Pioneers--Past and Future

I love traveling out west. The rugged rocks, deserts, canyons, mountains remind me how difficult the journey was for those who left all behind to forge their way through the wilderness. I can’t imagine how they could leave their families, their friends, everything familiar for the unknown. When we travel, we’re in our air conditioned (or heated) vehicles with restaurants and hotels along the way. Sleeping outdoors? No thank you. Hubs always told his friends that my idea of roughing it was a hotel without a restaurant. (I’ve revised that—roughing it is no coffee maker in the room.)

Now, when I was a lot younger, I did the Girl Scout thing with my daughter. As the leader, I sucked it up and took the girls camping. That was the year Hubs gave me a sleeping bag for my birthday. Nice guy. Actually, I had a good time camping with those ten- to twelve-year-olds. No canvas tents staked to the ground, though. Platform tents. Off the ground. On cots, with mattresses. I know, wimps. The fun part was watching the girls learn to cook over a campfire. You probably would’ve laughed yourself silly watching me make a cookstove using tuna cans, dryer lint and parafin, and a large coffee can. Hey, it worked. I loved the girls’ excitement seeing nature up close and personal, their amazement at how bright the stars are at night away from the city lights. We all knew this wasn’t roughing it. We went home on Sunday to showers and flush toilets.

Those pioneers in the 17th and 18th centuries had to be stalwart souls. Brave and maybe a little crazy. And the women did all that roughing it in dresses. With petticoats. And corsets. Can you imagine? Trust me, if I was living back then and Hubs said we’re moving to Colorado—or wherever—after I screamed “are you nuts?” and cried my eyes out, I sure wouldn’t have packed dresses. Okay, maybe a couple for propriety’s sake, but then I would’ve found pants and shirts and ditched the corset.

Leaving my family behind would have been the worst. I know a little about this. In the 1980’s, we followed Hubs’ job from Michigan to Missouri. Our parents were fifteen hours away—that was during the oil crisis and the speed limit was fifty-five. No Internet, no email, no Skype, no free long-distance phone calls. We kept in contact the old-fashioned way—short phone calls and letters. For the pioneers, the only method of communicating with family back home was letters and service wasn’t all that good.

Now, imagine how it would be to leave this planet. To venture into the frontier of space. We know there’s a time lag between transmission and reception of communication between Earth and our moon. Even with relay satellites, the farther you travel from Earth the longer the lag time. Until no communication at all. Jayne Castle writes a series about pioneers who left Earth and then, because of circumstances, discovered there was no way to return, no way to communicate with those back home. Isolated, those pioneers had to start over.

Starting over isn’t such a bad thing, though. Some people left for our western frontier to escape, to leave behind a bad life or reputation, to start anew. Starting with The Pilot, my new Outer Rim series takes place on the frontier of space, an area far away from the “civilized” planets with their central government. The Rim is a place of dreams, where you can be whatever you want to be.

If you had the chance, would you be a pioneer? Either in the past or in the future?

Pioneers

This week, I'm continuing my observations gleaned during our road trip to Arizona. As we drove along superhighways in a comfortable, air-conditioned car, I thought about the pioneers who went that way back in the 19th century. Wow. What courage it must have taken to pack up a few of one's belongings, leave everything and everybody behind, and set off for a new life.

Why would anyone wrestle with horses or oxen pulling a flimsy wagon—covered with canvas, if they were lucky—on a barely recognizable track through harsh weather, getting stuck in mud, fording rivers, going long stretches without water across mountains and deserts?

Each pioneer must have had strong reasons for leaving their current life behind for the unknown. Freedom of open spaces as opposed to crowded cities? The opportunity to own land? Escape from something or someone pursuing them? The thrill of adventure? The reasons are probably as varied as the individuals who ventured forth into the frontier.

Today, there is no frontier, no new place to explore. On Earth. As each Star Trek episode began, we were told space is the final frontier. Fifty years ago, we were in a race to explore space. The U.S. had to beat the Soviets. That is rather ironic considering now if we want to send astronauts into space we will be using Russian ships. Anyway, back in the 60s, we marveled at each baby step the U.S. took to reach the ultimate goal—putting a man on the moon. We sat in front of our television sets riveted by the spectacle of a rocket carrying a man, and later more, as it blasted off, leaving behind a fiery trail. Then, it actually happened. We reached that goal set forth by a visionary president. Men walked on our moon.

Once upon a time, I knew the names of the original astronauts. They were heroes. They were given ticker-tape parades. All too soon, we grew complacent. Does anyone even know what a ticker-tape parade is these days? Another space mission? Big whoop. Oh, sure, we paid attention when disaster struck. Better call it off. It's too dangerous. I'm sure there were people back in the 1800s who said going west was too dangerous. People might die. And they did. Yet, that didn't stop others.

So, what about the new "frontier"? Space. How did we fall down on the job? We reached the moon over 40 years ago and then went nowhere else. Yes, we built reusable space vehicles (the shuttles). We built space stations—jumping off points for further exploration, yet we went nowhere. As a nation, we had no goals, nothing more to reach for. Nobody fired our imagination, gave us dreams. The benefits of space exploration were not touted—especially those inventions designed for our astronauts that save lives, things we use daily. (FMI, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off )

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. What would necessitate space exploration? Will it take our planet's dying to give us the kick in the butt to explore? Or, better yet, will private enterprise take over? Amazingly, while we were driving through New Mexico, we heard about the dedication of Virgin Galactic's Spaceport America in Las Cruces the day before. We were so close and missed it. That would have been exciting to see. They even plan space flights for next year. Of course, it would take a small fortune to go. But, imagine the thrill. Just like the pioneers of long ago. Maybe we'll get farther than our own moon this time.

I get a little carried away. After all these years, I'm still enthralled by what's "up there". That's probably why I write space adventures.