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<\/p>\nScience Fiction and the Interstellar Imagination
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\u201cWe were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town; \u2014 Kipling, from \u201cThe Song of the Dead\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re lucky that science fiction fans are such packrats. They not only keep beloved books and magazine issues from their past but also catalog them relentlessly. Because of both these traits, I can turn to my own bookshelf and pull out the November, 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction<\/em> to see P. Schuyler Miller\u2019s review of John Campbell\u2019s Islands of Space<\/em><\/a>, in which he described the novel as \u201cvery characteristic of the best \u2018hard\u2019 science fiction of its day.\u201d Miller had a lot to do in subsequent book reviews for the magazine with establishing \u2018hard SF\u2019 as a category.<\/p>\n Campbell\u2019s book, extensively revised from its original appearance in the spring, 1931 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly<\/em>, is an interesting curiosity in being the first appearance of a \u2018warp drive\u2019 in science fiction. Here the concept emerges as a way of folding spacetime in ways that allow superluminal travel. The concept flows freely in science fiction of all sorts, led directly to Star Trek<\/em>\u2019s famous \u2018warp factor,\u2019 and was inspiration for Miguel Alcubierre\u2019s investigation of whether or not \u2018bending\u2019 spacetime could actually be achieved, and how much energy it would take to do that.<\/p>\n It also moves between the \u2018hard SF\u2019 Miller describes and the more picaresque \u2018space opera,\u2019 heavy on adventure and short on technical detail. Whatever the subgenre, Islands of Space<\/em> is an early fanciful leap in which protagonists Arcot and Morey discuss how their \u2018space strain\u2019 drive works and why other forms of propulsion are also useful:<\/p>\n \u201cSee here; with this new space strain drive, why do we have to have the molecular drive at all?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cTo move around near a heavy mass\u2014in the presence of a strong gravitational field,\u201d Arcot said. \u201cA gravitational field tends to warp space in such a way that the velocity of light is lower in its presence. Our drive tries to warp or strain space in the opposite manner. The two would simply cancel each other out and we\u2019d waste a lot of power going nowhere. As a matter of fact, the gravitational field of the sun is so intense that we\u2019ll have to go out beyond the orbit of Pluto before we can use the space strain drive effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And look, here\u2019s the first appearance of another science fiction motif, a higher dimension through which spacecraft can move without violating Einsteinian relativity. It solved a lot of problems in the days when hard SF inevitably edged into space opera as it approached c<\/em>: <\/p>\n They were well beyond the orbit of Pluto when they decided they would be safe in using the space strain drive and throwing the ship into hyperspace.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I can only speculate how many writers\u2019 careers were saved in those days by being able to deploy hyperspace to wave away all those bothersome problems with physics.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to linger on Campbell\u2019s novel, which the extraordinary E. F. Bleiler, who seems to have read every science fiction tale published as the genre was emerging, described as \u201cgreatly overloaded with unnecessary (although at times ingenious) exposition, hence almost unreadable; weak novelistically; and clich\u00e9d in its action plot.\u201d All too true, alas, as I remember from reading it in my grad student days. But how stuffed with ideas Campbell\u2019s writings could be, even when they went far off the rails in some of his later editorials in Astounding<\/em> and Analog<\/em>. <\/p>\n Giancarlo Genta, whose work in automotive engineering at Politecnico di Torino in Italy is highly regarded, is also a SETI theorist who has authored numerous papers in astronautics as well as Lonely Minds in the Universe<\/em><\/a> (Copernicus, 2007). On top of this, Genta has written science fiction tales of his own, like The Hunter<\/em><\/a> (Springer, 2013), which explores first contact with a highly dangerous alien civilization. His most recent paper is a look at interstellar exploration as it moves from fictional musings into actual hardware, with numerous SF references on the way.<\/p>\n Genta has recourse to the \u2018hard science fiction\u2019 terminology, referring to it as \u201cscience fiction strictly based on scientific knowledge.\u201d That\u2019s a handy, vest-pocket definition and I like it. We can add the idea that hard SF attempts to present innovative technologies with consistency and intellectual rigor, so that it demands a level of detail that can be glossed over in SF oriented more toward the social sciences. Poul Anderson could work in both camps but is probably best known for hard SF like Tau Zero<\/em>. Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s credentials at hard SF are foundational to the field. A trip through Greg Benford\u2019s \u2018Galactic Center\u2019 novels is a master class in how hard SF is done.<\/p>\n A touchstone volume for those interested in the continuing vitality of the form is the Hartwell and Cramer collection The Hard SF Renaissance<\/em><\/a> (Tor, 2003), which assembles work from the major creators in the subgenre. These are likely familiar names to most Centauri Dreams<\/em> readers, and some have appeared in these pages: Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Hal Clement, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Karl Schroeder, Allen Steele. That hardly exhausts the list, and I\u2019ll direct you to this volume for others. You\u2019ll find 960 pages of hard SF to work with inside.