i         3a. How much can the drive to explore, risk danger, and court death be             universalized to include all humanity, and how much is it a feature of the “western psyche?”

i         5c. What kind of person seeks out opportunities to explore and endures the             hardships that accompany adventure?

i         6a. How much does religious language–e.g., “mission”–characterize the             Literature of Space and Exploration?

            First, let’s look at what makes a person “an explorer.”  It really isn’t as easy as saying that it is simply a person who explores.  According to our syllabus, exploration literature visits uninhabited places or inhabited places where few have traveled.  Furthermore, the travel is “arduous or prohibited.”  So, exploring the undeveloped lot next door does not an explorer make.  Explorers, however, are not always intentional explorers.  For example, in A Princess of Mars John Carter falls asleep (or dies) in Arizona and wakes up on Mars.  Once on Mars, he automatically becomes an explorer because he is now located in a place where no one of his kind has traveled and the journey immediately becomes arduous.  In our course examples, Carter’s experience is unique; the other explorers set out to explore–what makes them unique are their motivations.

            Carter’s motivation for exploration is simply survival; he had no choice in the matter–explore or die.  In our next work, Of a Fire on the Moon, we see a mixed bag of motivations for the astronauts.  Mailer says, “Being a astronaut was a mission.  Since the political and power transactions of the age on which NASA’s future was . . . hung, . . .the astronauts did not emphasize their sense of vocation” (36).  Here we understand the political motivations for the space program as a whole, but it can be more effectively understood as nationalism as demonstrated in the scene where the astronauts come on-stage for the press conference and the flag is laughed at, not out of disrespect, but because “the show was already sufficiently American enough” (25).  The exploration of space at this point was largely a matter of national pride.  There was the occasional scientific experiment or observation, but the tone of the book seemed to say that this time up it was just about being first. 

            The Sparrow provides the most complex set of character motivations.  The mission is manned with specialists in various areas: music, linguistics, science, medicine, engineering, and computers.  But, most importantly, the mission is financed by and largely manned by Jesuit missionaries.  The Jesuits have a long history of exploration and are motivated to act for the greater glory of God.  The Vatican sees the opportunity to again be the first to make contact with a new land and possibly, a new people.  While this seems like motivation enough it quickly becomes obvious that the actual mission to Rakhat is secondary to the exploration that some of the characters are undergoing spiritually and personally.  The physical mission becomes merely a vehicle to allow them to make the arduous journey waiting for them internally. 

            This internal journey is most obvious in the character of Emilio.  He begins the Rakhat mission giving lip service to the idea that the whole enterprise is God’s will and guided by His hand, but he becomes increasingly aware of a spiritual awakening within himself and soon God is less of an idea and more of a presence.  He soon realizes that his entire life as been a journey, “it’s amazing. Inside me, everything makes sense, everything I’ve done, everything that ever happened to me–it was all leading up to this . . .” (179).  This spiritual journey will soon conflict with his physical journey and it is his struggle between events as a physical explorer and those as a spiritual explorer that create his ultimate conflict.  Sofia is an example of one of the characters on a personal journey.  She has forged her way through hardship after hardship by using her intelligence and suppressing any vulnerability.  After her contract is terminated, she returns to Israel and undergoes a ritual cleansing.  She muses over the idea that God was behind the mission and can reach no decision, but she leaves “the mikveh that day with a strong sense of purpose” and contacts Emilio and says “‘I should like to be a part of your project. . . .to be a member of the crew’”(125). This mission and the change in her circumstances allow her to go on a personal exploration of her heritage and sends her on the way to discovering her true self; “she was alive; She was free now” (125). 

