This week Futures is pleased to welcome back to its pages S R Algernon, with his story One slow step for man. The story finds him thinking small — very small — and celebrates the incredibly hardy tardigrade. His previous tales have focused on slightly larger subjects, including uses for phlogiston, interplanetary war, Marley’s ghost, the future of the human race, rebellion, time travel and the real nature of Hell. Here, he explains the origins of his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing One slow step for man

The idea for One slow step for man arose from a problem that I encountered when writing other stories, namely that humans are fragile and they weigh a lot compared with many other organisms. So, I thought if we could create a sapient organism that was smaller, lighter and hardier, it would make interstellar missions more feasible. The idea itself struck me as exciting, but it didn’t have much of a narrative arc by itself. So, I added a little character drama to pit the emissaries of this new species against the humans that they would eventually outpace. I thought it was important to end on a partially conciliatory note, because I imagine that there will be enough room in the Galaxy for many Earth-derived organisms and machines, once we finally do branch out beyond our native system.