Locus Award Finalist and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship Recipient Fred Nadis

Fred Nadis was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program for his book Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe. He has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He has authored two prior books, Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, and Religion in America, and The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer's Amazing Pulp Journey, a Locus Nonfiction Award Finalist. He has published essays in the Atlantic and Vanity Fair online and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Science and Popular Culture.

What is it about the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1940s/50s) and the New Wave movement in science fiction (60s/70s) that has fascinated many of the scientists and billionaire space explorers today? Did the "pulp era" (20s/30s) have any sort of role to play, or was that much too early on?

I’d credit the pulp era for spawning interest in spacefaring (and time travel and robots and multiple dimensions—very big in the 1930s). Pulp magazines like Amazing Stories didn’t just nurture the idea of interplanetary travel—writers for Hugo Gernsback’s Science Wonder Stories started the American Rocket Society in 1930 and it quickly became more than just a fan group. Its members devised their first test liquid fuel rocket at a cost of $49.  Several went on to found Reaction Motors which built the engines for the Bell X-1 rocket plane in which Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. Readers of 1920s and 1930s science-fiction magazines could regard them as escapist fantasy or as potential, if far-fetched, blueprints. It is interesting that Robert Goddard, who already had many rocket patents by the 1920s, kept his distance and didn’t agree to be on Gernsback’s advisory board. But it was when he was a teenager and read H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds that Goddard first developed his rocketry dreams.

What was it like studying under E.L. Doctorow?

I took several classes with him and he came across as wise, bemused, slightly cagey, and, not surprising, if you’ve read Doctorow’s novels, decent. He knew how good he was but didn’t ooze egotism. Only last year I read one of his later novels The March, which is a wonderful depiction of all the bounders, thieves, and opportunists (both northerners and southerners) that accompanied or shadowed General Sherman’s army on his march through the South. In his books, he reinvigorated the historical novel genre—and he took me out to a Mexican restaurant on lower Broadway once to discuss my thesis, so I can always brag I had lunch with E.L. Doctorow.

How much of billionaire space exploration is just pure ego and capitalism? How much is just plain crackpot ideas? 

It is almost required that you start a rocketry company if you are a multi-billionaire these days. Space settlement can seem a little crazed, especially if it’s part of an “abandon Earth” strategy—in that case it’s about as noble as the movement driving Silicon Valley millionaires to build bunkers to ride out the apocalypse. Yet there is something more than just “crankishness” or status-seeking to spacefaring. Promethean dreams are ingrained in the technological project.  If you are not content with the universe as given and humanity’s “natural” place in it, re-invent it from bottom up. Having said this, for some there is no “dream” involved, just business as usual. Space 2.0 doesn’t elbow out science and adventure, but it is all about profit. The United States signed on to the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, which states that all countries will partake equally of any benefits made available from opening outer space. National or corporate profiteering was denied. That didn’t matter when no one was lining up investors to mine the Moon or asteroids. In recent decades it became an impediment to business schemes. Before leaving office, President Barack Obama signed a law authorizing U.S. companies to mine off-Earth resources. Lawmakers in Luxembourg also have legalized private space mining. Other countries will follow. Space development could spin into some ugly feral capitalism scenarios.

If the opportunity were to present itself within our lifetime, do you think we are ready for space colonization? Is space ready for us?

Space, if it really is bereft of life of any sort, may not care. It takes a mystical, perhaps animistic outlook to believe otherwise—a view I’m open to. But let’s assume we have the ethical green light to muck around on other planets and asteroids. How many thousands of years would it take to terraform another planet, if ever? How pissed off will teenagers be growing up on the Moon or Mars when they learn their bones are too weak to withstand Earth’s gravity—that they are exiles thanks to their elders’ decisions? What will it be like to spend a lifetime on an O’Neill space colony like those Jeff Bezos insists are humankind’s future? Could you stay sane? About a decade ago, James Benford, twin brother of science fiction writer Gregory Benford, estimated it would cost, at a minimum, $42 trillion to build a microwave powered interstellar probe that approached a fraction of the speed of light. Projections like that indicate we may never have the resources for space settlement. For the next few decades it will be tourism, science outposts, and perhaps some early mining efforts. The concept of space tourism for the ultra-wealthy, while it can be cast as part of the great adventure, definitely lacks moral grandeur. I liked hearing that Yusaku Maezawa, the billionaire who has signed on for a tourist flight around the Moon with SpaceX, also plans to take artists with him. Not sure if he’s sticking to that plan or not.  

