This year marks the 81st publication anniversary of Ernest Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War epic, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The novel, which drew on the author’s own experiences as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance during the war, was a huge critical and commercial triumph for Hemingway, selling half a million copies in its first few months.

For Whom the Bell Tolls was also a finalist for the 1941 Pulitzer Prize, allegedly chosen as the winner by both the jury and the board, before being vetoed(否决)by Columbia president(and ex-official chairman of the board)Nicholas Murray Butler because he found the book offensive.

In 1943, less than two years after the book was first published, Paramount Pictures released a wildly successful movie adaptation of the book staring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, both of whom somewhat incredibly, were handpicked for their roles by Hemingway himself.

Let’s look back at one of the earliest reviews of “the first major novel of WWII”:

All that need be said here about the new Hemingway novel can be said in relatively few words. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a tremendous piece of work. It is the most moving document to date on the Spanish Civil War, and the first major novel of the Second World War.

As a story, it is superb, packed with the matter of picaresque(传奇式流浪冒险的)romance: blood, lust, adventure, vulgarity, comedy, tragedy. For Robert Jordan, the young American from Montana, the lust and adventure are quickly drowned in blood. The comedy, as in other Hemingway fiction, is practically indistinguishable from the vulgarity, which in this case is a rich and indigenous peasant brand. The tragedy is present and only too plain...

On Sept 15, the night sky in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, lit up and the rumble of engines of a 70-meter-tall Falcon 9 rocket set off car alarms. Aboard that rocket was a group of four civilians in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft prepared to make history.

This is the first mission to Earth's orbit crewed entirely by tourists, or those not professionally trained as astronauts. For three days, the four civilians aboard the spacecraft traveled in orbit around Earth as part of the mission called Inspiration 4.The name of the mission itself is fitting.

Late last year, the mission leader Jared Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur, announced that he would like to fund a spaceflight that differed from other billionaire space journeys. His would be part of an effort to raise funds for St Jude Children's Hospital.

“He knew he would be using those seats to carry out his mission objective of inspiring humanity while raising money for children's cancer research, Scientific American wrote. In addition to Issacman, the crew included 29-year-old Hayley Arceneux, who is not only a childhood cancer survivor, but a current St.Jude physician assistant; Sian Pro-cotor, 51, a geologist（地质学家）and community college teacher; and Chris Sembroski, a 42-year-old lifelong space fan who got his seat through an online, raffle（抽奖活动）, CNN reported.

This particular Dragon spacecraft did not visit the International Space Station, but it did reach 590 kilometers above Earth.This is “higher than the current orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope-an altitude that humans haven't reached since the Hubble servicing missions during the space shuttle（航天飞机）program”.

While there is certainly a long way to go before SpaceX achieves its goal of ferrying civilians to Mars at an accessible price, this mission is definitely making its mark on space travel-all for a good cause. According to CNN, at a press briefing on Sept 14, Sembroski told reporters that joining the Inspiration 4 mission felt like “we're writing the rules, we're breaking a couple of them that NASA used to demand...We get to kind of do things our own way.”

What is volunteer travel?

Volunteer travel involves taking a trip where all or part of the purpose of the trip is to participate in an arranged service opportunity helping others. Typically, the volunteer activity takes place in a foreign country, but some opportunities can involve national or regional projects.     11    

Charitable interests often go far beyond national boundaries. People in developed countries become interested in the struggles of people in less developed countries.     12     Volunteer travel is a way to combine a visit to a new location with meaningful work that has a direct impact on communities in other parts of the world.

    13     Historically, church groups made up a large part of this market. Once a year a religious organization or church would organize a trip to another country.     14     For example, it would be to help build a school in an impoverished(贫困的)area, or dig wells so a village would have clean water, or engage in hundreds of other projects that would impact those less fortunate. As international travel became easier and the Internet made communication between countries much easier, the interest in volunteer travel increased.

    15     Volunteering in other countries has become as accessible as browsing a website and signing up. Instead of traveling with a group that is organized at the volunteers home base, the volunteer may join a group that gathers at the worksite from all over the world. This sort of volunteer travel is sometimes referred to as voluntourism or vacanteerism.