📓On Literature: On Satellites

"They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty one and a half." (Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels", 1726)

"Thanks to the courage and devotion of three men, this project of sending a bullet to the moon, once seen as a futile enterprise, had already produced concrete results, with incalculable consequences. The voyagers, imprisoned in their new satellite, had not reached their destination, but at least they had become part of the lunar world; they were in orbit around the celebrity of the night, and, for the first time, the human eye could penetrate all her mysteries." (Jules Verne, "From the Earth to the Moon", 1865)

"Nothing can be prettier than to see the movement, in perfectly harmonic relations, of planets round their centres, of satellites around planets, of suns, with their planets and satellites, around their centres, and of these in turn around theirs. And to persons who have loved earth as much as I do, and who, while at school there, have studied other worlds and stars, then distant, as carefully as I have, nothing, as I say, can be more charming than to see at once all this play and interplay; to see comets passing from system to system, warming themselves now at one white sun, and then at a party-colored double; to see the people on them changing customs and costumes as they change their light, and to hear their quaint discussions as they justify the new and ridicule the old." (Edward E Hale, "Hands Off", 1881)

"On the earth, satellite of a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it, so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment." (W Somerset Maugham, "Of Human Bondage", 1915)

"I get so scared sometimes. The suddenness of our age! Electronics, rockets, earth satellites, supersonic flight, and now this. It's not so much who invents them. It's the fact they exist. […] Everything's going so fast, I'm just not ready to take it all in. It's, it's all so quick." (James Clavel, "The Fly", [adapted from a 1957 short story by George Langelaan] 1958)

"The Solar System, comprising the nine known worlds of our Sun and their numerous satellites, is a relatively compact structure, a snug little celestial oasis in an endless desert." (Arthur C Clarke, "The Challenge of the Spaceship", 1959) 

"[...] we know now that comet and asteroid impacts have changed history, and soon we will have the technology to avert that disaster. [...] the dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program." (Arthur C Clarke, Discover Magazine, [Interview] 1999)