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For a full list of previous issues, go to: "Science Fiction Newsletter - Archives"    November 1, 2011 Editor: EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger   Co-Editor: D. R. Prescott  Guest Editor: EvilDawg - A Vigilante Ranger!   1. About this Newsletter 2. Special Feature #1 3. Special Feature #2 4. Editor's Picks 5. Ask & Answer  Jupiter in Science Fiction Being the largest of our solar system's planets, and having 63 named moons, Jupiter and its surrounding space offers the science fiction writer an almost endless supply of settings. EvilDawg - A Vigilante Ranger! , making his first appearance as Guest Editor, starts us off with the first of two Special Features by explaining important facts about Jupiter. This is information that any writer would need to set a story on or near the massive gas giant. I would also like to welcome back my co-editor, D. R. Prescott , who has contributed a particularly engaging look at Jovian literature.My biggest problem with this issue was finding quotations related to Jupiter. As Newsletter readers know, I try to include relevant quotations for every topic. I usually find them on the Internet, but searching for Jupiter quotes resulted in a ton of Roman god references, and not many related to the planet. But I did come across an interesting quote I thought I should include here. I got it from the ultimate source of knowledge... Facebook: "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it's difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine." Abraham Lincoln  "If we knew exactly what to expect throughout the Solar System, we would have no reason to explore it." Poul (William) Anderson Jupiter There are four Gas Giants in the Solar System; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together they are commonly referred to as the Jovian Planets. Jupiter is the largest of all of the planets in our Solar System and is the fifth planet from the sun. It has a mass one-thousandth that of the sun but is two and a half times the mass of all other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter is composed mainly of Hydrogen and Helium. It is banded due to the fast rotations which causes many storms and turbulence; the most popular of which is the Great Red Spot. This planet was known to ancient astronomers and is deep-rooted in ancient cultures' mythology. The Romans named this planet Jupiter after the Roman God of the same name. The observation of Jupiter dates back, pre-telescopic, to the Babylonian Astronomers of the seventh and eighth century BC. A Chinese astronomical historian states that Gan De discovered one of Jupiter's moons in 362 BC. If this is true, it would pre-date Galileo's discovery by nearly two millennia. Galileo Galilei (allegedly?) discovered the four largest moons, also known as the Galilean moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter would not be a hospitable place to set up a dwelling or colonize without some major planning and equipment; not mention resources. You see, Jupiter is a Gas Giant which means that there is no surface of Jupiter. It probably has a rocky core but the pressures would be too much for current bio-domes or shelters to exist and most likely any foreseeable future constructions. So, as far as being hospitable for life or existence, this would not be it, unless... Looking back at the June issue of the Science Fiction Newsletter that talks about living in space, living on Jupiter would have to be Cloud Cities or orbiting Space Stations. Obviously both of these options have their own benefits and obstacles. Cloud Cities, like in Star Wars, would have to be domed or use some kind of force fields (For more on force fields I recommend The Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku). Orbiting Space Stations would be good options for trade in the area. Jupiter and her moons, especially the Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) have been a popular Sci-Fi Setting. Jupiter in literature has been popular here on Earth as a form of Science Fiction for a long time. The Mad Moon by Stanley G. Weinbaum was written in 1935 and featured two races; the balloon-headed Loonies and the rat-like Slinkers. Arthur C. Clarke's short, Jupiter Five, and of course, his Space Odyssey series was set on and around Jupiter. Jack Williamson wrote Seetee Ship and Seetee Shock in 1949 about the Soviet Union colonizing the Galilean Moons. There are countless others but these are some of the more popular. I hope you have enjoyed the brief tour of Jupiter in fact and fiction and can find use for the information in your future writing endeavors. "...there are three stars in the heavens moving about Jupiter, as Venus and Mercury about the Sun; which at length was established as clear as daylight by numerous other observations. Galileo Galilei, referring to his pioneering telescope observations Sasoom, AKA: Jupiter, Eurobus: The Astor and Burroughs Connection John Jacob Astor IV (A Journey to Other Worlds, published in 1894) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Skeleton Men Of Jupiter, published in 1943) portray Jupiter in two adventurous science fiction efforts with a surface not too far below its cloud cover and a place where life exists—even thrives. The similarities between their depictions of Jupiter as well as the differences are interesting and engaging especially in the face of what we know today. We know Astor's depiction is fantasy, limited by 19th century perceptions of the other planets in our solar system. Astor explores Jupiter and Saturn in his epic adventure to worlds filled with delights and dangers, even spirits. Burroughs has his long time hero, John Carter, kidnapped from his home planet, Mars (where a thriving population existed) and flown to Jupiter, pictured beneath its cloud cover as a bleak place with a civilization bathed in red light produced by volcanoes. Both authors approach Jupiter's increased gravitation (2.53 times the Earth's) from some interesting angles. In spite of scientific knowledge by the 1940's, Burroughs took on scientific knowledge by dispensing with it in his first paragraph after his preface, John Carter states: "I am no scientist. I am a fighting man. My most beloved weapon is the sword, and during a long life I have seen no reason to alter my theories as to its proper application to the many problems with which I have been faced. This is not true of the scientists. They are constantly abandoning one theory for another one. The law of gravitation is about the only theory that has held throughout my lifetime—and if the earth should suddenly start rotating seventeen times faster than it now does, even the law of gravitation would fail us and we would all go sailing off into