YASID: Relativistic Sub-Light Couriers

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

This was a short story, possibly in an old _Analog_. A space drive capable
of high sub-light speeds has been developed and there are colonies in many
nearby star systems. The colonies stay in touch with Earth by means of
small courier ships, crewed by two people each. The space drive is like
that of the Overlords in _Childhood's End_ in that the ships accelerate
to their relativistic cruising speed in just a few days, so that the crew
experience a subjective trip time of just a few months on each voyage.
This results in them becoming temporal castaways, and each of the
few people willing to do this has their own motivation. The protagonist
enjoys being able to "fast forward" through history, following social and cultural developments.

I remember a couple of details. In this future some fiction has become
legend, and visitors to Hong Kong sometimes try to find the apartment where
Suzie Wong lived. This seems plausible; when I visited Mount Rushmore
one of the park rangers mentioned that tourists there often ask about the
house on top of the mountain, as seen in Alfred Hitchcock's film
_North by Northwest_.

Given the operating characteristics of the space drive, navigation is
extremely critical during the acceleration phase of the flight.
Once they are established on course the crew just has to monitor
systems until it is time to decelerate. When asked by non-astronauts
what it's like to pilot a starship, the protagonist's partner
will typically answer, "It's simple enough: second star to the right
and straight on till morning."

Thank you,

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Lynn McGuire]

Sounds like something from Joe Haldeman or Ben Bova.

Lynn

[Robert Carnegie]

But the last bit is from Peter Pan. (and Star Trek)

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <05a96acf-7595-4a05...@googlegroups.com>,

Probably not it as only parts of it fit, but I remember a story
about two astronauts who watched the world change by going on long
STL relativistic trips. One was American, and one was Soviet, and
they were both astounded and concerned that somehow the British
were making a comeback and becoming dominant again. They analyzed
the changes in British society that made that possible, and tried
to introduce equivalent changes in their own societies and keep
tabs. (The story ended with the idea, so they may or may not have
been successful).

I want to say Mack Reynolds, but that's just a guess.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Lee Gleason]

>I remember a couple of details. In this future some fiction has become
>legend, and visitors to Hong Kong sometimes try to find the apartment where
>Suzie Wong lived. This seems plausible; when I visited Mount Rushmore
>one of the park rangers mentioned that tourists there often ask about the
>house on top of the mountain, as seen in Alfred Hitchcock's film
>_North by Northwest_.

I dunno about the story, but, since most of what I've learned about the
world came from reading science fiction, this sort of thing happens to me
every once in a while. For instance, I spent about an hour one day looking
for the Dorothy Parker monument in Jack London Square, eloquently described
at length in one of the War Against the Chtorr books. Turns out it was a
joke that had whooshed over my head....

--
Lee K. Gleason N6ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.g...@comcast.net

[Robert Woodward]

In article <fk9kb9...@mid.individual.net>,
t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:

> In article <05a96acf-7595-4a05...@googlegroups.com>,

<SNIP Re: story in which crews of high speed spaceships watch society
change>

>
> Probably not it as only parts of it fit, but I remember a story
> about two astronauts who watched the world change by going on long
> STL relativistic trips. One was American, and one was Soviet, and
> they were both astounded and concerned that somehow the British
> were making a comeback and becoming dominant again. They analyzed
> the changes in British society that made that possible, and tried
> to introduce equivalent changes in their own societies and keep
> tabs. (The story ended with the idea, so they may or may not have
> been successful).
>
> I want to say Mack Reynolds, but that's just a guess.

"Philosopher's Stone" by Christopher Anvil

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
ã-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <robertaw-6C14FA...@news.individual.net>,

Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>In article <fk9kb9...@mid.individual.net>,
> t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:
>
>> In article <05a96acf-7595-4a05...@googlegroups.com>,
>
><SNIP Re: story in which crews of high speed spaceships watch society
>change>
>
>>
>> Probably not it as only parts of it fit, but I remember a story
>> about two astronauts who watched the world change by going on long
>> STL relativistic trips. One was American, and one was Soviet, and
>> they were both astounded and concerned that somehow the British
>> were making a comeback and becoming dominant again. They analyzed
>> the changes in British society that made that possible, and tried
>> to introduce equivalent changes in their own societies and keep
>> tabs. (The story ended with the idea, so they may or may not have
>> been successful).
>>
>> I want to say Mack Reynolds, but that's just a guess.
>
>"Philosopher's Stone" by Christopher Anvil
>

Hmm, I would not (demonstrably) have guessed Anvil, but it definitely
does fit the kind of thing he would do.

[Moriarty]

It's whooshing over mine right now. Care to explain?

-Moriarty

[Quadibloc]

I knew they were both famous authors.

Other than that, I couldn't have guessed a specific joke, but
a Google search turns up one additional thing they had in
common; a tendency to imbibe.