The Darkness between the Stars

Abstract

In chapter 2, Bradbury enters the public debate over the curtailment of the Apollo program, beginning with his Los Angeles Times op-ed column, “Apollo Murdered: The Sun Goes Out.” For the moment, Bradbury placed more hope on unmanned Mars missions such as Mariner 9, and played a prominent role in the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mariner 9 events and book, Mars and the Mind of Man. Bradbury wrote the forward and the conclusion for this book, citing Arnold Toynbee’s concept of “challenge and response,” the need to face up to cultural challenges or face extinction, as the motivation for colonizing other worlds.