Spaceships

**Spaceships**, or **sky-ships**, were devices or vehicles for traversing Field of Arbol and Deep Heaven. In the Space Trilogy, we see them used exclusively by humans; Eldila and Oyarsa have no need for them and Malacandrians and Perelandrians have no use for them. Prior to the events of *Out of the Silent Planet*, there does not seem to be any evidence of their use by humans, except by Edward Rolles Weston and Richard Devine.

## First Use

The spaceship used in *Out of the Silent Planet* and *Perelandra* was crafted and designed by Professor Weston based on what he called Weston rays. This spaceship was first used by Weston and Devine before the events of *Out of the Silent Planet* occurred.

Weston first intended to use this spaceship to fly to and colonize Mars or Malacandra. When he landed on Malacandra with Devine he found that it had three species of hnau already living on it, but they attempt to build a small base on Mars. It is then when they meet a sorn, and misunderstanding its language they somehow think, it demanded a human to be sacrificed to it. Weston and Devine return back to Earth looking for a human sacrifice. They stumble on Harry, but Ransom prevents it.

## Use in *Out of the Silent Planet*

At the beginning of *Out of the Silent Planet*, Ransom is out walking near Sterk and Much Nadderby, and finds an isolated house called The Rise. He runs into Weston and Devine, and is offered what he thinks is Scotch whiskey, but it is drugged. When he wakes up again, he finds he has been kidnapped and is onboard the spaceship (which was presumably launched near The Rise),. He looks back at Earth through its window and sees “*that little disc-London, Athens, Jerusalem, Shakespeare. There everyone had lived and everything had happened; and there, presumably, his pack was still lying in the porch of [ that ] empty house near Sterk.*”

This spaceship takes the three men, to Malacandra. Weston and Devine intend to take Ransom to be sacrificed to the Sorns. Their original target was a mentally disabled man called Harry, but Ransom's intervention prevented that.

They use the same spaceship near the end of the book to fly back to Earth. On the return journey, Ransom is protected from further harm by Eldila who are keeping watch over him on the ship. The air grows extremely stale towards the end of the journey back to Earth and all three are forced to conserve oxygen.

## Use in *Perelandra*

There are two separate spacecraft in use in this book.

Firstly, Ransom uses a completely different type of spacecraft, which has been fashioned for him by the Eldila. It is very small and something like a coffin.

Secondly, Weston takes another spacecraft to to fly to Perelandra. Thulcandra/Earth is under quarantine, due to the actions of The Bent One, but this spacecraft manages to breach it. Onboard with Weston is a demon, which Weston terms the "Life Force", and has driven him to make this journey. This demon later possesses Weston, and he becomes the Un-man. After landing on Perelandra, he abandons the spaceship in Lur, and it becomes lost for good. We are told

> *"Something like a shooting star seemed to have streaked across the sky, far away on their left, and some seconds later an indeterminate noise reached their ears."*
>
>

The arrival of Weston becomes a mirror of the fall of Lucifer from Heaven.

The coffin-like spacecraft is refitted at the end so Ransom can return to Earth.

## *That Hideous Strength*

The National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments want to use spaceships to spread their technocracy.

However, while humans have visited both Perelandra and Malacandra, it also says about the Outer Planets that:
*No feet have walked, nor shall, on the ice of Glund; no eye looked up from beneath on the Ring of Lurga, and Ironplain in Neruval is chaste and empty. Yet it is not for nothing that the gods walked ceaselessly around the Fields of Arbol*" - *Perelandra*, p. 342 of the Pan one-volume edition of "The Cosmic Trilogy"

From this we can deduce that humans will never land on Jupiter, and have not landed on Saturn and Uranus/Neptune (and are unlikely to). However, nothing is said about the moons of these various planetary systems, nor indeed Sulva, the Asteroid Belt or the Malacandrian moons, which humans are presumably not precluded from visiting. Viritrilbia (Mercury) is not mentioned either, but descriptions of it make it sound as if it is too hot for humans to visit.

## Non-canon

It is said in non-canon sources that the great earth crawlers in the underland of Perelandra are native to Viritrilbia, or Mercury, but Ransom sees them working under the Fixed Island. He suspects they are hnau, or becoming Hnau. If they are native to Mercury, then they must have arrived in spaceships.

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