The Year's Best Science Fiction 9 (Judith Merril) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги (ч. 38)

Three years ago, the sixth annual SF reprinted Ray Bradbury’s Life article, “A Serious Search for Weird Worlds,” about the origins and objectives of the felicitously named Project Ozma.

Mr. Bradbury pointed out with detailed care that this sort of undertaking would have to be measured in generations rather than years: that it would take twenty-two years, for instance, simply to exchange Hello’s with the nearest possible neighbors.

By this time, we are all well accustomed to the concept of the limiting speed of light: astronomical information cannot travel faster than 186,000 miles per second. But we have also become accustomed to faulty space-breaking timetables. Everything always happens sooner than they said it would.

And here it is four years since Ozma started. So . . .

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