Trillion Year Spree

In 1986, Brian Aldiss, in his book Trillion Year Spree, had this to say about science fiction coming out of the 60s:

In 1969, Donald Wollheim, then guiding light of Ace Books, published an anthology called Men on the Moon. He persuaded twenty-seven writers to give their views on the first lunar landing, which took place in July of that year. Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, E. C. Tubb, Alan Nourse, and others had their say.

Only Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and Poul Anderson were full of unqualified praise and excitement. Most of the authors
took a very sceptical view of the proceedings. The phrase on the plaque, “We Come in Peace for All Mankind”, stuck in their gullets; they started remembering the Indians.

Michael Moorcock quoted J. G. Ballard's wry remark: “If I were a Martian I'd start running now!” Isaac Asimov hoped we might find a nobility in space of which many dream and some practise. Bob Shaw thought that the plaque should have borne not words but a symbol whose significance would have been universally understood – “something like a grabbing hand with its fingers clawed into the Moon's soil”. Harlan Ellison talked about little old ladies getting mugged. Harry Harrison was the one person who mentioned Vietnam, pointing out that it was the war, not the Apollo missions, which wasted everyone's substance. Other writers felt that the lunar walk could have brought small cheer to the oppressed and impoverished on Earth.

The general consensus was cautionary. Ever since the beginning of the Space Age, SF writers have been less romantic about space flight, although there are exceptions such as Poul Anderson. By and large, C. S. Lewis's view has permeated the genre – that we are likely to spread destruction wherever we go, although Star Wars, 1977's box office success, has had some effect in bringing space opera back in vogue. There may be something in Kenneth Bulmer's remark in Men on the Moon: “We're in the creative instant of the paleolithic man who's just hand-paddled a log across the estuary – now all the oceans lie beyond”; but the old joy in bigger and better logs is somehow less spontaneous than before – as NASA has discovered since the shuttle disaster of early 1986. Meanwhile, that Big Estuary in the Sky fills with high-tech hardware.