Tag Archives: 1970

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

[June 30, 1970] Star light… per stratagem (July 1970 Analog)

2 Comments

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

Up in the Sky

Apollo 13 may have made for great TV, but it's been terrible for NASA.  This morning, in testimony before Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas O. Paine reviewed the results of the Apollo 13 accident investigations and announced that the next (Apollo 14) mission had been postponed to Jan. 31, 1971–a three month delay.  I imagine this is going to snarl up the meticulously planned schedule of Apollos 15-19, especially since Skylab is supposed to go up somewhere in that time frame.

A color image showing three satellites orbiting the Earth against a background of stars.  The orbit is indicated by a circle.  The image is titled Skylab Program Major Areas of Emphasis.  The satellite on the left is aiming a beam of light up at the top of the image, and is labeled Science: Solar Astronomy.  The satellite in the middle is aiming a beam of light down at the earth and is labeled Applications: Earth resources, materials, processing.  The satellite on the right does not have a light and is labeled Long Duration Missions: Habitability, Medical, and Work Effectiveness.

…If any of these missions happen.  In a recent poll of 1520 Americans, 55% said they were very worried about fate of Apollo 13 astronauts following mission abort, 24% were somewhat worried, 20% were not very worried, and 1% were not sure.  More significantly, a total of 71% expected fatal accident would occur on a future mission.  Perhaps its no surprise that the American public is opposed by 64% to 30% to major space funding over the next decade. 

The scissor-wielders on Capitol Hill are heeding the call.  Yesterday, Sen. Walter F. Mondale (D-Minn.), for himself, Sen. Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.), Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), and Sen. Jacob
K. Javits (R-N.Y.), submitted an amendment to H.R. 17548 (the Fiscal Year 1971 Independent Offices and HUD appropriations bill.  Not a happy one.

It would reduce NASA's R&D appropriation by $110 million–which just happens to be the amount requested by NASA for design and definition of space shuttle and station.

A color diagram labeled Mission Evolution Through Hardware Commonality.  The legend explains the color coding of the vehicles.  Green: Space Station Module; Red: Space Shuttle; Orange: Nuclear Shuttle; Yellow: Tug.  The diagram has a black background and shows Earth in the top left corner, the Moon slightly left of center beneath, and Mars near the right corner of the image.  Curved lines connect Earth to Mars and to the Moon, and orbital circles surround each, with Earth having two orbitals.  On the smaller Earth orbital, three bodies are depicted.  An orange Nuclear Shuttle has a red space shuttle above it.  A Space Base and a Low Earth Orbit Space Station are both green and yellow.  On the outer orbital sits a green and yellow Synchronous Orbit Station.  On the surface of the moon, a green and yellow Lunar Base is perched, with a green and yellow Lunar Orbit Station on its orbital. On the curve leading from Earth to Mars, an orange Orbit Launch Vehicle carries a green Mars Spacecraft.  An unlabeled green satellite is on the Mars orbital, with a green Mars Base sitting on its surface.

Mondale excoriated the proposal: "This project represents NASA’S next major effort in manned space flight. The $110 million. . .is only the beginning of the story. NASA’s preliminary cost estimates for development of the space shuttle/station total almost $14 billion, and the ultimate cost may run much higher. Furthermore, the shuttle and station are the first essential steps toward a manned Mars landing. . .which could cost anywhere between $50 to $100 billion.  I have seen no persuasive justification for embarking upon a project of such staggering costs at a time when many of our citizens are malnourished, when our rivers and lakes are polluted, and when our cities and rural areas are decaying."

A black and white photo of Walter Mondale, a white man with dark hair wearing a suit and tie.  He is looking to the right of the viewer with a neutral expression.

This seems a false choice to me.  Surely there is such wealth in this country that we can continue the Great Society and the exploration of space, especially if we gave up fripperies like, oh I don't know, the war in Cambodia.  To be fair, I know Fritz Mondale opposes the war, too, but we're talking a matter of scale here–the shuttle and station are going to cost peanuts compared to the outlay for the military-industrial complex.

That said, maybe Van Allen is right, and we shouldn't be wasting money on manned boondoggles, instead focusing on robotic science in space.  On the third hand… "No Buck Rogers, no Bucks." 

What do you think?

