 Why does Dunbar continue to tell stories of an enchanting paradise?
TO EACH HIS STAR by BRYCE WALTON "Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried blood," old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men. "Only one way to go, where we can float down through the clouds to Paradise. How could they believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken section of space was surrounded by a beckoning red rim? Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face wrinkled like a dried prune, burned by cosmic rays and the suns of worlds so far away they were scarcely credible, had taken command. Each suit had its own power-plant, reprocessing continuously the precious air breathed by the occupants, putting it back into circulation again after enriching it. Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line, taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where he was going. But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first—that old Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird. Russell had no idea now how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun that never seemed to get any nearer. All Russell knew was that they were millions of light years from any place he had ever heard about, where the galactic space lanterns had absolutely no recognizable pattern. And Russell was looking at Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking about how Dunbar looked inside that suit—and hating Dunbar more and more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling optimism—because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and calling their destination Paradise.
 To motivate them to keep persisting until they arrive
 To motivate them to keep persisting until they arrive  To convince himself that he is choosing the correct star  To assuage his crewmen's minds before they inevitably die  To lure the Johnson, Alvar, and Russell into a trap