The Astronauts

The Astronauts (in Polish Astronauci) is the first science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem published as a book, in 1951. (The sci-fi novel The Man from Mars was serialized in a weekly during 1946.)

To write the novel Lem received advance payment from publishing house Czytelnik (Warsaw). The book became instant success and was translated into several languages (first into Czech, published in 1956). This success did convince Lem to switch to career of science-fiction author.

The Astronauts were written for the youth in form of utopian space opera. Inability to ever understand alien civilizations, frequent motive of Lem's future works, does appear here for the first time. To get published under communist regime in Poland Lem had to insert frequent references to the ideals of communism. Decades later, Lem didn't value The Astronauts very much:

Everything is so smooth and balanced; among the heroes we have a positive Russian character and a sweet Chinese; naiveté is present on all pages of this book. The hope that in the year 2000 the world would be wonderful is indeed very childish.... ^[1]

The term cosmonauts used in countries of Eastern Bloc was not yet created when the text was written, hence the name "Astronauts".

Movie

In 1960 a movie Der Schweigende Stern (The Silent Star, in Polish Milcząca Gwiazda) based on the book was shot in East Germany, directed by Kurt Maetzig. The 1962 release in the USA used name First Spaceship on Venus. Lem had disowned the movie

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The introduction describes the fall of Tunguska meteorite (1908) and subsequent expedition of Leonid Kulik. The hypothesis about crash of cosmic ship is mentioned.

It's year 2003. Communism had won worldwide and the humankind, freed from oppression and chaos, is engaged in gigantic engineering projects - irrigation of Sahara, hydro-energetic plant over Strait of Gibraltar and ability to control climate. The latest project is to defroze Antarctic and Arctic regions by artificial nuclear powered "suns" circling above.

During preparation earthworks in Tunguska area a strange object is found and later identified as an extraterrestrial data record. The record contains details about travel of the cosmic ship from Venus (crashing in Tunguska) and the data end with ominous "After two rotations the Earth will be radiated. After the radiation intensity drops to half the Great Movement will start". Scared government of the Earth (assembled of scientists) decides to send the newly built cosmic ship Kosmokrator (equipped with vacuum tube based computer Marax) to Venus.

After few weeks the international crew of Kosmokrator arrives on Venus but finds no traces of life, only strange, half-destroyed technological structures like White Globe, a giant anti-gravity device.

It turns out that Venus was inhabited by a warlike civilization planning to occupy the Earth. Before they managed to destroy the life on Earth they themselves perished in nuclear civil war, leaving only ruins of the cities and scattered electronic records. Template:Spoiler-end

External links

• List of published Lem's novels in all languages
• IMDb movie record
• Reviews of the novel (in Polish)