Down on the Ground

A color image of the front cover of the July 1970 edition of Analog.  Beneath the magazine title, the featured story is listed: Per Stratagem by Robert Chilson.  Below, a large brown insectoid creature stands on six legs against a yellow background. It has four tentacles emerging from the top of its body and is wearing a tool belt with a pouch on it around the lower part of the carapace.  It is angled away from the viewer, such that the only feature visible on its pointed head is its large open mouth full of humanoid teeth.  Facing it, a white man with gray hair wearing a brown shirt and pants stands in a doorway, looking at the creature with a look of concern.  Another humanoid figure is in shadow behind him.
Illustration by Leo Summers

Well, if we lose our ticket to space in the 1970s, at least we'll have our dreams.  Thank goodness for science fiction, and even for the July 1970 issue of Analog.  Dreary as this month's mag is, it's got enough in it to keep it from being unworthy.

Continue reading [June 30, 1970] Star light… per stratagem (July 1970 Analog) →

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Horror, Movies

[June 28, 1970] Welcome to Blood Island (Four Filipino Fright Films)

Leave a comment

black and white photo of a dark-haired white woman with vampiric eyebrows
by Victoria Silverwolf

Hands Across the Pacific

For about a decade, a company called Hemisphere Pictures has released movies that are Filipino/American co-productions.  Filmed on location in the Philippines, these are often war stories or adventure films.  In order to get folks like me into theaters, they also make horror movies.

A quartet of these scare flicks takes place on a fictional isle known as Blood Island.  As we'll see, the first one in the series is quite a bit different from the others.  Think of it as a prelude to a fugue in three voices. 

Since the Journey has expanded its scope to include horror films, especially since they often overlap with the Fantasy milieu, I thought you'd enjoy learning about the wonders that Hemisphere has to offer. Let's take a look.

Paging Doctor Moreau: Terror is a Man

Poster for <i/>Terror Is A Man

Continue reading [June 28, 1970] Welcome to Blood Island (Four Filipino Fright Films) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Book, Comics, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 27, 1970] Deeper than Amber, more mindless than a Worm… (June Galactoscope: The Third)

Leave a comment

And yet our June Galactoscope continues!  We have a work by a brand new novelist (though the author is no longer new to the SFnal scene), an exciting novel by a vanguard of the New Wave, and the return of two familiar but still fresh writers.  Science fiction truly is a young man's game this month!

A banner showing the covers of the three books in this article -- <i/>Deeper than the Darkness by Greg Benford, <i>Nine Princes In Amber</i> by Roger Zelazny, and <i>The ESP Worm</i> by Robert Margroff and Piers Antony.

Continue reading [June 27, 1970] Deeper than Amber, more mindless than a Worm… (June Galactoscope: The Third) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 26, 1970] Hard Hats & Flower Power Collide

Leave a comment

Black-and-white portrait of a fair-haired white woman wearing a woven hat and looking to her right, directly into the camera, with a slight smile
by Gwyn Conaway

“Flowers are better than bullets.”

This has been said upon occasion, especially over the last decade, but in bygone eras as well. War-weary Americans and English poets alike have waxed poetic over the familiar adage. These days, however, the sentiment is laced with gunpowder.

B&W photograph of a white woman with short dark hair holding a daisy to her face, as a line of soldiers stand opposite her with bayonets out-thrust
Jan Rose Kasmir put flowers in guns pointed at her during a protest at the Pentagon in 1967 at which she wore a cotton shift decorated in daisies. She recalls being saddened by how young the soldiers were. These were men she could have been on a date with, if only there weren't a philosophical trench separating them.

Allison Krause also said this as she put a flower in an Ohio National Guardsman's gun at Kent State University on the weekend of May 4th, 1970, less than two months ago. Later, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protestors, wounding nine and killing four, including Miss Krause. Since then, students nationwide have protested in the name of peace and a growing distrust of the government's motivations to use deadly force, both at home and around the world.

Of course, the photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, just 14 years old, will live in infamy for generations. The chilling scene still haunts me, the young girl wailing over the body of a fallen boy with shaggy hair and a pair of flat-soled sneakers.

B&W photograph of a dark-haired white teenager kneeling in the road next to a prone body with her arms outstretched and her face raised in shock and grief, as a crowd of concerned people begins to re-congregate
Mary Ann Vecchio, 14, cries over the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of the four victims during the Kent State Massacre on May 4, 1970.

