"The Green Hills of Earth" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. One of his Future History stories, the short story originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post (February 8, 1947), and it was collected in The Green Hills of Earth (and subsequently in The Past Through Tomorrow). Heinlein selected the story for inclusion in the 1949 anthology My Best Science Fiction Story. "The Green Hills of Earth" is also the title of a song mentioned in several of Heinlein's novels.
The Rhysling Award for speculative fiction poetry awarded by the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) is named for the blind poet Rhysling in “The Green Hills of Earth.”
Rhysling (crater) on the Moon was named by Apollo 15 astronauts. who quoted the last verse of Rhysling's song "The green hills of Earth" (from this story) as their third moonwalk was ending.
Plot summary
It is the story of "Noisy" Rhysling, the blind space-going songwriter whose poetic skills rival Rudyard Kipling's. Heinlein (himself a medically retired U.S. naval officer) spins a yarn about a radiation-blinded, unemployable spaceship engineer crisscrossing the Solar System writing and singing songs. The story takes the form of a nonfiction magazine article.
The events of the story concern the composition of the titular song. Rhysling realizes that his death of old age is near, and hitchhikes on a spaceship headed to Earth so he can die and be buried where he was born. A malfunction threatens the ship with destruction, and Rhysling enters the irradiated area to perform repairs. While completing the repairs, he knows that he will soon die of radiation poisoning and tells them to record his last song; he dies just moments after singing the final, titular verse.
Apollo 15
The Apollo 15 astronauts named a number of craters in their landing area after favorite science fiction stories. Near "Dune" (after the Frank Herbert novel) and "Earthlight" (Arthur C. Clarke) craters was Rhysling (crater), named after the blind singer of the spaceways in "The Green Hills of Earth". They intended to read a bit of "Green Hills of Earth" at the crater, but the exigencies of lunar exploration kept it from happening. To squeeze it in, Capcom Joe Allen told them to "come home again to the homes of men, to the cool green hills of Earth" as their last moonwalk was ending: