Solar sails are here!
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/beamed_propulsion_021105.html
It’s fun when real life and fiction collide.
Besides the well known Clarke Zone for geostationary satellites, can you think of other cases of real life catching up to fiction?
Doesn’t just have to be sci-fi. Anything goes.
Mods: I couldn’t decide if this was cafe or mpsims, you decide.
“Flying cars. They promised flying cars! Where are the flying cars?”
I coulda sworn underwater boats were sci-fi way back when … I remember the librarian at my school, when I was about five or six, talking about how some things in science fiction had become reality (planes, submarines … maybe helicopters? I think artificial limbs as well, though my knowledge of scifi is not nearly as good as that of your average standard poodle).
iampunha, you have a wealth of knowledge of poodles? how odd
Mad magazine humorist Al Jaffee came up with the idea for a word processor decades before they actually came about.
Mad magazine humorist Al Jaffee came up with the idea for a word processor decades before they actually came about.
Interesting article. I worked with Arthur Kantrowitz on the laser-propulsion-to-orbit work, by the way, and it was not a lightsail technology. The Laser Propulsion work they’re talking about at White Sands is Leik Myrabo’s “Apollo Light Craft” project, which also is not a lightsail (and is different than the ideas Kantrowitz proposed).
The thing that struck me as a science-fiction-comes-to-life idea was also from a Larry Niven story - flexible high-temperature superconductors. I was at the American Physical Society meeting where they announced this in 1985 or 1986, and all I could think of was Niven’s book The Ringworld Engineers. It was the biggest and most popular session I’ve ever been at when at a scientific conference.
Voila. Or volantor, as the case may be.
CalMeacham, now that’s interesting. I always wondered how aware of popular fiction our real scientific community is. And like Clarke and Asimov, how many writers are scientists in their own right, or at least well respected in a field other than writing?
If you have a chance, what is different between light sail and laser propulsion? I’m doing a web search as we speak and there’s alot to swim through, whew!
Al Jaffee came up with lots of stuff, his record may approach that of Arthur C Clarke’s. Peruse the letters section of MAD and long-time readers are often bringing up stuff Jaffee wote years ago becoming reality. Can’t think of any examples off the top of my head though, I might browse my “Totally MAD” CD collection later and get back to this thread.
Volantor looks cool, Ethilrist, but I’m already sick of drunk drivers, God forbid drunk flyers! Wait, we already have that, don’t we? I forgot about United.
The future is here, no wait! It’s here. Aw crap! I just had it here…
Revtim, please do. will check in here later.
thanks to all posting so far
The “Newspads” from Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey are functionally equivalent to a laptop computer with a web browser fixed on, say, cnn.com.
In 1940, Robert A. Heinlein wrote up a “future history” based on extrapolation of existing trends in culture.
Among the outrageously improbable things (from a 1940-50 perspective) he suggested would happen in the next 60 years were:
> Devices to turn sunlight into electricity (“Let There Be Light”)
> Growth of “strip cities” along major roads connecting metropolises, with concomitant decline in city centers (various stories, notably “The Roads Must Roll” and I Will Fear No Evil)
> Initial steps in space exploration followed by a hiatus where space flight was thought not to be of any value (See “Afterword” to the collection Revolt in 2100)
> Burgeoning growth of anti-intellectual fundamentalist sects (See that “Afterword” and “‘If This Goes On…’”)
> Commercials for birth control devices (Stranger in a Strange Land)
> A chief executive who depends for advice on his wife, who in turn gets advice from her astrologer (Stranger in a Strange Land)
…and many many more
“These are ‘The Crazy Years.’” – Spider Robinson
Ethrilist: I want one.
NoClueBoy, a lot of scientists got into the field from being SF nuts as kids. They’re pretty well aware of sf fiction.
Laser Propulsion uses laser light to ablate material and then rapidly pump energy into it (Laser-Sustained Detonation Wave) via inverse bremstrahlung (Kantrowitz’ version --For SF examples see Jerry Pournelle’s “High Justice” or Michael-Kube McDowell’s “The High Pools”) or else to concentrate light on the air, break it down, and pump energy into it (Myrabo’s version – for SF example, see Dean Ing’s “The Big Lifters”). In either case the rapidly-expanding gas provides the acceleration. The pulse is swiftly followed by another, and another, et cetera. In effect, you keep your rocket motor on the ground, so you don’t have to lift it, and you needc much less reaction mass in consequence.
Light sails use light pressure reflected from an aluminized or white “sail” . There are a lot of examples – see Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Wind From The Sun”, AKA “Sunjammer”.
Ohhh… Well that’s a major difference CalMeacham. Thanks for clearing that up.
Polycarp Heinlein was awesome, wasn’t he?
Don’t forget others of Heinlein’s…
Personal mobile phones
Waldos
Pressure suit design (which Heinlein worked on during the war)
[quote]
The film Operation Moonbase has more than its share of flaws (they devoted an entire episode of MST3K to it, Waaay back when), but one of the cutest touches is that none of the phones have wires – if you look close, ever handset has an antenna, and so does every phone cradle. And they never call attention to it – it’s a prize, if you notice it yourself. Heinlein wrote the screenplay of this rarely-seen flick, and I’m sure that this and other throwaway ideas are all due to him.
One of the most impressive examples of an SF prediction come true is The Internet. Murray Leinster’s short story “A Logic Named Joe” (written in the late forties) talks about a teletype-like machine called “Logics”. Everyone has one in their homes. They can use them to ask general questions and have them answered (search engines!), or buy tickets through them (travel services! Business internet!), or use them for communication (webcams!). The story really gets interesting when one “logic” becomes self-aware, and defeats the censoring devices (blocking software!), so that people start getting information on how to break into banks, commit the perfect murder, and suchlike. He even has kids downloading pornography!
Civilization is threatened by unlimited internet access (!!!)
Of course, the Hero finds the faulty unit and takes it offline. But he can’t bring himself to destroy it.