            So, explorers are explorers because of what they do, most often by choice, but are explorers always heroes?   If a hero is someone who acts in such a way to demonstrate courage, then the answer might almost always be yes.  However, if we add the caveat that not only do the acts have to be courageous, but they also must be for the good of another at risk to oneself, and most often in life or death circumstances, then we realize that explorers are not always heroes.  Heroes emerge as a result of circumstances.  (Keep in mind that we are not discussing “hero” in the literary sense, but in the popular sense) Men and women everywhere have the capacity to be heroes.  When circumstances arrive some have a spark in them that compels them to act heroically while others stand back or over think the situation too long to act.  Though written with a heavy hand, the following statement by John Carter in A Princess of Mars really does express the idea of heroism: “I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later” (15).   Carter proves he is a hero both by denying the fact that he could be one and by saying that it was some part of his very being that made him act heroically.  One could go as far as to say that heroism is even different than courageousness.  It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the action in spite of fear.  Heroism is one application of courage.  I can act courageously in an internal or personal struggle; I cannot be a hero because I courageously deal with my own problems. The astronauts, as portrayed by Mailer, seem to grasp the distinction.  Armstrong “disclaimed large reactions, large ideas. . . .If they would insist on making him a hero, he would be a hero on terms he alone would make clear” (40).

            All of this is not to say that explorers are not heroes.  On the contrary, they often are and for obvious reason.  If circumstances allow heroes to emerge, then a vocation which involves significant danger is likely to produce more opportunities for heroic action.  Using the criteria set up here, the three texts we have examined produce some explorers, some hero/explorers, and some in the grey area.  John Carter clearly acts heroically in his conflict with the Indians on behalf of his companion in Arizona and then later he acts heroically on behalf of Dejah and her people.  Looking at the  The Sparrow, some automatically characterize priests, missionaries and other religious figures as heros because all they do is in the service of a greater good, but they seem much more heroic when they can back it up with actions.  In this sense, it is hard to call Emilio a hero.  Once on Rakhat, most of his actions are guided by the path of least resistence.  The only moment he has which approaches heroic is on a personal level when he sacrifices his feelings for Sophia because he recognizes her potential for happiness with Jimmy.  Even this seems more noble than heroic in that the action lacks the sense of life or death importance. Sophia, on the other hand, shows the most striking example of heroic action when she rushes forward to save the Runa child.  Emilio uses the Hebrew phrase “Eshet chayil: woman of valor” (378).  Sofia had no choice but to act in the manner she believed to be right at the life and death risk to herself and her child.  The outcome is irrelevant to the action; sometimes acts of heroism don’t work out, it is the downfall of the lack of thought or preparation necessarily involved in such actions.

            It is the astronauts who are the hardest to analyze in terms of their status as heroes.  Popular culture automatically bestows this term on them because they are accomplishing something so far beyond anything ordinary men can do.  Furthermore, there seems to exist a kind of sub-category of heroes called national heros.  These are men and women like astronauts, military personnel, and elected officials who are perceived to have dedicated their lives to a greater calling, in this case our nation and the preservation of our values.  The soldier stationed in El Paso is not likely to be in any real danger, yet he is called a hero because we perceive that he is willing to face danger.  Back to the astronauts, while the act of going to the moon itself may not be heroic, it seems safe to say that these men are of the type that would unquestionably act heroic should the circumstances arise.  In addition, the premises behind the space program are consistently noble.  If we ever enter an age of space tourism then this could change.  So, despite their protestations, I would be inclined to call the astronauts in Of a Fire on the on the Moon heroes, or at least potential heroes.

            In conclusion, heroes and explorers share many of the same characteristics.  Explorers are prime candidates for heroes because they are the kind of men and women who are accustomed and willing to act in the face of danger.  Exploration goes hand in hand with circumstances that require heroic actions therefore the explorer often becomes a hero.  Perhaps the best deciding factor is motivation.  The explorer who sets out on an arduous journey motivated only by personal wealth or fame cannot become a hero by acting to preserve his life.  An explorer who faces danger in an effort to acquire knowledge for the benefit of mankind is already a hero.  We met quite a few explorers this semester.  Some were heroes by virtue of their mission; some became heroes because of the way they responded to circumstances on their mission; and still others remain courageous explorers who have yet had the opportunity to become heroes.