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The list includes technologies that were first posited in non-fiction works before their appearance in science fiction and subsequent invention, such as ion thruster. To avoid repetitions, the list excludes film adaptations of prior literature containing the same predictions, such as " The Minority Report ".
Rocket on cover of Other Worlds sci-fi magazine, September 1951. Space travel, [1]: 69 [2]: 209–210 [3]: 511–512 or space flight [2]: 200–201 [4] (less often, starfaring or star voyaging [2]: 217, 220 ) is a science fiction theme that has captivated the public and is almost archetypal for science fiction. [4]
The concept of gravity shielding is a common concept in science fiction literature, especially for space travel. One of the first and best known examples is the fictional gravity shielding substance "Cavorite" that appears in H. G. Wells's classic 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon. Wells was promptly criticized for using it by Jules Verne. [3]
The term "spacecraft" is mainly used to refer to spacecraft that are real or conceived using present technology. The terms "spaceship" and "starship" are generally applied only to fictional space vehicles, usually those capable of transporting people. Spaceships are often one of the key plot devices in science fiction.
An early appearance of an Orion-style nuclear pulse propelled rocket in science fiction was in the science fiction novel Empire of the Atom written by A. E. van Vogt in 1956. In this novel there is a post-atomic-war interplanetary empire called the Empire of Lynn that uses Orion-type nuclear rockets for interplanetary spaceflight.
Many hypothetical technologies have been the subject of science fiction. The criteria for this list are that the technology: Must not exist yet; Is credibly proposed to exist in the future (e.g. no perpetual motion machines) If the technology does not have an existing article (i.e. it is "redlinked"), a reference must be provided for it
For rocket-like propulsion systems, this is a function of mass fraction and exhaust velocity; mass fraction for rocket-like systems is usually limited by propulsion system weight and tankage weight. [ citation needed ] For a system to achieve this limit, the payload may need to be a negligible percentage of the vehicle, and so the practical ...
A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal (faster than the speed of light) spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek, [1] and a subject of ongoing real-life physics research.