnut finish wood legs with casters for easy movement. Approximately 170 dollars. There is an asterisk at the end of this text. The third photograph is of a dark green reclining chair. Next to it, the text says: Club Lounge Reclining Chair—sumptuously proportioned deep back; smartly tailored; easy-roll brass ball casters. Approximately 170 dollars. There is an asterisk at the end of this text. At the bottom left corner of the illustration is the page number 90 and a note with an asterisk that says: Price may vary depending upon location and fabric selection. At the bottom right corner of the illustration is the magazine title HOUSE AND GARDEN.

Continue reading [December 26, 1969] A Wreath of Stars (the best science fiction of 1969!) →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 20, 1969] Stars above, stars at hand (January 1970 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Being #2… stinks

On the scene at the launch of Apollo 12, President Nixon assured the NASA technicians that America was #1 in space, and that it wasn't just jingoism—it was true!

Well, even a stopped clock, etc.  In fact, all accounts suggest the Soviet space program had some serious setbacks last year, the results of which will be felt through at least to 1971.  Schedules got shifted as large rockets were earmarked for purely military service in response to the escalating (now calmed) Sino-Soviet crisis.  But the biggest issue was reported in Aviation Weekly last month: apparently, the Soviets lost a Saturn-class booster on the launch pad before liftoff last summer.  I hadn't even heard that such a thing was in development!  The rocket's loss has set back the USSR's manned space program by at least a year, resulting in tepid non-achievements like their recent triple Soyuz mission rather than the construction of a space station or a trip to the Moon.

A rocket being launched into space.
This is actually the rocket from the Soviet film The Sky Calls (American title: Battle Beyond the Sun)

It didn't help that the Soyuz pads were occupied during the summer as the Soviets tried to match our lunar efforts.  It may well be that their Saturn was rushed to service too soon, and similar gun-jumping may have caused the loss of the Luna 15 sample-return mission.

Speaking of which, in September, the Soviets launched Kosmos 300 and 305.  Both of them were heavy satellites that went into the orbit usually used for lunar Zond missions.  And then they reentered shortly thereafter…in pieces.  It's not certain if these were to be circumlunar flights or retries of Luna 15.  Either way, they didn't work out, either.

Meanwhile, the Apollo mission moves blithely along.  Apollo 13 will go to the Moon next March to Fra Mauro, a landing site photographically scouted out by the Apollo 12 folks.  This chapter of the Space Race is well and truly over, won by the forces of democracy championed by such luminaries as Spiro Agnew.

That's a good rock

Speaking of Apollo 12, you may recall earlier this month I talked about analysis of the Moon rocks brought back by Apollo 11.  A similar report has come out about the rocks brought back by Conrad and Bean.  Dr. Oliver A. Schaeffer of New York State Univ. at Stony Brook says they are only 2.2 to 2.5 billion years old—1-2 billion years younger than the Armstrong and Aldrin's samples.  This means some kind of surface activity was ongoing on the comparatively quiet Moon—meteorite strikes and/or vulcanism, we don't know yet.


NASA astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad, commander of the Apollo 12 mission, holds two moon rocks he and Alan Bean brought back to Earth.  Taken last month at Manned Spacecraft Center's Lunar Receiving Laboratory.

Also, Dr. S. Ross Taylor of Australian National Univ. says the Apollo 12 samples contain about half the titanium as the Apollo 11 rocks and also more nickel, though otherwise, their chemistry is similar.  Thus, the Moon is far from homogeneous, and we have just scratched the surface (so to speak) of the mystery that is the Moon.  As we get more samples from more sites, a better picture will come together, but it will undoubtedly take time; imagine trying to contemplate all of Earth's geologic diversity from just two short digs?

Holiday Feast

It may have been rocky going on the Moon (yuk yuk) but it's fair sailing with this month's issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!