Are there any authors or books that have influenced the writing of Star Settlers, or are there any authors or books that have influenced you in general that you enjoy reading for pleasure?

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora questioned the idea that our species has a built-in destiny to leave the cradle (Earth) and populate the stars. I thought this a daring bit of sabotage since the concept is central to the science fiction ethos. I had a lengthy (email) interview with Robinson that makes it into the book. George Young’s The Russian Cosmists, while not the last word on the subject, gets to the historical root of this obsession. He profiles the Russian thinkers at the turn of the twentieth century who promoted a “destiny in space” vision.  Philosophers like Nikolai Fedorov and his disciple Konstantin Tsiolkovsky mixed reactionary tendencies with wild speculation about a future in which humankind would resurrect the dead and take to space. They were brilliant but seriously strange. That may be what it will take to settle space.

Having published with a big five publisher, an academic publisher and now an independent book publisher, what do you feel that the indie publishing experience can offer that big five publishers cannot?

Currently, it is kind of fun for my emails to include almost the entire publishing staff at Pegasus. I suspect they will take a personal interest in promoting Star Settlers and getting it out to the public. My academic press, Rutgers University Press, prints on demand—so Wonder Shows remains in print fifteen years later, for which I’m grateful. It was a not-great feeling when my last book Man from Mars with Tarcher/Penguin was remaindered. I had a very good editor there but the post publication experience was pretty impersonal.

What is the research process like for you? Do you find it to be straining at certain times and enjoyable during other times? Have you ever uncovered any hidden gems or hilarious little tidbits?

My first book, Wonder Shows, a historical study, involved lots of time in archives. There is an intellectual rush involved in having your suspicions confirmed or obliterated by what you find. But hanging out in archives, flipping through folders, not surprisingly, gets tedious. My current book Star Settlers allowed me to get out and interview people and profile a movement. For example, I hope I have the definitive interview on the subject of sex in space.  But I also hit the archives. In Wernher von Braun’s scrapbooks at the Library of Congress were quite a few clippings from German newspapers. Normally I would have ignored them since I do not read German. But I had a fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and could take the extra step and hire a translator.  It turned out that in East Germany, in particular, journalists were disgusted by the decision of the U.S. military to bring von Braun and one hundred other Nazi engineers to America to work on guided missiles. One piece was a dialogue between a child and parent in which the boy insists he too would like to be a “war criminal” so that he could eat oranges and pineapples in Texas like von Braun’s team.

How did you find your current literary agent and get Star Settlers published with Pegasus Books?

A decade or two ago, the terrific science fiction writer Christopher Brown lived two doors down from me in Austin. He was busy pursuing a law career and I was in graduate school and our sons were fairly close in age so while hanging out during dad time we talked about science fiction and fantasy and tried to out-do each other in our nerdiness. (I think he won). Not long ago, he told me he had a young enthusiastic literary agent who got things done. (That would be you, Mark Gottlieb). My first pass at Star Settlers was to propose a book focused on the history of interest in Mars. But I couldn’t convince anyone that another book on Mars was needed. Then I came up with Abandon Earth, but the title didn’t really reveal the book’s approach. Star Settlers sums it up better. Once you find a title, it can tell you how the book will shape up. Claiborne Hancock, the Publisher at Pegasus, fortunately, had the wisdom to see the promise in that title.

Do you have any advice for writers hoping to become published nonfiction authors?

My own path has included degrees in creative writing, and jobs on a small town newspaper and in corporate writing, academia, and editing. I got my Ph.D. from a graduate American Studies program where the faculty encouraged students to write their dissertation with the intention that it would be a book, not just academic job bait. That was definitely helpful. My advice? Get your writing chops via some form of journalism and find a topic you can envision “going big” on, with an angle that makes you an expert. Rather than stick to one field, I like to lead with my curiosity and dive into new subcultures, whether nineteenth century science showmen and “mystic vaudeville” performers, twentieth century science fiction writers and flying saucer aficionados, or current spacefaring enthusiasts. It really helps to have an agent, as publishers don’t have time to look at unsolicited material.  

What can we expect next from the writings of Fred Nadis?

Right now I’ve got robots on my mind. But I’d also like to write a travel book. We’ll see!