Tutorial Great Resource for Space Travel for Science Fiction Authors

[jaded]

Hey all. This site has pretty much cleared up a lot of the misconceptions and inaccuracies in my science fiction writing in regards to space travel, spaceship design, and life during space travel

Atomic Rockets - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

To navigate, simply scroll all the way to the bottom and click any of the links. I would start with "Misconceptions", but I do warn you it's one hell of a rabbit hole to go down

 

[Crenando]

I think people know these things and just aren't writing Hard SF so it isn't an issue. That just aren't what the stories are exploring.
I don't need Space Battleship Yamato or Star Trek to explore serious space ship design because they explore soft sciences. Sociology, anthropology, that kind of thing.
It's like when Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweets about a block buster action movie not having realistic physics.

 

[jaded]

Yeah! And its no problem to like or write soft science fiction (which is one thing I dont like about the website-- it's a bit pretentious in that regard), but I like to have elements of hard science fiction and hard science with my soft science fiction and soft science. It makes it more immersive for me and besides that its just kinda cool.

My favorite example is stuff like how space pirates couldnt just wait for a spaceship on a trade route because trade routes realistically wouldnt exist, as both the departure and the destination are moving through space. Ok, so how are these space pirates raiding this ship? They cant follow them because their sensors will detect them. Maybe they kidnap and engineer and make him use math to predict possible trajectories, and/or place a tracker on their cargo in case they need to move to match trajectory.

Or take space combat for example. Realistically ships simply reorient with bursts of oxygen then thrust to change direction. Also, they could be facing one way while being propelled the other way. That offers a lot of creativity and potential as far as space combat goes.

So obviously you don't have to follow it to a T, but I think its helpful for those that want to incorporate such elements for the purposes of immersion and creativity.

 

[Crenando]

Yeah! And its no problem to like or write soft science fiction (which is one thing I dont like about the website-- it's a bit pretentious in that regard)

I don't like that kind of attitude about fiction in general. People are kind of pretentious dicks about realism in general.

...but I like to have elements of hard science fiction and hard science with my soft science fiction and soft science. It makes it more immersive for me and besides that its just kinda cool.

I vibe with this mindset. This is the reasonable way to think about the genre.