Cover of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It announces the stories Longtooth by Edgar Pangborn and A Third Hand by Dean R. Koontz. The cover illustration shows a racecar driven by a robot on a desert landscape at night.
Cover by Mel Hunter

Continue reading [December 20, 1969] Stars above, stars at hand (January 1970 Fantasy and Science Fiction) →

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 16, 1969] Holiday haul (Black Corridor and the December Galactoscope)

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We have a fine sextet of science fiction books for you this month: largely readable, with two clunkers and one superior read…

photo of Gideon Marcus, a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Ace Double 66160

Earthrim, by Nick Kamin

Cover of the book Earthrim. It shows two scary faceless puppet heads with wires and mechanical eyes attached. Text on the cover says: The man who stopped the wars must be stopped in turn!
by Panos Koutrouboussis

A generation or two from now, the Earth is recovering from a devastating war between the Western World and the Chinasian alliance. At first, the latter was winning, surging into Australia and with a plan to cross the Bering Strait. Then things bogged down. Eschewing the use of nuclear weapons (for an unexplained reason), the death rate became fantastic.

One day, the war just stopped. Or, more specifically, someone stopped them. Sounds like a positive development, but whoever did it is now exerting dictatorial control over the globe, futzing with governments, economies, even population growth rates and somehow slowing the age of human maturity!

Now, a decade after the war, Michael Standard, a battered veteran of the Australian front, is the one man who can stop the war-stopper. He is equipped with a prosthetic arm which is set to fire its hand like a cannon when face to face with the entity who styles himself "The Rim".

Continue reading [December 16, 1969] Holiday haul (Black Corridor and the December Galactoscope) →

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Science / Space Race

[December 6, 1969] Here comes the Sun (and Moon) — Orbiting Solar Observatory, Apollo, ESRO, and Explorer 41!

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

With the Apollo missions taking so much of our attention (there were four flights this year), it is understandable that unmanned missions and science have gotten short shrift.  I'm going to try to address this oversight now.

Far out!

Do you remember Pioneer 6 (launched Dec. 16, 1965) and Pioneer 7 (launched Aug. 17, 1966)?  They are deep space probes designed to observe the Sun from widely different vantage points.  In fact, we've been a bit remiss: since '66, two more identical Pioneers have gone up: Pioneer 8 (December 13, 1967) and Pioneer 9 (November 8, 1968).  A fifth and final Pioneer was launched August 27, 1969, but its carrier rocket exploded.  The loss of that one is pretty bad; whereas the others are all spread out fairly equidistantly around the Sun, more or less as far away from it as the Earth, Pioneer "E" was going to be put in an orbit that kept it close to Earth, where it would be used to give as much as a two-week warning of dangerous flare activity.

Nevertheless, NASA is blazing along with four satellites.  Indeed, thanks to the longevity and spread-out positions of Pioneers 6 and 7, they were able to perform an unique experiment.  On Nov. 6, the two satellites were 175 million miles apart on a common line with the Sun, and scientists observed the difference in behavior of solar wind particles due to their passage through space in opposite directions.  In a similar vein, on Dec. 2, when the spacecraft reached points on a common spiral line leading out from the Sun (the star rotates, so it flings out particles in a spiral rather than linear fashion), scientists measured different kinds of solar particles coming from the same events on the Sun.

We'll have to wait for the journals to publish any papers, but this is the kind of large-scale, long-term science made possible by the Pioneer probes!


Another cool example of Pioneer science

Continue reading [December 6, 1969] Here comes the Sun (and Moon) — Orbiting Solar Observatory, Apollo, ESRO, and Explorer 41! →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 30, 1969] Capstone to a decade (December 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Atrocities in Vietnam

The news has been brewing for a while, and now it's on the front page: 1st Lieutenant William J. Calley Jr., a 26-year-old platoon leader stationed in Vietnam, has been "life or death" court martialed for the murder of 109 South Vietnamese civilians "of various ages and sexes."

head shot of a smiling Lieutenant Calley, in uniform

This so-called "My Lai incident" took place northeast of Quang Ngai city on March 16, 1968 in a village called Song My—code-named "Pinkville".  Calley, enraged at the death of his chief sergeant, appears to have ordered his unit to eliminate everyone in the hamlet.  Several of his men went on a bloody spree; others did what they could to avoid involvement.  One even shot himself in the foot so he could be medivaced out.  A number came forward with the story, which was investigated and then dismissed by the 11th Infrantry Brigade.  Letters to Congress have prompted the reopening of the case and investigation into the original investigation.

