A.E. Williams has kindly agreed to write a regular column for the
Speculative Fiction Showcase, based on his wealth of experience, and
fascination with space travel both real and fictional.
The very first
science-fiction story that is popularly recognized as having anything to do
with the concept of modern space travel is probably Jules Verne’s “From the
Earth to the Moon”. In this tale, the adventurers travel to the Earth’s Moon in
a modified cannon shell – it is pointed at the Moon and fired, with much
fanfare, from Tampa, Florida.
Oddly enough,
Verne predicted much of the issues with which manned space explorers would need
to contend.
With the
exception of the fatal effects of the immense shock from an instantaneous
acceleration to escape / orbital velocities, Verne’s idea was sound. In fact,
NASA and Iraq had programs to launch satellites using cannons as recently as
1990[1].
Of course, these satellites would have had few moving parts; live payloads were
out of the question.
But, Verne’s
vision sparked the idea of men traveling across space to other planets.
Since that time,
there have been thousands of different tales of space adventure. Science
fiction has brought us every manner of device and apparatus to move people from
one end of the galaxy (nay, the Universe!) to the other.
Some of these
schemes were ridiculous, and played for satirical purposes, or were parodies of
actual ideas.[2]
What I’d like to
explore in this article, however, is how the very real problems of manned space
travel were ‘solved’ to some extent by the speculative fiction authors who
became very clever in just how we should proceed to move into space.
Let’s start with
a few of the more famous modes of space travel:
Rockets –
Rockets follow
the simplistic physical laws of ballistics, and sustained propulsion of a
cylindrical tube filled with air, food, water and people has actually happened!
In science
fiction, post-Verne, there are many places where the possible issues were
enumerated and addressed.
Arthur C.
Clarke’s writings, including ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, Robert Heinlein’s
stories, E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith and many Golden Age authors took serious engineering
minds and bent them to the task of answering thorny questions such as what
actually happens to the human body in space, the effects of temperature,
pressure and radiation on living entities, and the stresses of acceleration and
deceleration.[3]
The mechanical
engineering problems surrounding structures and forces were incorporated into
many of the best hard science fiction of the times. The authors were serious in
considering what actually might occur during these flights of fancy, and came
up with ingenious ideas.
Heinlein went so
far as to show how the Moon could be used as a launch pad for Earth-bound
missiles made of mined moon rocks, and how they could be used as serious
weaponry against the Mother Planet. His calculations were intended to show the
scientific rationale about gravity wells, but he inadvertently illustrated one
of the biggest issues facing spaceships, which is how to avoid debris while
traveling around.
But it also
showed the feasibility of using the Moon as a base of operations for advanced
space missions.
‘Destination
Moon’ was a film that used Heinlein’s musings to bring some verisimilitude to
the silver screen. It showed how action / reaction would work in zero gee
environments, as is shown when one of the key characters uses a fire
extinguisher to fly around the room.
Other ‘Invasion’
films utilized stock footage of V2 and Redstone launches to convince audiences
that these were actually alien craft, or were threats to other planets.
To say that the
fictional creatures from other worlds were not much amused by our antics is
putting it lightly.
The 1950’s and
‘60’s presented us with alien onslaughts on all sides, from the novel “Starship
Troopers” to the flying saucers in the films “The Thing from Another World”, “Mars
Attacks!” and “Earth vs the Flying
Saucers”.
A strange
variation of this was “The Day the Earth Stood Still” wherein Klaatu, a
traveler from another galaxy (!) comes to Earth to warn us of our hubris at
combining nuclear bombs and rockets. His vehicle, a true flying saucer, was
discussed in detail during some exposition in the film with the top mind of
that Earth.
The relativistic
effects of Einstein’s new theories on Faster-Than-Light travel may have made
viewers heads spin, but the dialog was grounded in scientific roots.
These stories
and approaches still mainly glossed over the incredible distances involved.
Even “Forbidden Planet”, with its revolutionary saucer-ship didn’t really
clearly depict the time and space parameters that we now are just beginning to
understand.
To get around
the problem of the actual flight-times becoming lethal, the concepts of ‘Generation’
ships were introduced. These were miniature worlds, entire ecosystems with
populations that traversed the blackness at a relatively slow speed, but taking
millennia to get to their final destinations.
Again, Heinlein,
in “Universe” set the bar very high. The story took place on a giant spherical
ship where the radiation shielding had partially failed. Mutated beings mixed
it up with the normals, while the ship headed endlessly into deep space, its
original purpose lost to the ravages of time.
Keir Dullea, of
‘2001’ fame, explored this more fully in the television series “The Star Lost”.
Bruce Dern touched upon the idea of isolated ecosystems orbiting in space in “Silent
Running”, Niven and Pournelle spoke of Ringworlds,
and good old dependable A.C. Clarke’s “Rama” capped off the idea until the
advent of ‘The Borg’ reignited it. [4]
Because it was
taking so MUCH time to get from point A to point B in these stories, the
science fiction authors next needed to come up with ways to speed things up a
bit.
Enter
Faster-Than-Light travel, or FTL.
