ANTARCTICA
December 28, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I think I told you by phone that Popular Mechanics wants me to do another article, or several. Since then we have tentatively agreed on a subject for the next one: the research going on at the South Pole. I had in mind going there next year, but Stimson's last letter spoke in terms of right away. Since summer has just started at the South Pole this is reasonable-save that I am up to my ears in this Hollywood deal with Screen Gems. The trip need not take long-ten days or two weeks -- but if I am to go at all this [Southern Hemisphere] summer, it must be in the next few weeks, with conflict most probable with the Screen Gems deal...
If it does work out that I go now instead of about a year from now (anytime after Labor Day 1964, that is), this would solve the problem of what to use for a Boys'
Life seriaclass="underline" Lay it at the South Pole and make it a mixture of science and adventure. And that would also solve the problem of my next juvenile for Putnam's-three novellas totaling about 50,000 words, Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon, Tenderfoot on Venus, and Polar Scout. [Put-nam] has written me, twisting my arm a little to turn out another juvenile; this would satisfy [Putnam] for the '65 spring list, I think. If you see fit, you might ask Boys' Life if they would like a serial about Antarctica, one written from personal observation.
I should add that I told Popular Mechanics that, having given them a first article, I reserved the right to do other articles and fiction based on the trip. They want to pay only what they paid before...I could hitchhike the entire trip on military "space available," but I am more likely to go commercially to Auckland. But I can show a nice profit by writing other things on the same material.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This trip did not come off, but we did travel to Antarctica in 1983.
CARIBBEAN
December 11, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
All the various checks sent registered in two mailings arrived, of course, and Ginny is again complaining that it is backing up on her. It is her own fault; spending is her province and she returned from this last trip with more than a thousand in cash-she didn't even really try. Her largest purchase was three "pans" (or drums) for a steel band, purchased in Trinidad, and they weren't expensive; they were simply hard to get home-one medium-sized, eighteenth-century brass cannon purchased in New Orleans (so now we are in business for ourselves). The cannon helped a little -- $275 -- but when a guide offered to have a jewelry shop opened for her on a Sunday in Caracas she turned him down. We simply
The 18th Century Brass Cannon was the inspiration for the original title of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. will have to buy some more stock after we pay the income tax; she has lost her touch.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip was visiting a Bush Negro village far up in the jungle in Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana-descendants of escaped slaves who continue to live Congo-style deep in the rainforest, up a side river by launch. My principal reaction was that bare breasts aren't necessarily sexy; the Zulus are much better equipped in that region. We also visited an Amerindian settlement-the Indians were polite and dirty, the Negroes were pushy and very clean. As for other matters-well, a flying fish with a 12-inch fin wingspread flew into the lounge one evening through a port dogged open only 4 inches without damaging the fin wings. I couldn't ask him how he did it; the landing killed him. We got a royal tour of the Boeing plant in Louisiana (guests of the chief engineer and chief counsel), and I beg to report that the Saturn is the most monstrous big brute imaginable and I do not believe that the Russians can do things on the scale of our Apollo project. I do believe we will have a man on the moon this decade; progress looks good. Ginny visited a Negro whorehouse in Jamaica, and behaved with such aplomb and savoir faire that one would think she had spent her whole life in one. We arrived in Denver late at night to find our flight did not run that day, so I chartered a 2-engine Aero-Commander and we landed in a snowstorm in Colo. Spgs. by GCA. I watched it from the co-pilot's seat-much like a carrier landing. The ground is covered with white stuff but it is good to be home.
EDITOR 's NOTE: That brass cannon still stands in the living room. It served as the working title for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress; of course, the title was changed as the editors did not think it was a suitable title for a science fiction novel.
The cannon is a saluting gun from an eighteenth-century sailing vessel, but it still works. We used to fire it every Fourth of July.
December 28, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I behaved myself in Jamaica and all through the trip-first, because I was well chaperoned and, second, because I was never really tempted. The female passengers were all antiques and the chocolate items ashore were not tempting. No, I'm not racist about it-some of the /.ulu gals I saw in South Africa were decidedly tempting. Hut not these. As for Ginny's savoir faire, here's how it came about: [someone from our ship] had a date with a mulatto gal, not bad looking but not too bright and quite notional. He...took Ginny and this gal and myself on a pub prowl through the lower depths of Kingston. About midnight this gal suddenly decided that we should all go to -- and gave the address to a cabdriver-instead of a night club, it turned out to be a cathouse complete with red light, eight or ten colored gals in the parlor, and a bar and jukebox in a room behind the parlor, where the madam (somewhat annoyed but polite) received us. [The gal's date] was terribly embarrassed and explained behind his hand to me that he had not had the slightest idea where we were going. But Ginny was not embarrassed, spotted what the place was at once, and was delighted to have had a chance to see inside one. We bought a couple of rounds of drinks, played the jukebox, and left-much to the madam's relief. (I strongly suspect that [the woman] had worked in that house.)
CLASS REUNION AND RETURN
November 12, 1969: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
It was a wonderful trip for us, all the way through. I'm sorry that I arrived in New York so beaten down by my class reunion [in Annapolis] (some day we'll make a trip in which the first stop will be New York and arrive in prime condition) -- I'm especially sorry that I missed the ballet in which the gals (did) (did not) wear body stockings...Jack Waite took an afternoon off to give us a personal tour of the Manned Spaceflight Center [in Houston] -- high points: a view of Moon rock (swelp me, it looks to me like hundreds of little shiny golden spheroids 'embedded in a tannish gray matrix), a visit inside the mission control room during a computer-simulation of Apollo 12 mission (the LEM was just "landing" on the Moon and you could follow it on the displays), and a long, detailed lecture on the Moon suits (for us alone) by the chief engineer of life support systems-who turned out to be Ted Hayes, whom I [had] hired as an undergraduate at U of Pittsburgh twenty-seven years ago to work at the Naval Aircraft Factory-and I lured him into signing with me rather than General Electric by promising him that he could help develop pressure suits for fighter planes and I kept my promise and it led directly to him developing the first suit used on the Moon.
We stayed over an extra day in Houston at Patricia White's [the widow of Ed White, who died on Apollo I] request --"some people who wanted to meet us." Ginny told you a bit about that party by phone...It was a big party in a big house and I don't know what all Ginny did-but I was followed around all evening by three tall beautiful blondes-Heinlein fans. (I managed to put up with it.) But the star of the evening was "the Honorable Jane." Jane is a BOAC hostess and looks just the way an airline stewardess should look-petite and pretty and shapely.