Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024--San Antonio

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a short novel which won the Booker Prize this year.  It is a novel without a plot.  Instead, it covers one 24-hour day in the lives of the 6 crew (4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts) on the International Space Station--from when they awaken one day to when they awaken the next.  We learn about each person including their backgrounds.  We learn what is happening on earth during that day.  We learn about a crew of 4 astronauts headed to the moon that same day--the first men to head to the moon in 50 years.  We learn about the daily routine of the lives of the astronauts--their exercise routine, their meals, their experiments, their special assignments sent from command for the day, their space walks, the effects of weightlessness on their bodies.  We learn about the disorienting factors of being on the space station--the constant noise, the minor cracks on the outer layer that are expanding, the mental disorientation caused by the 16 loops around the world it covers each 24 hours creating a repeating day-night/day-night situation every 90 minutes.  We learn about the geography of the earth and the views of it from low orbit as the station follows what appears to be a curving trail up and down and up and down with each rotation of the earth it makes (caused by the slant of earth on its axis because the space station itself is going in a straight circular line) with a slight change in position each round because of the slow turning of the earth on its axis.  The reader will come away from this book with a good understanding of what it is like to be in space on the station.  And a thinking reader should come away from it appreciating earth for the ease it is for us to live on it compared to how limited our lives would be if we had to live in space or on the moon or mars in artificial pods.  Once we destroy the earth to the point that people cannot live on it, the alternatives are not going to be very good--even for those billionaires with the money to make the move!  (Personally, I expect that we will just cause our own distinction since building an alternative place to live and work will be too expensive with too little too offer.  In fact, I now wonder why we are even thinking of spending money to send people to Mars.) I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.