Changing conceptions of solar system habitability in Dan Dare between the 1950s and the 2010s

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Abstract

In this article, I consider how Dan Dare has articulated our changing understanding of Solar System habitability, with particular reference to the first three Dan Dare audio dramas and the 1950s comic strips on which they were based: 'Voyage to Venus' (1950-51), 'The Red Moon Mystery' (1951-52) and 'Marooned on Mercury' (1952-53). Of special interest is the degree to which the adaptations have balanced the need for action with the original strip's pedagogical mission, and the extent to which that mediates the concerns of a changing demographic within their audience. By the time of the 2016 audio dramatization, an averagely science-literate audience was no longer willing to accept an Earth-like Venusian ecosystem. [...]the Treens are now described as colonizing Venus from elsewhere and, instead of living on the hostile surface, they inhabit platforms suspended in the cloud layer; the surface and other Venusian races no longer feature. With the still-debated discovery of phosphine, a potential chemical marker of biological activity or 'biosignature' in the Venusian cloud deck (Greaves et al 2020), the status of Venus as a habitable planet is once more the subject of intense scrutiny, and the audio updating of this key setting has never appeared more appropriate. [...]it condensed water on its surface,

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