Now, E.E. ‘Doc’
Smith had handled this quite well in the “Skylark of Space” and “Grey Lensman”
space operas, by simply annihilating copper bars atomically, releasing all of
their innate power into machines that manipulated bands or frequencies of this
energy. Much like radio, television and microwaves today are used for many
purposes from heating food to allowing us to read words on fluorescing screens,
the heroes of these adventures took all of it in stride.
Their facile use
of these technologies involved a bit of ‘hand-waving’, such as electronic
teaching machines and the like, but in the final analysis they were allowed to
succeed in ignoring inertia and momentum mainly because the author simply chose
a deux ex machina approach to the problem.
For an instance,
let’s think about how we actually assure that our passengers will survive the
long, arduous flight from one planet to another. (Interstellar travel is
another breed of cat entirely, but for now, let’s take baby steps.)
Wing Commander,
Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and many other universes consider traditional
naval vessels as models to be imitated, both in the construction of the space
ships, and in how they are crewed. Think of space submarines, battleships and
aircraft carriers – these are the basic craft used to convey people from planet
to planet. They use impulse engines for shorter distances, and warp drives for
the inevitable FTL travel.
Some of the
things brushed aside or hand-waved away include inertia, momentum, friction,
impacts with space debris, and relativistic effects. Deflector fields, shields
or other devices clear a path in front of any FTL spacecraft in ways that defy
physics.
Think about it
this way – you are driving your car down a highway, and an animal jumps out of
a forest line just ahead of you. How you react to this hazard depends on many
factors.
First is your
vessel. Is it small, like an Audi R8, or large, like a tractor-trailer?
How fast are you
going? Are you accelerating or decelerating?
Is the animal
small, like a cat, or large, like a moose?[5]
Now, the amount
of damage to your vessel depends on the mass of the animal, the velocity at
which you contact it, and the directions both of you are traveling.
Without getting
into too much gory detail, this is the problem facing every satellite, missile,
and space craft ever created.
When in flight,
one does not merely change direction and swerve to avoid an obstacle. Oh, no –
what one does is disintegrate that obstacle, or push it out of YOUR path.
As the speed is
increased to escape velocity and beyond, even the tiniest flake of paint
becomes a real danger. The film “Gravity” got much of this correct, as did “Pitch
Black”.
Many other
science fiction novels warn of spacesuit punctures from micro meteors, and
other wear and tear that would occur.
So, science
fiction authors sort of ignore the problem as having been solved by magnetic or
other energy beams that push this stuff aside. You can see the issue here – in
order to do so, these deflectors must travel ahead of the ship.
A recent Vsauce episode addresses the problem of
light being emitted from an FTL ship, but that only spoke to photons – massless
particles that can’t really move anything aside.
How can
something be projected in front of the ship, with enough force to move debris,
yet also not enough force to obliterate it? Think about this for a moment.
As your starship
enters a solar system, at tremendous speed, and is decelerating, it encounters
a satellite. What happens next?
This brings up
the parallel problem of how navigation is supposed to work. Even if there is
some huge AI computer that has a fourth-dimensional space map, this super-GPS[6]
must be able to be updated instantaneously to accommodate the space and TIME
changes that are occurring as the ship enters a given space-time co-ordinates.
Remember, for
FTL travel, the time around the ship changes with respect to a frame of
reference. [7]
This causes some
interesting effects as well, and was the subject of much scrutiny when the
recent film “Gravity” hit the theatres.
In PART TWO of
this article, we will look at some other examples of science fiction authors
intriguing efforts to predict how future manned space flight would unfold.
Get ready to
dive deep into even more about FTL Travel – using “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”,
“Interstellar”as examples. We will delve into
Hyperspace, Wormholes, black holes, etc.
And let’s not
forget the really out-there concepts of space flight:
Other Space –
Travel outside of relativistic space!
The Aether – EE Doc Smith’s ideas on space
travel!
Dune’s Spice
Ships, ‘folding space’
… and other
weird ideas!
NEXT UP:
April - An
Exploration of the Physics Behind Faster Than Light Travel.
May - Cyborgs,
Artificial Intelligences, Trans-Humans, the Singularity and the Merging of
Humans and Machine.
June - The
Physics of Science Fiction Weapons.
July - The
Reality of Living in an Undersea City.
A.E. Williams March 07, 2015
Most of Douglas Adam’s “Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy” is about how one could travel the length and breadth
of the known Universe, in time, space and hyperspace by the use of the clever
‘electronic thumb’.
An interesting article could be written concerning gender roles and how they
were presented by these authors. I may do one in the future! The general consensus
seemed to be that women and men were equally subject to the laws of physics,
though.
The Generation ship is actually an idea
stolen from our own human experience – we travel on such a device, every day we
are alive. Think about it – a closed spacecraft that takes millions of years to
travel the Universe. Food, water, life are all balanced – carefully taking
billions of changes into consideration. The Earth is a star ship, but we don’t
really notice, since we are always imagining new and improved ways to do
things.
Galactic Positioning System
“Interstellar”
does a fair job of depicting this, as does “2001:A
Space Odyssey” to some extent.