If Calley is convicted, he faces no less than life imprisonment, and death by firing squad is on the table.

The court martial comes on the heels of the July 21, 1969 charge of Green Beret commander, Col. Robert Rheault, and six of his officers with murder and conspiracy for the secret execution of a Vietnamese spy suspect.  Those charges were dropped two months later when the CIA, whose operatives were key witnesses, refused to cooperate.  Whether the government's tacit support of brutality increases or decreases the odds of Calley facing the music remains to be seen. 

Mediocrities in Print


by Kelly Freas

December's final magazine is Analog.  Let's hope this makes for pleasanter reading that the newspapers.

Continue reading [November 30, 1969] Capstone to a decade (December 1969 Analog) →

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Science / Space Race

[November 26, 1969] From the Earth to the Moon…and back (Apollo 12)

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photo of Gideon Marcus, a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Just four months ago, men first set foot on the Moon, fulfilling a millennia-long dream of humanity as well as culminating a decade-long Space Race between the superpowers. And the question on everyone's lips: how do you top that?

It's important to remember that the flight of Apollo 11 was not the end, but only a beginning—just as John Glenn's orbital flight, Gus Grissom's mission in Gemini 3, Wally Schirra's in Apollo 7 were all beginnings. The Moon Port is open, and it is time to start the exploration of the cosmos in earnest.

Appropriately, the flight of Apollo 12 was planned to mark an incremental expansion upon the prior mission's success. Scheduled for a November 14 launch at 11:22AM Eastern time months in advance, the second lunar mission would include the following improvements:

  • Time spent on the Moon would be 32 hours, half again more than the 21 hours spent by Apollo 11.
  • There would be two Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) rather than one.
  • The astronauts would set up a series of experiments designed to operate for one year from the lunar surface.
  • The Lunar Module (LM) would execute a pinpoint landing at Site 7 in the Sea of Storms, as opposed to the less precise touchdown made by Eagle in July
  • As a result, the astronauts would be able to recover the TV camera from Surveyor 3, which had soft-landed on the Moon two years prior.
  • The Moonwalks would be televised in color this time.
  • After lunar exploration, Apollo 12 would spend an extra day in lunar orbit photographing future landing sites.

In all, Apollo 12 promised to be only slightly more ambitious than its predecessor, but how much more ambitious than a flight to the Moon do you need?

Continue reading [November 26, 1969] From the Earth to the Moon…and back (Apollo 12) →

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Uncategorized

What is the Galactic Journey?

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[And now for a piece from the 21st Century perspective for new visitors]

What is Galactic Journey? It's a time machine, sure, but what does that mean?

Galactic Journey is so staggeringly big, so comprehensive, that I suspect even our fans don't know all of its facets. We review every SFF story that comes out, but did you know we’re also a TV station? A radio broadcaster? A LARP?

Strap in—we're taking a ride:

At its heart, Galactic Journey is a blog—or to use a more period term, a ‘fanzine’—written as if its authors are fans living exactly 55 years ago. We move forward, day by day, in exact parallel with modernity. As I write this, it's currently November 20, 1969; next year will be 1970.

We publish an article every other day. That's 150+ articles a year. 300,000K+ words. That's five Kitra novels. Or half a Patrick Rothfuss book. 🙂 We cover virtually EVERY short-form SFF piece that gets published, magazine or anthology.

In the process, we've rediscovered so many classics that never should have been lost. From Cordwainer Smith to Katherine MacLean, Bob Sheckley to Rosel George Brown. Classic science fiction is more than Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke.

