Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Far above us, the International Space Station moves through the sky, and there are always astronauts observing the earth as a single object and not the complex mess of humanity that we really are. They are there to carry out scientific experiments both inside and outside the craft, and in addition to their daily tasks, they themselves are the subjects of experiments on their bodies.

Floating in space for months at a time has a serious effect on the mind and body. The astronauts exist in a weightless atmosphere where there is no up or down, simply space. There are no 24 hours days, as the orbit of the space station takes the crew through multiple dawns every day, and if it were not for the sleeping tablets, there would be no notion of night and day.

They must eat their food out of pouches, and sleep in sleeping bags that simply hang untethered in the sleeping areas, so normal human life is suspended for the entire time they are on board.

There are many descriptions of what it is like to spend time on the space station, and the facts about the daily routines highlight the unnatural nature of this type of existence. Everything about the Space Station is a man-made attempt at re-creating life on earth, and no matter how hard the scientists try, there will always be something not quite right about it.

By the end of the book I wondered why anyone would ever want to go into space when we have everything we need right here on earth. We take for granted the abundance of nature, and destroy the natural environment so we can construct concrete structures and pull oil and coal out of the earth. In terms of space time, we humans have only just popped up on the scene and, not content with holding dominion over the earth we have been given, there are those amongst us who would set off into space and try and set up colonies outside of our natural boundaries.

This would be a great book to set in front of sixth formers, as I think it would trigger some fabulous discussions about the meaning of life. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that the narrative is a great deal more than the scientific description it at first appears to be. We humans are really not as significant as we think we are and as the author puts it towards the end of the book:

"We think we're the wind, but we're just the leaf."

Comments

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