Red Star, Winter Orbit

Last updated
"Red Star, Winter Orbit"
Short story by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Country Canada
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction
Publication
Published in Omni , Burning Chrome , Mirrorshades
Publication type Anthology
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Publication dateJuly 1983
Chronology
Arrleft.svg 
Burning Chrome
 Arrright.svg
The Winter Market

"Red Star, Winter Orbit" is a short story written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the 1980s. [1] It was first published in Omni in July 1983, and later collected in Burning Chrome , a 1986 anthology of Gibson's early short fiction, and in Sterling's 1986 cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades . The story is set in an alternate future where the Soviet Union controls most of the Earth's resources, especially oil. As a result of this the United States is no longer a dominant economic power on earth and the Soviets have won the space race.

Contents

Science fiction critic Takayuki Tatsumi regards the story as a descriptive account of "the failure of the dream of space exploration", reminiscent of J. G. Ballard's "inner space/outer space" motif. [2] Gibson scholar Tatiani Rapatzikou commented that the motif of the space station was used by the authors as a "symbol of the tension and uneasiness the characters or readers experience every time they deal with the artificiality of their technological world". [2]

Plot summary

The story takes place on the Soviet space station Kosmograd ("Cosmic City"), which consists of a number of Salyuts linked together. The station has both civilian and military roles; the military portion is a base for the operation for two large particle beam weapons for shooting down ICBMs. The civilian side, once a hub for space exploration, is now reduced to a maintenance role for the engineers running the station. Most of the story takes place in one of the Salyuts that has been set aside as the "Museum of the Soviet Triumph in Space." Its caretaker is cosmonaut Colonel Yuri Vasilevich Korolev, the first man to visit Mars.

As the story opens, the military role is no longer required now that the United States has lost superpower status and the threat of ICBMs is gone. The government decides to stop crewing the station, but this would involve a loss of face as they would be abandoning their last occupied space presence. At first they plan on blaming the station's shutdown on the civilian crew's black market activities, the minor trafficking in American media. When he hears of the shutdown, Korolev organizes a strike, demanding the charges be dropped. He is ignored, and the station rapidly deteriorates.

On the ground, a purge starts within the space establishment that removes most of the "old guard." The remaining administrators decide to put the station in a decaying orbit, and blame the Kosmograd's demise on Korolev, the strike's leader. After 20 years in space, Korolev can no longer return to Earth and will make a convenient scapegoat.

Korolev instead hatches a plan to use the remaining Soyuz capsules to allow the crew to make their defection to Japan after landing in China. His attempts to interfere with the military side of the station fail and they prepare to fire on the defectors. One of the capsules returns and deliberately crashes into the weapon. The military crew is killed when their portion of the station is ripped open, and Korolev is locked in the civilian side when the doors automatically close. He is left alone in a decaying orbit.

Some time later, Korolev awakens to find one of the hatches being knocked on from the outside. Thinking he is dreaming, he comes to his senses when the hatch is opened and several Americans enter the station. Hearing it had been abandoned, they have decided to leave their squat on a solar-power balloon and take over the station to form a new colony. The story ends with Korolev being asked to give a tour of the station for its new inhabitants.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space station</span> Habitat and station in outer space

A space station is a spacecraft which remains in orbit and hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring habitation facilities. The purpose of maintaining a space station varies depending on the program. Most often space stations have been research stations, but they have also served military or commercial uses, such as hosting space tourists.

<i>Salyut</i> programme Soviet space station programme

The Salyut programme was the first space station programme, undertaken by the Soviet Union. It involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations over a period of 15 years, from 1971 to 1986. Two other Salyut launches failed. In one respect, Salyut had the task of carrying out long-term research into the problems of living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments, and on the other hand the USSR used this civilian programme as a cover for the highly secretive military Almaz stations, which flew under the Salyut designation. Salyut 1, the first station in the programme, became the world's first crewed space station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space Race</span> US–USSR spaceflight capability rivalry

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and had its peak with the more particular Moon Race to land on the Moon between the US moonshot and Soviet moonshot programs. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security and became part of the symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic space probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valery Kubasov</span> Soviet cosmonaut (1935–2014)

Valery Nikolaevich Kubasov was a Soviet/Russian cosmonaut who flew on two missions in the Soyuz programme as a flight engineer: Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 19, and commanded Soyuz 36 in the Intercosmos programme. On 21 July 1975, the Soyuz 7K-TM module used for ASTP landed in Kazakhstan at 5:51 p.m. and Kubasov was the first to exit the craft. Kubasov performed the first welding experiments in space, along with Georgy Shonin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soyuz 10</span> Crewed flight of the Soyuz programme - Failed first attempt to dock with Salyut 1

Soyuz 10 was launched on 22 April 1971 as the world's first mission to the world's first space station, the Soviet Salyut 1. The docking was not successful and the crew, Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksei Yeliseyev, and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, returned to Earth without having entered the station. Following difficulties in docking pairs of Soyuz capsules, this would be the first of numerous docking failures in the Soviet space station program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salyut 1</span> Soviet space station in orbit from April to October 1971

Salyut 1 (DOS-1) was the world's first space station launched into low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches of seven more stations. The final module of the program, Zvezda (DOS-8), became the core of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and remains in orbit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salyut 2</span> Soviet space station which was launched in 1973

Salyut 2 (OPS-1) was a Soviet space station which was launched in 1973 as part of the Salyut programme. It was the first Almaz military space station to fly. Within two weeks of its launch, the station had lost altitude control and depressurized, leaving it unusable. Its orbit decayed and it re-entered the atmosphere on 28 May 1973, without any crews having visited it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salyut 3</span> Soviet space station launched on 25 June 1974