Women wrote ~10% of what was published in the 1960s. Their work has gotten forgotten more than most. We've brought it back and shone a spotlight on it. To learn more, see our series on The Second Sex in SFF (and while you're at it, enjoy our series on the women pioneers of space science.

We're as broad a team as possible. 26 writers contribute to the Journey on a regular basis. They hail from around the world, from all demographics, ages, persuasions. Want West Germany? Try Cora Buhlert! Japan? Yo Aoyama!

Every year, we put out the Galactic Stars. Forget the Hugos and Nebulas: THIS is the real list of the best SFF of the year.

Dig comic books? We cover those too!

How about wargames? We're nuts for those!

9) Not to mention almost every full-length SFF novel, television show, and movie released that week. Do you like The Twilight Zone? Check out our coverage.

Star Trek? Here you go.

10) Fiction is nothing without context. We cover the Space Race, the music, the fashion, the politics, the games, the technology. The Journey isn't just a 'zine—it's a portal to the past. See our Apollo coverage and Gwyn Conway's fashion column

11) Beyond the articles, the Journey is SO much more. Read on:

12) Every Thursday, we broadcast Science Fiction Theater, a hand-picked anthology show featuring the best SFF to date. Twilight Zone. Outer Limits. The Prisoner. Supercar. Join us!


13) Every Saturday, our UK contingent broadcasts the original Star Trek as aired on the BBC, complete with a suite of other period programming. (We aired Trek on our US station from '66-'69). Come watch!

14) We recreate special events: July saw the Moon landing. In August, we had Woodstock: all three days, 70 hours (about 9 hours of sleep). Apollo 12 is happening RIGHT NOW:

15) All of these can be enjoyed through Portal 55, our Discord Server. When we're not hosting special events, we are a real-time community of super nice, knowledgeable people who love to talk SFF! Also, a 1969 LARP!

16) KGJ broadcasts 24/7 the coolest and latest tunes, updated almost daily. With a five day rotation, you'll never get bored. And KOLD plays the classics of the '50s, 3000+ songs, for nostalgia-lovers. Tune in!

17) We even have a museum! Come see our displays of period technology and household items, all actually in our physical collection.

So dive in!  Enjoy, enjoy.  And if you're digging it, leave comments and drop us a line!




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 20, 1969] You say you want a revolution… (December 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

When you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out

250,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts of Apollo 12 are circling the Moon, photographing Earth's neighbor for future landing sites before coming home.  And in the nation's capital, the city is still reeling from the footsteps of 250,000 protesters who marched on Washington in the largest anti-war event in American history.

This second "Vietnam Moratorium Day" followed on the heels of last month's nationwide protests, to which President Nixon responded with apathy and his November 4th speech, in which he touted his secret timetable for "Vietnamesation"—the turning over of defense of South Vietnam to President Thieu's government, and also played up his support from "The Silent Majority" of Americans.

The protest movements have still fallen short of the planned nationwide strike, and this latest one has been eclipsed by the Moon landings.  Nevertheless, they are making waves.  In addition to the quarter million in Washington D.C., 100,000 marched in San Francisco in the West Coast's largest peace demonstration in history.

That demonstration was, in fact, peaceful.  Not so the march on Washington, where extremists, protesting the trial of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and six "Yippies" for allegedly inspiring the Chicago Democratic Convention riots last year, clashed with police and were driven back by tear gas.

There is no word, as yet, if there will be a third Moratorium march in time for the Holidays, but one can probably expect more such outbursts from the Unsilent Minority so long as there is no end in sight to the Vietnam War, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Americans so far.

The say that it's the institution

Last year, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction won the Hugo for Best Science Fiction Magazine.  It was a bit of a surprise since 1968 was hardly one of the magazine's best years—but then, 1968 wasn't a consistently great year for any magazine.  However, if one were to judge F&SF's 1969 output solely on the basis of this month's issue, one's estimation of the magazine would, indeed, be justifiably high!  Read on with pleasure:


by Ed Emshwiller

Continue reading [November 20, 1969] You say you want a revolution… (December 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction) →

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