And just four days later, during a New York City protest honoring that boy in his sneakers and the other students that died, a band of several hundred laborers and office workers also took to the streets. The Hard Hat Riot was a culture clash that illustrates the divide in America.

Long hair versus trim cuts. Band shirts versus button-downs. Bell bottoms versus slacks. This division is more than a generational or political gap. Our country is splitting down the seams of ideology. The Hippies had been a countercultural movement in the sixties, but I am certain that events like these will transform their radical ideals and fashions into the mainstream.

B&W photograph of clean-cut white men in belted trousers wearing sunglasses and hard-hats kicking at a smaller-group of long-haired, jeans-wearing people sitting hunched protectively on the ground
Though people on opposite sides of the picket line see dramatically different messages when they judge the fashion identities of these men, the message couldn't be clearer. The rift in America will have a lasting impact.

Since the Vietnam War protests began in 1965, “Flower Power” has been a consistent message for the movement, expressed in wacky, beautiful, creative, and bold ways. Daisies, a flower ubiquitous across the nation in gardens and the wild, is the flower of choice with its pure white petals and plush center. The term signals a commitment to pacifism and peaceful protest but is transforming before our eyes.

B&W fashion photograph of a white man with a neatly trimmed moustache and a styled mop of curls and a pair of glasses where the lenses have been blacked out, and the right lens has been painted over with a stylized daisy blossom.  He wears multiple long strands of beads as necklaces over a floral/paisley patterned dress shirt with a matching neck-tie
A British man wearing a provocative flowerpot hat decorated in silk flowers with a pair of spectacles, one of which is patterned as a daisy. He likely wore this to a festival in 1967.

Continue reading [June 26, 1970] Hard Hats & Flower Power Collide →

No comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 24, 1970] In love with "Ishmael in Love" (July Fantasy and Science Fiction)

5 Comments

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

Mazel tov!

This article is going to be short on news as the Marcus family has been occupied this past week.  The Journey has had its first inter-staff wedding!  The Young Traveler and Trek Correspondent Elijah broke the glass under the chupah on the 19th.  Sadly, the pictures aren't back from the Fotomat, so in lieu of that, here is a shot from my nephew David's wedding to Ada Argov in Israel from 1962.

Very blurry black-and-white photograph of a couple at their wedding. The bride is wearing a translucent veil and a slim, sleeveless, unadorned white dress. The groom is wearing a plain white shirt, black pants, and a conic hat.

The issue at hand

Between last-minute dress alterations and sifting through RSVPs, I managed to snatch time to read the stories of this month's Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Unlike the marriage of Lorelei and Elijah, it is not a flawless affair, but it is also not without its charms.  Let's take a look:

Cover for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for July 1970. It announces stories by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, L. Sprague de Camp, Joanna Russ, Barry Malzberg, and Sterling Lanier. The cover illustration shows two men in long robes, one with a wizard hat and the other with a horned helmet. At the center of the illustration is a human face with mechanical eyes.
by Ronald Walotsky

Continue reading [June 24, 1970] In love with "Ishmael in Love" (July Fantasy and Science Fiction) →

5 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 22, 1970] We’ll All Go Together When We Go (Doctor Who: Inferno [Parts 5-7])

Leave a comment


By Jessica Holmes

We last left the Doctor trapped on a parallel world, surrounded by fascists, monsters, and fascist monsters. Does the final serial of this year’s run go out in a blaze of glory, or does it all go up in smoke?

Welcome to the end… of Inferno.

The drilling facility with smoke billowing out and an eerie red glow.
This looks perfectly normal…

Continue reading [June 22, 1970] We’ll All Go Together When We Go (Doctor Who: Inferno [Parts 5-7]) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 18th, 1970] A Case of Déjà Vu (Vision of Tomorrow #10)

Leave a comment

Black & White Photo of writer of piece Kris Vyas-Mall
By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

As I am writing this, voting in the UK General Election is taking place. However, we will have to wait until tomorrow for the results. As such, I want to address one of the biggest perpetual issues in Britain, the housing crisis.

It has become a kind of a dark joke over the last 50 years. At election time, every party leader will say how much they feel for the plight of the homeless and pledge to end the crisis. Then, as soon as voting is over, they will go back to ignoring the issue. Therefore, I feel, it is worth listing off the endemic problems causing this.