Salyut 3 was a Soviet space station launched on 25 June 1974. It was the second Almaz military space station, and the first such station to be launched successfully. It was included in the Salyut program to disguise its true military nature. Due to the military nature of the station, the Soviet Union was reluctant to release information about its design, and about the missions relating to the station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salyut 7</span> Space station launched on 19 April 1982

Salyut 7 was a space station in low Earth orbit from April 1982 to February 1991. It was first crewed in May 1982 with two crew via Soyuz T-5, and last visited in June 1986, by Soyuz T-15. Various crew and modules were used over its lifetime, including 12 crewed and 15 uncrewed launches in total. Supporting spacecraft included the Soyuz T, Progress, and TKS spacecraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgy Grechko</span> Soviet cosmonaut (1931–2017)

Georgy Mikhaylovich Grechko was a Soviet cosmonaut. He flew to space on three missions, each bound for rendezvous with a different Salyut space station. Soyuz 17 was the first crewed vehicle to visit Salyut 4, Soyuz 26 was the first crewed vehicle to visit Salyut 6, and Soyuz T-14 visited Salyut 7. During the latter mission, Grechko helped to relieve the crew of Soyuz T-13, who had repaired damage to the station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Almaz</span> Soviet military space station program

The Almaz program was a highly secret Soviet military space station program, begun in the early 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gennady Strekalov</span> Soviet-Russian engineer and cosmonaut (1940–2004)

Gennady Mikhailovich Strekalov was an engineer, cosmonaut, and administrator at Russian aerospace firm RSC Energia. He flew into space five times and lived aboard the Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir space stations, spending over 268 days in space. The catastrophic explosion of a Soyuz rocket in 1983 led to him being one of only four people to use a launch escape system. He was decorated twice as Hero of the Soviet Union and received the Ashoka Chakra from India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet space program</span> Space exploration program conducted by the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1991

The Soviet space program was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soyuz 33</span>

Soyuz 33 was an April, 1979, Soviet crewed space flight to the Salyut 6 space station. It was the ninth mission to the orbiting facility, but an engine failure forced the mission to be aborted, and the crew had to return to Earth before docking with the station. It was the first failure of a Soyuz engine during orbital operations.

Soyuz T-13 was a Soyuz mission, transporting personnel to the Soviet space station Salyut 7. The eighth expedition to the orbital station, the mission launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, atop a Soyuz-U2 carrier rocket, at 06:39:52 UTC on June 6, 1985. It is of note because it marked the first time a spacecraft had docked with a 'dead' space station, and the first time such a station had been returned to operational status following repairs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soyuz T-15</span> 1986 Soviet crewed spaceflight to Mir and Salyut 7

Soyuz T-15 was a crewed mission to the Mir and Salyut 7 space stations and was part of the Soyuz programme. It marked the final flight of the Soyuz-T spacecraft, the third generation Soyuz spacecraft, which had been in service for seven years from 1979 to 1986. This mission marked the first time that a spacecraft visited, and docked with, two space stations in the same mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vladimir Chelomey</span> Soviet scientist and engineer

Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey or Chelomei was a Soviet engineer and designer in the missile program of the former Soviet Union. He invented the first Soviet pulse jet engine and was responsible for developing the world's first anti-ship cruise missiles and the ICBM program of the Soviet Union such as the UR-100, UR-200, UR-500 and UR-700.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mir Core Module</span> First module of the Soviet/Russian Mir space station

Mir, DOS-7, was the first module of the Soviet/Russian Mir space station complex, in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001. Generally referred to as either the core module or base block, the module was launched on 20 February 1986 on a Proton-K rocket from LC-200/39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft was generally similar in design to the two previous Soviet orbital stations, Salyut 6 and Salyut 7, however possessed a revolutionary addition in the form of a multiple docking node at the forward end of the module. This, in addition to the docking port at the rear of the spacecraft, allowed five additional modules to be docked directly to DOS-7, greatly expanding the station's capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosmos 1686</span> Fourth and final TKS spacecraft

Kosmos 1686, also known as TKS-4, was a heavily modified TKS spacecraft which docked unmanned to the Soviet space station Salyut 7 as part of tests to attach scientific expansion modules to stations in Earth orbit. The module which docked to the station was the FGB component of a TKS vehicle launched on September 27, 1985, and was designed to test systems planned for use on the Mir Core Module. The spacecraft docked with Salyut 7 on October 2, 1985, during the long-duration stay of the cosmonauts of its fifth principal expedition, which arrived on Soyuz T-14. It was the last flown TKS spacecraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soyuz 7K-OKS</span> Crewed spacecraft of the Soyuz programme to dock with Salyut 1 space station

Soyuz 7K-OKS is a version of the Soyuz spacecraft and was the first spacecraft designed for space station flights. Its only crewed flights were conducted in 1971, with Soyuz 10 and Soyuz 11.

References

  1. Pesahovitch, Ivgeny; Olga Pollack (August 24, 1997). "The frail humanity of Mir". The Jerusalem Post . p. 6. The novelist William Gibson said in a recent interview that the best science fiction of the 1990s is on CNN news. Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote a story in the 1980s called Red Star, Winter Orbit, set in a dilapidated Soviet space station slowly falling apart. As usual, the science-fiction writers, the real prophets of our age, were ahead of the launch of Mir, as well as of its current decay. Yet Gibson admitted it would have been hard for him "to beat that garbage-module slamming into Mir! ... Looking back, I can see that we didn't go nearly far enough [in the Red Star story.]"
  2. 1 2 Rapatzikou, Tatiana (2004). Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson. Amsterdam: Rodopi. pp. 63–64. ISBN   90-420-1761-9.