{"id":254443,"date":"2025-11-01T01:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254443\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T01:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:40:09","slug":"the-last-stop-in-a-literary-grand-tour-portrays-pluto-the-way-it-really-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254443\/","title":{"rendered":"The last stop in a literary Grand Tour portrays Pluto the way it really is"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission to Pluto has forced astronomers to rewrite their textbooks \u2014 but that\u2019s not all: New Horizons also forced Les Johnson<\/a> to rewrite a novel.<\/p>\n

The space scientist was tasked with taking notes that the famed science-fiction writer and editor Ben Bova<\/a> left behind when he died in 2020, and turning them into a novel set on Pluto to close out Bova\u2019s Grand Tour series of solar system tales.<\/p>\n

In the material that Bova had written for \u201cPluto,\u201d<\/a> he described a rocky world with just a little bit of ice on it. But when Johnson sent those notes to planetary scientist Alan Stern, the New Horizons mission\u2019s principal investigator, had to set him straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis first comment back to me was, \u2018We never found anything on Pluto that was anything like that,’\u201d Johnson says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast<\/a>. \u201cAnd so I realized at that point that I was going to have to go back and revise the science behind the story of the environment on Pluto.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is one of the first works of fiction that provides detailed descriptions of Pluto\u2019s true surroundings, right down to the orange-tinged ice sheet of Sputnik Planitia and the dark and dirty spot on Charon, Pluto\u2019s largest moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cPluto\u201d capitalizes on Johnson\u2019s experience as a NASA researcher as well as an author of nonfiction science books, science-fiction novels and short stories<\/a>. He was chosen to complete Bova\u2019s final project in part because the two of them collaborated on an earlier novel, \u201cRescue Mode,\u201d<\/a> more than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there\u2019s a lot of fiction blended in with the science in \u201cPluto.\u201d The mix roughly reflects the proportion of rock to ice on the dwarf planet: 30% solid stuff, and 70% that\u2019s not as weighty but very cool. The novel is set in the 22nd century, when humans are starting to merge with machines and get data back from Proxima Centauri b<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The spark that sets the novel\u2019s plot in motion is the detection of an alien artifact deep beneath the icy surface of a Plutonian region known as Sputnik Planitia. Scientists and military leaders from the U.S. Space Force, China and Russia struggle to deal with the events that are set in motion by that discovery \u2014 and there\u2019s even a shipboard romance that develops between two of the novel\u2019s main characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cPluto is the background for the book, and what they find on Pluto is the source of the drama in the book,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cBut I had another objective in this, and I think Ben was going there. And that is that as we expand into the solar system, we won\u2019t necessarily be leaving back here on Earth our humanity, both the good and the bad. Our rivalries, our personal tragedies, as well as temptations \u2026 will go with the folks that take these arduous, long trips.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/a> Ben Bova (left) and Les Johnson (right) are authors of \u201cPluto,\u201d the last novel in Bova\u2019s Grand Tour series. (Credit: Tor Books)<\/p>\n

Johnson suspects that the Space Force and other military fleets will be part of the space exploration saga, even in the 22nd century.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can imagine, in 100 years, maybe 200 years, the U.S. may not be the same U.S. we are today, but I envision it\u2019ll still be around,\u201d he says. \u201cMaybe we\u2019ll be bigger, with other countries having joined, to be morphed into something. But I suspect China will be around, and I suspect Russia will be around, and probably India will be a space power in that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of other twists in the novel reflect Johnson\u2019s suspicions about life in the 22nd century. For example, one of the characters is a scientist who went through a horrible accident and had to have his brain merged with an AI. \u201cHe\u2019s essentially a digital consciousness that can transfer from machine to machine and retain his self, his human volition and thoughts, augmented by AI,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n

If such an entity ever comes into existence, Johnson thinks that could pose a problem. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be extremely utilitarian, and I think it will want to make decisions based on utility rather than compassion and humanity,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think those kinds of things might be an issue if we ever do achieve this notion of uploading human consciousness. Will we still have our humanity and our empathy, or will we also become utilitarian?\u201d<\/p>\n

In another passage of the book, Johnson works in a reference to VR addiction \u2014 which may be scarily close to a present-day societal ill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am extremely concerned by it,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cThis has been the focus of some of my nonfiction writing as well as my fiction. I really see how much our younger generation \u2014 young men in particular, not exclusively \u2014 are seduced by online gaming, and it takes away a lot of the desire to go out and actually do things.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, where does Johnson stand on a completely different controversy? Is Pluto a planet, or isn\u2019t it? Johnson says he\u2019s OK with calling Pluto a dwarf planet rather than a \u201cfull-blown planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of nomenclature for me, because as we found all these other objects out there in the Kuiper Belt which are Pluto-like \u2026 they had to do something when they started encountering all these other objects,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m excited by all these other dwarf planets that we see beyond Pluto<\/a>, and I don\u2019t have too much trouble classifying Pluto in with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson hopes that \u201cPluto\u201d will leave readers with a sense of wonder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be my mental model of what I would like readers of this book to say to themselves when they finish it: \u2018Wow, what is out there?’\u201d he says. \u201cThe scientist in me, the one who\u2019s worked at NASA for 35 years and just retired, wants to tell them, \u2018Great, I want to help answer that. Go tell your congressman to send more money so we can figure out what\u2019s out there.\u2019 So I have to admit, there\u2019s a bit of a selfish mode in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0
Check out the original version of this item at Cosmic Log<\/a> for more about books that focus on Pluto, Ben Bova’s Grand Tour and Les Johnson’s insights on interstellar flight.<\/p>\n

Les Johnson<\/a> retired from his day job as chief technologist at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in September, but he\u2019s still involved in the space business as CEO of Infinite Frontiers Consulting<\/a>. His most recently published science-fiction novel, \u201cCrisis at Proxima,\u201d<\/a> was written in partnership with Travis S. Taylor and has just come out in paperback. He\u2019s currently working on his next novel \u2014 \u201cMonster Hunter: The Alien Files,\u201d co-written with Larry Correia<\/a> \u2014 as well as an upcoming nonfiction book about space exploration.<\/p>\n

Fiction Science is included in FeedSpot\u2019s 100 Best Sci-Fi Podcasts<\/a>. Stay tuned for future episodes of the Fiction Science<\/a> podcast via Apple<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Player.fm<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a> and Podchaser<\/a>. If you like Fiction Science, please rate the podcast and subscribe to get alerts for future episodes.*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission to Pluto has forced astronomers to rewrite their textbooks \u2014 but that\u2019s not all:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-254443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}