space." Astor invents apergy, a new force, an imaginative counterpart of gravitation. With it all things are possible. They use it to power a spaceship built to go to Jupiter and Saturn by using the repulsive force of apergy and the attractive force of gravity, initially with push and pull sessions with the Earth and Moon, to slingshot their craft to high speeds. At Jupiter, apergy's repulsive force and attractive force use Juptier and one of its moons to decelerate. On the huge planets, they wear suits with apergetic capabilities offsetting the increased gravity giving them easy mobility as they deal with huge dinosaurs on an exotic, tropical world at a stage the Earth was a hundred million years ago, big beasts, and all. Burroughs took a novel approach to handling Jupiter's increased gravity. On the bleak world of the Skeleton Men weight is offset by the rotational velocity of the surface of the planet. Jupiter spins once in 9.8 hours which makes his characters lighter than on Earth. Why? John Carter explains it in some detail: "Unquestionably, the mass of Jupiter is far greater than that of earth or Mars, yet I felt the gravitational pull far less than I had upon earth. It was even less than that which I had experienced upon Mars. This was due, I realized, to the rapid revolution of the planet upon its axis. Centrifugal force, tending to throw me off into space, more than outweighed the increased force of gravitation. I had never before felt so light upon my feet." After nearly 55 years since I first read these two books, I found myself smiling a lot during the reread. Today, we know that Jupiter is a gaseous world, with possibly a dense core with heavy elements and maybe twice the size of Earth. Surrounding that core, if it exists, is dense metallic and molecular hydrogen out to about eighty per cent of the planet's diameter; top that off with a swirling, high-speed atmosphere mostly of hydrogen, helium and a dash of methane, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, water and other trace elements. Jupiter challenges imaginative science fiction writers. Modern science fiction writers have to dispense with a Jupiter or Saturn with a hard, livable surface and wondrous sights as Astor or Burroughs did. In fact, rereading these two books written nearly fifty years apart gives one a perspective on the differences in stories, styles, and language of the times. Astor's almost lengthy expositions—especially, the weaving of future history and speculative science into his tale— gives a fascinating glimpse into the creative writer's mind over one hundred years ago whose prognostications are at times eerily prescient. Burroughs was more of a 20th century writer with the science becoming a backdrop to characterization and the plot. Whatever your preferences, both are a fun read, even again. You can find them in eBook form at the Gutenberg Project site (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/) and the best part is they are free, unless of course you wish to donate or participate in the process. Whatever you call it (Sasoom or Eurobos as Burroughs' skeleton men did,) Jupiter and its system of 63 moons offer fertile territory to apply the science in science fiction.
"...as soon as certain people realise that in these books which I have written about the revolutions of the spheres of the universe I attribute certain motions to the globe of the Earth, they will at once clamour for me to be hooted off the stage with such an opinion." Nicolaus Copernicus  "Outside intelligences, exploring the solar system with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris." Isaac Asimov Here is a contest of interest to every science fiction fan! Endorsed by the Unofficial Science Fiction Newsletter!
Writing Dot Com Authors have been visiting Jupiter for a long time! 
Jovian Poetry:
Here's one about Mars, but it fits in nicely with a previous topic about terraforming:
 Guest Editors Wanted! I would like to invite subscribers to contribute to the Science Fiction Newsletter. We are currently taking a tour of the Solar System, looking for interesting destinations for our stories' characters. Consider writing a "Special Feature," based on this or any other scientific of sci-fi interest you may have. Don't hesitate to contact me anytime if this appeals to you! EarlyHours (ed)  Last month's Newsletter topic was Energy Shields and Planet Mercury :From the "Science Fiction Newsletter Forum" comes these:LJPC - the tortoise  : "Thanks for the Oct NL!  I loved the part about shields and had no idea that the idea had been around so long. I've never really wanted to see an SF adventure on Mercury, but all the info was inspiring. Maybe I dismissed Mercury too easily..."EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger : "I think that the only reason to go to Mercury would be to study the Sun. This is of course just my opinion, but I think there are so many more interesting places in the solar system going the other direction, further out. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's rings, Mars, asteroids, Vulcan - all great places to visit. And don't forget that there's an exact twin Earth, where everything is exactly mirror image from Earth, located exactly on the other side of the Sun from us (which is why we can't see it). It'd be fun to visit that too. But don't be surprised if the toilets flush backwards. Except in their Southern Hemisphere, where they flush normally."Light  : "A solar observatory would be the biggest reason to go to Mercury. (I would put them at the poles) But then, some will want to study the planet to see exactly what it is composed of to gain a better understanding of how our solar-system was formed. Geologists would be interested in Mercury, mostly because of the strong gravitational tiding it goes through, during its very slow rotation, and because of the extreme temperature changes its surface experiences during that rotation. But, I don't think the sunny side will be too popular."As far as Earth's twin, at Earth's Lag-point five, how did we get to be so lucky?" Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate the feedback from readers. Keep it coming! - ed.  Don't Be Shy! Write Into This Unofficial Newsletter!Reader feedback and comments is important to the Unofficial Science Fiction Newsletter (USFNL). Much of the Newsletter's content is based on reader feedback and discussion. Feedback can always be sent directly to EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger , but to make discussion even easier, a USFNL Forum has been set up. Feel free to post and interact at the Forum; some of the discussion may end up here! And don't forget to add the Forum (below) to your list of Favorites, and post often!
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