<\/p>\n In the Genta paper, I enjoyed being reminded of A. W. Bickerton\u2019s quote from 1926. The British scientist was as outspoken about lunar travel as some scientists were about interstellar travel a few decades ago, saying:<\/p>\n This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialisation will carry scientists. To escape Earth\u2019s gravitation a projectile needs a velocity of 7 miles per second. The thermal energy at this speed is 15,180 calories [per gram]. Hence the proposition appears to be basically impossible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In any case, science fiction has dealt with all of these themes, though as Genta points out, the further we move into relativistic realms, the more likely the author is engaging in space opera\u2019s robust adventurism than the detailed physics of hard SF, which work best when dealing with concepts for which we have current solutions, no matter how imaginative. We don\u2019t yet know how to produce a Von Neumann machine but the concepts are clear, and hard SF has emerged from the likes of Clarke and Fred Saberhagen, for example, to explore their Darwinian evolution and dangers.<\/p>\n Robert Forward\u2019s Rocheworld<\/em><\/a> has often appeared in these pages as an example of a manned interstellar mission whose physics is explained at a high level of detail. This journey to Barnard\u2019s Star grew from Forward\u2019s work on beamed propulsion systems and included an ingenious concept for crew return using the same beamer. Slower travel in space arks is a staple of science fiction with roots in novels like Heinlein\u2019s Orphans of the Sky<\/em><\/a>, drawn from two novellas and first published as a book in 1963. But the literature is rich and includes such classics as Brian Aldiss\u2019 Non-Stop<\/em><\/a>, Harry Harrison\u2019s Captive Universe<\/em><\/a> and many others.<\/p>\n Gene Roddenberry\u2019s warp factor scale, developed for Star Trek<\/em>, is nonlinear, with warp factor 6 requiring 7.32 days to reach Alpha Centauri, whereas getting to Vulcan (supposedly orbiting 40 Eridani) would require one month. But we have to have velocities like this to achieve science fictional goals whether of the hard SF, social sciences or space opera variety. Interstellar diplomacy? Poul Anderson couldn\u2019t explore it without having a way to move not just faster than light but far beyond that limit. As Genta points out in the paper in Acta Astronautica<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026to make it possible what science fiction describes, not only spacecraft must travel in FTL conditions, but their speed must be more than 2 orders of magnitudes greater than light speed. Just traveling slightly faster than speed has little advantages with respect to what in science fiction is called \u2018subluminal\u2019 travel.. True FTL travel is even more difficult to achieve. And even in this case, the situation will be like world wide travel in the nineteenth century: very costly (beyond the possibility of almost all people, except the very rich and the government officers) and slow (requiring weeks or months). In this situation very few people could travel, but empires spanning more than one continent, and international diplomacy were possible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If we master a warp technology of some kind, we still have the problem of entering and exiting a warp condition, or for that matter entering a wormhole, if such exist and become a feasible way to travel. It may prove necessary to locate the departure point outside the stellar system the craft is in \u2013 Arcot and Morey noticed this problem in the Campbell novel. In this case, we need to factor in time to exit and enter the departure and arrival systems at speeds less than light. On the other hand, if wormholes exist and we can find a way to pass through them, we must first travel to them. Genta discussed these issues in a paper with Roman Kezerashvili in 2020 as well as in a 2023 paper on system-wide infrastructure as a precondition for interstellar expansion (citations below).<\/p>\n Science fiction tales often assume but rarely discuss the existence of inertial dampeners that allow high accelerations without seeming effect on the crew. Communications by FTL methods range from the \u2018subspace messages\u2019 of Star Trek<\/em> (moving faster than light and verging on the instantaneous as the story lines progress), to recording information on a material substrate which could be put aboard a small probe and sent to destination (the probe is thus assumed to be faster than the craft that launches it). Early images of Earth from spy satellites were deorbited and returned on film, beginning our study of the best methods for re-entry from orbit. <\/p>\n I read a lot of novels, but these days most of my reading in interstellar topics is in scientific papers and books they have spawned. Nonetheless, we have to develop the imagination needed to know where necessary advances in technology will be made. Science fiction has been serving that purpose for a century now, and much longer depending on where you locate its origins \u2013 Brian Aldiss goes all the way back to Mary Shelley in Billion Year Spree<\/em><\/a>, for example. The field remains robust and doubtless is encouraging as many new scientists as it did when I was a kid all goggle-eyed from Anderson\u2019s The Enemy Stars<\/em><\/a>. Long may it thrive.<\/p>\n The paper is Genta, \u201cInterstellar Exploration: From Science Fiction to Actual Technology,\u201d Acta Astronautica<\/em> Vol. 222 (September 2024), pp. 655-660 (abstract<\/a>). See also Genta and Kezerashvili, \u201cAchieving the required mobility in the solar system through Direct Fusion Drive,\u201d Acta Astronautica<\/em> Vol. 173 (2020), 303-309 (abstract<\/a>). The paper on system infrastructure is \u201cIs a solar system-scale civilization a precursor to going interstellar,\u201d in L. Johnson, K. Roy, Interstellar Travel<\/em><\/a>, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2023.<\/p>\n
\nWe yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
\nCame the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
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