# Living inside an asteroid? (sci-fi stuff) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 25, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251 "2006-05-25T23:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/21 "2006-05-31T19:15:27Z")
> [@Capa84](#): > > Of course it’s feasible. Everyone knows Earth was colonized by alien pioneers travelling in our hollowed out moon. But you _promised_ you wouldn’t tell! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/22 "2006-05-31T19:28:49Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The more I think about it, the more it seems that it’s virtually _required_ that a generation ship in sf have the inhabitants forget they are in a ship. I can’t think of any stories where such a ship has gone for more than a few generations without this happening. > > So maybe your twist should be that it _doesn’t_ happen 😃 That’s been [done](http://www.adherents.com/lit/bk_Pans_RiteOfPassage.html) too. Guess the link was right in saying _Rites of Passage_ was the most forgotten Nebula winner. Excellent book. Oddly enough, my daughter read it for school not that long ago. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/23 "2006-05-31T19:37:53Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > The more I think about it, the more it seems that it’s virtually _required_ that a generation ship in sf have the inhabitants forget they are in a ship. I can’t think of any stories where such a ship has gone for more than a few generations without this happening. > > So maybe your twist should be that it _doesn’t_ happen 😃 I am pretty sure I have read one or two stories where that did not happen. What happened instead is that faster than light travel was invented during the time the ship was traveling and when they got there the planet was already colonized by people with faster than light ships. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/24 "2006-06-01T00:09:06Z")
[nitpick] From the bit of the [Wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship) quoted by **Squink** : > [@](#): > > Generation ships are often found in science fiction stories. The invention is credited to J. D. Bernal in his 1929 novel _The World, The Flesh, & The Devil_. _The World, the Flesh and the Devil_ isn’t a novel. Bernal’s own description in his 1970 foreward to the 2nd edition is that it’s an “essay in prediction”. It’s in the same speculative non-fiction genre as, say, Clarke’s _Profiles of the Future_. [/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![happywaffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ee59a6/32.png) [@happywaffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happywaffle)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/25 "2006-06-01T04:14:02Z")
Whoa. So, what I thought was a random one-off scifi idea turns out to be a whole damn genre! :smack: Creepily, I was reading a summary of Rendezvous With Rama and several aspects of the story are like EXACTLY what I had in mind. Stupid Arthur C. Clarke, stealing my ideas :dubious: 'S okay, I still like my story idea. Of course now I need to read all those other books to make sure someone else didn’t write it! I want my royalties, Clarke! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/26 "2006-06-01T06:06:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That’s been [done](http://www.adherents.com/lit/bk_Pans_RiteOfPassage.html) too. Guess the link was right in saying _Rites of Passage_ was the most forgotten Nebula winner. Excellent book. Oddly enough, my daughter read it for school not that long ago. _Rites of Passage_ is not, I repeat, NOT a generational starship story. Yes, there are multiple generations that have lived on the ship, but that’s the case with the Free Traders in Heinlein’s _Citizen of the Galaxy_ and that wasn’t a generational starship story either. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/27 "2006-06-01T18:12:30Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > _Rites of Passage_ is not, I repeat, NOT a generational starship story. Yes, there are multiple generations that have lived on the ship, but that’s the case with the Free Traders in Heinlein’s _Citizen of the Galaxy_ and that wasn’t a generational starship story either. But the “ship” was a hollowed out asteroid, which seems more relevant than stories about ship-bound space-farers. The only real difference is that Panshin’s people didn’t plan on getting off at the other end. Poul Anderson had several novels set in a culture of ship-bound traders - but I wouldn’t consider them as relevant as Panshin’s stories. He also had a long story, not a novel, about a generational starship which did not forget, based around political battles inside. The hero was a disgraced noble (officer) who was forced to live with the workers, and got into what I could call union organizing. But I don’t think this was a hollowed out asteroid. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/28 "2006-06-01T18:18:41Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > I am pretty sure I have read one or two stories where that did not happen. What happened instead is that faster than light travel was invented during the time the ship was traveling and when they got there the planet was already colonized by people with faster than light ships. I don’t remember stories where this happens (but have no doubt they exist) but there are some stories which are close. Heinlein’s _Time for the Stars_ is about twins with telepathy who are used to communicate between earth and an exploratory starship - not a generation ship, but one using relativity to explore in reasonable time as seen by those on the ship. At the end of the book, the study of this telepathy (which works ftl) is used to build an ftl ship. The ship Lazarus Long hijacked is the second rev of the one in Orphans of the Sky, and Libby figured out how to make that ftl - though I don’t remember if they ran into the descendants of the first ship later. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251/29 "2006-06-01T20:01:42Z")
“Time Enough for Love” talks about the ship from “Orphans of the Sky”, but the characters discuss it as a curiosity, it’s not part of any of the stories in the book. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/living-inside-an-asteroid-sci-fi-stuff/358251.md?page=1)