For a start, there is the obvious matter of money and organization. The UK spends a smaller share of GDP than the rest of Western Europe on housing and leaves decisions in the hands of local councils, which have a patchwork of plans. On top of that, housing building largely relies on the private sector who are more interested in high-priced luxury developments than on those for the poorest families.

Colour photo of the Ronan Point tower block, post-disaster where one corner has collapsed with ceilings hanging like loose tiles
Ronan Point, post-disaster

With this combination of political short-terminism, lack of investment and reliance on the private sector, it has led to a lot of poor-quality housing stock. An infamous example was the Ronan Point Disaster, where a gas explosion collapsed the corner of a tower block.

Black and White Advertisements for Homeless Charity Shelter. On the Left is one with a knife. The text reads: Sentenced the day he was born. He was born in a crumbling tenement, grew up in a room his family shared with rats and cockroaches. With no hope of escapee. He lived like a wild animal and was put away when he reacted like one. Over a million people live in conditions that are breeding grounds for delinquency, mental and physical illness, illiteracy, broken marriages. Shelter helps re-house some of the most badly off, and fights to get something going for the others. Our crying need is money. Give to shelter and you help give him a decent chance. The advert on the right has a razor blade. The text says: If Mrs. F. kills herself, it'll be third time lucky. For Mrs. F. death would be a happy release from the stinking hole she and her family live in. Twice she's tried suicide. To escape the stench, the damp, the flying insects, the peeling walls. At least a million people live in conditions that are breeding grounds that spawn mental and physical illness, crime, illiteracy, broken marriages. Shelter helps rescue some of the worst-hit and campaigns vigorously to get something done for the rest. But it's a big job. It takes big money. Please give all you can.
Some of Shelter’s recent advertisements

With this lack of a political solution, it is unsurprising that several groups in the voluntary sector have been trying to fill the gap. The biggest of these is Shelter and, whilst all major parties praise their work, they seem to be getting sick of the situation. They are now withholding funds from local authorities that don’t help the poorest in their communities and running advertisements blaming the current biggest social ills on the housing crisis.

There are also other groups taking more direct action. Running in the election in London is a loose party grouping called “Homes Before Roads”, opposing the plans to try to deal with London’s congestion by building a series of ring roads through current residential districts. In a different way there is also the Squatters’ Movement, who are taking control of empty housing stock and trying to get official recognition for their use by those who cannot afford to go anywhere else.

However, I am not hopeful of even direct action resulting in a solution. Whether Wilson or Heath are Prime Minister next week, I suspect the situation will still be much the same in the mid-70s: homelessness and poor-quality housing are endemic; the political parties say what a scandal this is; make vague promises at a solution; promptly ignore it again.

I am also getting a sense of déjà vu from the latest issue of Vision of Tomorrow, with an expansion of articles on the history of SF and the writers retreading old ground:

Vision of Tomorrow #10

Painted Colour cover for Vision of Tomorrow #10 (July 1970). Cover illustrating Echoes of Armageddon by Lee Harding. It shows the close up of the face of a man of ambiguous ethnicity in an environmental suit looking scared. In front of him are two people in environmental suits running along a path way dodging laser fire from futuristic flying drones. Behind this all is shadowy ruined Earth.
Cover by Stanley Pitt

Continue reading [June 18th, 1970] A Case of Déjà Vu (Vision of Tomorrow #10) →

No comments Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 17, 1970] Time and Again (June Galactoscope Part Two!)

1 Comment

So many books this month, and this time, we've got all superlatives.  Check out the second June Galactoscope!

Continue reading [June 17, 1970] Time and Again (June Galactoscope Part Two!) →

1 Comment Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 16, 1970] Solaris, Year of the Quiet Sun…and a host of others (June 1970 Galactoscope #1)

2 Comments

This month saw such a bumper crop of books (and a bumper crop of Journey reviewers!) that we've split it in two. This first one covers two of the more exciting books to come out in some time, as well as the usual acceptables and mediocrities.  As Ted Sturgeon says: 90% of everything is crap.  But even if the books aren't all worth your time, the reviews always are!  Dive in, dear readers…

collage of six book covers described more thoroughly below

Continue reading [June 16, 1970] Solaris, Year of the Quiet Sun…and a host of others (June 1970 Galactoscope #1) →

2 Comments Leave A Comment