“… the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonise the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease called the great loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. Those few who survived found no welcome on Mars. But more rockets arrived from earth, and more.
People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies and tainted dreams.”
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
At first glance it might seem slightly odd to begin a study on robots with an excerpt from a classic science fiction short story describing the human colonisation of Mars, but in these few choice words, Ray Bradbury succeeds in humanising one of our more spectacular technological futures. Space colonisation perhaps sits alongside the robot as one of the most popular and pervasive future visions but here, in the hands of Bradbury, there is an anomaly: this is no spectacular utopian version filled with complex techno-fetishistic portrayals of perfect leisurely future lives; nor is it an apocalyptic cautionary tale warning us of how badly things can go wrong when technology is allowed to progress without constraint, the perspective most commonly taken by writers of science fiction. Bradbury simply describes a future in which we will still be people. His subtle and moving description of the colonisation of Mars reminds us that the recipients of future technologies will have the same complex needs and desires that define who and what we are today.
[bravo!]