A few years ago, I was delighted to discover that in the tight quarters of the International Space Station, the small library of books, movies, TV shows, and music intended for “recreational/off duty consumption” includes a dozen back issues of Asimov’s and Analog. The selections in the library seem to prove that astronauts really do read science fiction. Of the eighty-nine books listed, forty-five appear to be science fiction (another seven are fantasy). Lois McMaster Bujold and David Weber are heavy favorites, but works by Kim Stanley Robinson, Walter Jon Williams, Mary Turzillo, Harry Turtledove, Greg Bear, and other SF authors also command the station’s precious shelf space. Astronauts who want to take a break from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov, Charles Darwin’s Origins of Species, or The Federalist Papers can also peruse timeless SF novels by Isaac Asimov or Jules Verne.

It’s heady to think of an astronaut whiling away some downtime immersed in an issue of Asimov’s. I can just imagine someone turning the pages of the magazine as they float in zero g. It’s an image that I’m sure our founder, Isaac Asimov, would enjoy.
I have no idea how the library was compiled, but it’s easy to presume that the books came aboard the space station a few at a time in the astronauts’ personal belongings. Since the issues of Asimov’s and Analog both date from a six-month period in 2004, it may even be that one of the astronauts was a subscriber who left his or her copies behind to entertain subsequent visitors to the station.

I’m always impressed by how many famous scientists attribute their early inspirations and enthusiasm for their fields to the works of classic science fiction writers. When I think of Asimov’s orbiting the Earth, I am gratified that modern SF authors seem to be accomplishing the same thing. It’s also gratifying to think that the people who are living the adventure that once upon a time existed only as tall tales spun by SF authors continue to appreciate those tales.

Of course, once I had the library’s list of reading material on hand, it was impossible not to peak at it to see what other books are read by astronauts on space stations. I wasn’t surprised to learn that in between reading Asimov’s and novels by Dan Simmons and Catherine Asaro, astronauts returning from an EVA or who are finishing up a day spent grappling with fifty-five foot robotic arms amuse themselves with books by David Sedaris and P.G. Wodehouse. Novels of suspense by John le Carre, James Patterson, and Dan Brown were to be expected and Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz seemed a reasonable choice. I wondered, though, was the person who brought The Ten-Day MBA aboard thinking about getting into asteroid mining or looking for a career change?

This collection of physical editions of books and magazines made its way onto the space station before electronic readers were as ubiquitous as they are now. Perhaps the library has since been expanded to include thousands of e-books. I don’t know if Asimov’s is spinning around the Earth on a Nook, but I do know that electronic versions of some Asimov’s stories now have an extraterrestrial home. As Allen M. Steele pointed out in his bio note for “The Emperor of Mars” in last month’s issue, some of our tales were included on a mini-DVD called Visions of Mars that arrived safely on the red planet in 2008.

The disk, which was assembled by The Planetary Society, contains eighty stories and articles, as well as artwork and radio shows. The material on it was first scheduled for a 1996 voyage to Mars aboard a Russian spacecraft. Alas, that ancient CD-ROM now lies on one of Earth’s seafloors since neither the disk nor its ride made it out of orbit. Fortunately, this treasure trove of information was reproduced and launched for the fourth planet aboard the Phoenix on August 4, 2007.

Poring over the index of stories brings to life my earliest encounters with this most evocative of our planetary neighbors. I can imagine Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Princess of Mars sharing space with the inhabitants of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. I’m sure Roger Zelazny’s “Rose for Ecclesiastes” is still breaking hearts. I’m glad Tom Dish’s Brave Little Toaster has finally really gone to Mars and relieved that Theodore Sturgeon’s tragic “Man Who Lost the Sea” made it there too. Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan, John Varley’s Martian Kings, and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver may now turn to H. Beam Piper’s “Omnilingual” before they embark on Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “Martian Odyssey.” Phil Dick can remember this for us wholesale and in the meantime, I’m sure Isaac Asimov’s Max will always try to see what he can get away with while in Marsport without Hilda.

Six of the stories on the disk were first published in Asimov’s in the eighties and reprinted in Isaac Asimov’s Mars in 1991. These tales are “The Dificulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica” by Brian W. Aldiss, Gregory Benford’s “All the Beer on Mars,” Ian McDonald’s “The Catharine Wheel,” Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Green Mars,” Allen Steele’s “Live from the Mars Hotel,” and Lawrence Watt-Evans’ “Windwagon Smith and the Martian.” Another Asimov’s regular from that time, Lewis Shiner, is represented on the disk by his translation of Japanese author Aramaki Yoshio’s “Soft Clocks.”

It’s awesome to think that when astronauts board the space station or when settlers finally make it to Mars, they’ll see first hand what the readers of this magazine already know—that the fiction in Asimov’s is out of this world.