Tales of strange alien worlds, fantastic future technologies, and bowls of sentient petunias have long captivated audiences worldwide. But science fiction is more than just fantasy in space; it can educate, inspire and expand our imaginations to conceive of the universe as it might be.
Bryan Gaensler, astronomer, University of Toronto
Time for the Stars - Robert A. Heinlein
Long before the era of hard science fiction, Robert Heinlein took Einstein’s special theory of relativity and turned it into a masterpiece of young adult fiction. In Time for the Stars, Earth explores the Galaxy via a fleet of “torch ships,” spacecraft that travel at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Communication with the fleet is handled by pairs of telepathic twins, one of whom stays on Earth while the other journeys forth. The supposed simultaneity of telepathy overcomes the massive time delays that would otherwise occur over the immense distances of space.
Time Dilation: A Twin's Tale
The catch is that at the tremendous speeds of these torch ships, time travels much slower than back on Earth. The story focuses on Tom, the space traveler, and his twin brother Pat, who remains behind. The years and decades sweep by for Pat, in a journey that takes mere months for Tom. Pat’s telepathic voice accelerates to a shrill accelerated squeal for Tom, as Einstein’s time dilation drives them apart, both metaphorically and physically. This is ultimately a breezy kids’ adventure novel, but it had a massive influence on me. Modern physics wasn’t abstruse. It was measurable, and it had consequences. I was hooked. And I’ve never let go.
Michael Brown, astronomer, Monash University
2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey encompasses human evolution, space, alien life, and artificial intelligence. Despite being released the year before Apollo 11, the Academy Award-winning special effects still make its vision of space inspiring. It can be spine-tingling when seen at an old-fashioned cinema with a wide screen and a 70mm print (such as Melbourne’s Astor).
Technology and Social Norms of 2001
2001 is also a product of its time. During the 1960s NASA consumed roughly 4% of the US federal budget, and if that had continued, then perhaps the International Space Station would be a giant rotating behemoth seen in 2001. Indeed, 2001’s Pan Am spaceplane seems like a natural progression from early (ambitious) proposals for the Space Shuttle. Technologies in the film are ahead and behind of what we have today. The most memorable (and arguably emotional) character of 2001 is HAL, an eerily intelligent computer that is far in advance of any computer in existence. And yet astronauts on the moon are using photographic film, rather than digital cameras. Kubrick deliberately made some space travel seem routine, so his space travelers are frozen in 1960s norms. The astronauts are mostly white men, with women mostly relegated to roles such as flight attendants (an exception is a Soviet scientist). Fortunately, in this regard, the 21st century is more advanced than 2001’s imagined future.
Alice Gorman, space archaeologist, Flinders University
Out of the Silent Planet - C. S. Lewis
The first book of the classic “Space Trilogy” was written 20 years before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, the first “world-circling spaceship”. C. S. Lewis was no scientist – he was a professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature – but his deep knowledge of pre-modern cosmology gives his take on space travel a unique flavor.
The Radiant Ocean of Space
I find myself returning to Out of the Silent Planet and its sequel, Voyage to Venus, over and over again. In the story, Lewis' hero, Ransom, becomes a reluctant astronaut when kidnapped by the uber-colonial “hard” scientist Weston for a journey to Mars. Confined in the spherical spaceship, he becomes aware of a constant faint tinkling noise. In the world before space junk, it is a fine rain of micrometeoroids striking the aluminum shell. Ransom’s revelation is an intimately joyous recognition that space, far from being dead, is an “empyrean ocean of radiance,” whose “blazing and innumerable offspring” look down upon the Earth.
Duncan Galloway, astrophysicist, Monash University
Ringworld - Larry Niven
It was Larry Niven’s Ringworld that led, in part, to my career in astrophysics. Ringworld describes the exploration of an alien megastructure of unknown origin, discovered around a distant star. The artificial world is literally in the shape of a ring, with a radius corresponding to the distance of the Earth to the sun; mountainous walls on each side hold in the atmosphere, and the surface is decorated with a wide variety of alien plants and animals.
Technology Meets Imagination
The hero gets to the Ringworld via a mildly faster-than-light drive purchased at astronomical cost from an alien trading species, and makes use of teleportation disks and automated medical equipment. The appeal of high-technology stories like this is obvious: many contemporary problems, like personal transportation, overpopulation, disease, and death have all been solved by advanced technology; while of course, new and interesting problems have arisen. Grand in scope, and featuring some truly bold ideas, Ringworld (and Niven’s other books set in “Known Space”) is as keen now as when they were written, 40 years ago.
In the interplay between the imagined and the known, the insightful musings of these individuals reveal that science fiction serves as more than escapism; it is a playground for the curious passenger aboard the ship of scientific exploration. Whether we are swept up in the time-stretched narratives of Heinlein’s telepathic twins or contemplating the evolution of society alongside explorers in Banks' utopian Culture—our journey through the cosmos, both physically and intellectually, is bound by an innate yearning for discovery.
As we reflect on the musings of fictional spacefarers and real-world scientists alike, we are reminded that the pursuit of the unknown often blurs the lines between the possible and the fantastic—sometimes it feels as tangible as sailing across a fluid spacetime, charting a course into the endless sea of stars and human imagination.