Curiosity, NASA and Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran

I’m not sure when exactly I fell in love with science fiction and the idea of space exploration. It could have been when, around the age of ten or so, I’d stay up past my bedtime and curl up next to the ten-inch television in my bedroom to watch midnight reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series on WPIX. It could have been when I saw Star Wars for the first time. Most likely, though, I was no different than every other kid on Earth who immediately fell in love with space the minute they realized there are people whose jobs it is to explore the galaxy.

The fact is I’ve been a science fiction fan and galactic dreamer as long as I can remember, and there have been no shortage of factors leading to who I am today – a twenty-eight year-old sci-fi nut with a bookshelf filled with Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein; a DVD collection dominated by shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica; and a downright obsessive love for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (quick note: while an undergrad I wrote a forty-page thesis on the movie for a voluntary post-grad film class that didn’t count towards my degree).

Although I don’t have the most complete recollection of my time in college (go figure), one memory I will never forget is sitting with friends watching live as the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry over Texas. Neither I nor my friends had been to bed yet that early morning when the news started to break that something had gone horribly wrong with our latest shuttle mission, and I’ll never forget the sick feeling in my stomach as we all watched the disaster play out. Even then, watching the events unfold, it was clear the tragedy of lost human lives would quite possibly be as great as the potential tragedy of shelving the risky shuttle program after one too many disasters, or worse, shit-canning manned space travel as a whole. For a sci-fi nut and NASA enthusiast, those thoughts we nearly as upsetting as the loss of life.

Flash forward nine and a half years, and I’m lucky enough to be proudly watching CNN as they cover Curiosity’s safe landing on Mars. Watching the footage of the room full of NASA men and women celebrate with awkward high-fives, hugs and tears of joy after holding their breaths for the seven minutes of radio silence that preceded the first news of Curiosity’s successful landing, I couldn’t help but think back to that terrible day in 2003 and the sort of sacrifice and human ingenuity that are both such necessary components of humanity’s exploration of space. I was proud to be human in that moment, and among other things, suddenly filled with the desire to reread Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran’s Orbiter, one of my favorite sci-fi works of all time and a graphic novel that so beautifully explores the very questions of drama, risk and sacrifice that were playing out in my head while watching the Curiosity touch down.

After digging through boxes until I found my copy of Orbiter, I was floored to rediscover Warren Ellis’ stirring introduction to the book, which was perhaps even more eerily pertinent to the drama unfolding in both the halls of NASA and my head that night than the comics’ actual story. You see, though Ellis and Doran, both space exploration enthusiasts, created the book in 2001 as a love letter to NASA and a plea for humanity to keep pushing onward in space, it didn’t see print until after the 2003 Colombia disaster, when shelving manned space flight suddenly seemed like a viable alternative to risking more human lives in the name of science. Thus, Ellis’ intro serves as a haunting instance in which an author must preface a science fiction work that has already proved tragically prophetic. The introduction is fascinating enough, but the book is even better.

Those who know my tastes in fiction know Warren Ellis is one of my favorite modern writers, and arguably my favorite hard sci-fi writer working in any medium today. Orbiter is perhaps his most beautiful and inspiring work, and that’s saying a lot coming from this fan. Drawn in gorgeous fashion by Colleen Doran, the book kicks off with the type of masterful high-concept hook Ellis delivers so consistently: the space shuttle Voyager suddenly reappears and crash lands on Earth after disappearing in orbit ten years prior, a disappearance that caused NASA to abandon space exploration altogether. Furthermore, Voyager has returned covered in a strange alien skin-like membrane showing signs it traveled unthinkable distances through the galaxy, with only one of its seven members accounted for – Pilot John Cost, who’s deeply psychologically traumatized by his experiences and quite possibly insane.

The story then follows a team of engineers, biologists and one dedicated psychiatrist as they try to piece together what happened to the ship and the implications Voyager’s reappearance might have on man’s place in the universe. In typical Ellis fashion, a book loaded with hard sci-fi concepts is just as heavily packed with human emotion, and the character’s quest for answers all pays off beautifully in the end.

If you ever get misty-eyed thinking about NASA or staring up at the stars, Orbiter is a book you definitely want to read. Go out, buy it and read it now while man’s latest victory of space exploration is still fresh on the mind.