It's a Small Solar System

_Frederik Pohl wrote recently about the time, when he was young, when he spent more time in Barsoom than in Brooklyn. Allan Howard, Director of the Eastern Science Fiction Association in Newark, takes us back to those nostalgic days in this vignette of man's first hours on Mars._

it's a small solar system

by ALLAN HOWARD

Soon the three representatives of Earth were walking shoulder to shoulder, the Captain first to touch soil.

Know him?

Well you might say I practically grew up with him. He was my hero in those days. I thought few wiser or greater men ever lived. In my eyes he was greater than Babe Ruth, Lindy, or the President.

Of course, time, and my growing up caused me to bring him into a perspective that I felt to be more consonant with his true position in his field of endeavor. When he died his friends mourned for fond remembrance of things past, but privately many of them felt that he had outlived his best days. Now with this glorious vindication, I wonder how many of them are still alive to feel the twinge of conscience....

Oh, we're delighted of course, but it seems incredible even today to us elated oldsters. Although we were always his staunchest admirers, in retrospect we can see now that no one believed more than we that he did it strictly for the dollar. It is likely there was always a small corps of starry-eyed adolescents who found the whole improbable saga entirely believable, or at least half believed it might be partly true. The attitude of the rest of us ranged from a patronizing disparagement that we thought was expected of us, through grudging admiration, to out-and-out enthusiasm.

Certainly if anybody had taken the trouble to consider it--and why should they have?--the landing of the first manned ship on our satellite seemed to render him as obsolete as a horde of other lesser and even greater lights. At any rate, it was inevitable that the conquest of the moon would be merely a stepping-stone to more distant points.

Oh, no, I had nothing to do with the selection of the Red Planet. Coming in as head of Project P-4 in its latter stages, as I did when Dr. Fredericks died, the selection had already been made. Yes, it's quite likely I may have been plugging for Mars below the conscious level. A combination of chance, expediency and popular demand made Mars the next target, rather than Venus, which was, in some ways, the more logical goal. I would have given anything to have gone, but the metaphorical stout heart that one reporter once credited me with is not the same as an old man's actual fatty heart.

And there were heartbreak years ahead before the Goddard was finally ready. During this time he slipped further into obscurity while big, important things were happening all around us. You're right, that one really big creation of his is bigger than ever. It has passed into the language, and meant employment for thousands of people. Too few of them have even heard of him. Of course, he was still known and welcomed by a small circle of acquaintances, but to the world at large he was truly a "forgotten man."

It is worthy of note that one of the oldest of these acquaintances was present at blast-off time. He happened to be the grandfather of a certain competent young crewman. The old man was a proud figure during the brief ceremonies and his eyes filled with tears as the mighty rocket climbed straight up on its fiery tail. He remained there gazing up at the sky long after it had vanished.

He was heard to murmur, "I am glad the kid could go, but it is just a lark to him. He never had a 'sense of wonder.' How could he--nobody reads anymore."