A. Bertram Chandler - The Aphrodite Project

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THE ‘APHRODITE’ PROJECT

A. Bertram Chandler

THE ‘APHRODITE’ PROJECT

CARL LAWRENCE

Gentlemen,

Herewith the final report of the Research Project 11FF. which, as you know, was started twelve years

ago, shortly before the space stations were turned over to civilian operation.

Preliminary research, carried out under the title ‘Techniques for the Investigation under Terrestrial

Conditions of Social Problems in Free Fall’, was devoted to the study of the situations to be expected in

free fall and to the changes they would involve in the living habits of personnel. The problem giving the

greatest concern was that of course in all the hundred odd positions recorded by students of the subject

the force of gravity was a common factor. It was feared that in free fall the absence of this factor would

cause the other two factors to drift apart at the least provocation, leading to a general state of

dissatisfaction and frustration among the personnel and to a high rate of employee turnover. Indeed, two

of these early investigators gave considerable time and effort to a device in which the force of gravity was

replaced by a spring. This line of investigation had to be abandoned when the investigators were trapped

in one of the devices which was under-damped and went into free oscillation. The investigators were

rescued only in an advanced stage of debilitation.

However, subsequent experiments in field conditions showed that many of the fears expressed were

groundless, and I am happy to report that the second phase of the project, Techniques In Free Fall,

popularly known as TIFF, has been an unqualified success. In fact it may be noted with emphasis that

under conditions of free fall a number of techniques are possible which cannot be duplicated under

terrestrial conditions. In addition, any technique used in free fall requires a degree of co-operation that is

greatly to be desired but which is seldom attained in practice under surface conditions.

In conclusion, this investigator wishes to take the opportunity of tendering his resignation. Because of the

many close friendships he formed in the course of his work he prefers to remain on in the station.

OBITUARY

by A. Bertram Chandler

It is with deep regret that we announce the death of Dr. John Thomas Alcock, to whose pioneer work

the Research Project TIFF owes so much. He was, in his passing, one of Science’s most illustrious

martyrs, a victim alike the inexorable workings of Newton’s Third Law and of his own indefatigable zeal.

Throughout his period of service in the Research Project and, indeed, all his life, he was the enemy of

mechanical appliances on every occasion that such devices tended to come between Man and his Mate -

or, as in the Space Stations, when such appliances enforced an unnatural and, at times, undesirable

propinquity. ‘If that was what the Almighty had in mind,’ he would say, ‘our First Ancestor would have

been a rubber tree!’ He did not scorn, however, the boons, blessings and resources of modern

chemistry.

Fortunately the WAAC Private who was his partner in his last experiment, a Miss Partz survived the

disaster that carried the great scientist to that bourne from which no traveller returns - she having the

presence of mind to snatch an article of bedroom furniture, ornamental rather than useful in the Space

Station, and use it as a makeshift Space Helmet until the arrival of help.

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A. Bertram Chandler - The Aphrodite Project

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