As a followup to my last post on Reading for Generation Mars, I’d like to reference this piece by Becky Chambers at the Tor.com blog. She wrote it after meeting a (real! live!) astronaut and realizing that what she does is important to science and progress too, and not in an abstract way.
The fact is that if space exploration—in whatever form—is going to continue onward, it needs all the support we can muster. We need public outreach, like what the astronaut was doing, to be aware of the work that’s already being done, and to spark the next generation to follow in their footsteps. We need quality education, and a larger emphasis on scientific literacy, both in the classroom and beyond.
And we need science fiction. Now, more than ever.
We need to consider which futures are worth pursuing, which ideas we’ve outgrown, and what dangers (both practical and ethical) could be lurking along the way. Science fiction is the great thought experiment that addresses all of these things, and there is no branch of it that is not hugely relevant today. We need stories based around existing technologies, to help us determine our immediate actions. We need near-future stories that explore where our efforts might lead us in our lifetime. We need stories that take the long view, encouraging us to invest in better futures for distant generations. We need space operas, to remind us to be daring. We need apocalypses, to remind us to be cautious. We need realistic stories, and ridiculous stories, and everything in between, because all of these encourage us to dream (perhaps the ridiculous ones most especially). We need all of it.
I found this to be a really nice summary of so many of the reasons why fiction, and science fiction in particular, is important. Sure, it’s just one element in a matrix of education, outreach and exploration, but it’s in there.
Now I’m going to go write something:)
J.R. Johnson 
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