Does Science Fiction Dampen Interest in Space Exploration?

July 14th, 2008

Here’s the brief article quoting Buzz Aldrin:

I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today.   All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It’s not realistic…if you start dealing with fantasy and beaming people up and down and traveling seven times the speed of light, you are doing damage. You’re not helping. You have young people who have got expectations that are far unrealistic, and you can’t possibly live up to the expectations you have created in young people. Why do they get bored with the space program? That’s why.

I think Aldrin has a point, but not an absolute one.   I was inspired to go into science in part because of my love of science fiction, and Star Trek was the first introduction to sf I can remember.   Star Trek itself probably owes the space program for getting greenlit, so there’s something circular going on here.   Science fiction definitely inspires, or supports, the dreams of some folks who embrace space exploration.

As an educator, I’ve seen Aldrin’s point plenty enough, however.   There are a lot of ridiculous space fantasies out there, and I believe they do have the effect of undermining the real thing.   They do lead to unrealistic expectations, misconceptions, and more.   TV and movies in particular trivialize serious problems.   The worst offenders get the science wrong, but portray themselves as science-savvy if only for the window dressing of high-tech stuff.

Aldrin seems to fall into the camp advocating mundane science fiction rather than hard sf (see my explanation of the distinction), but we have common goals: educating people about the realities of the endeavor to explore space and getting them excited about it.   My space exploration involves objects much more distant than the moon, but suffers from a similar lack of support among some.   Getting answers to our questions about quasars and such is a slow, laborious, and expensive process and depends on complex, multi-level supporting arguments that need constant checking and sometimes revision.   It isn’t cheap or easy and takes a lot longer to communicate how and why something is really cool — a problem for some in the post-Star Wars generation of CGI and broadband.

My personal contribution to addressing Aldrin’s issue has been to try to educate writers at Launch Pad about modern space science and astronomy, leading to, I hope, more stories that have better quality science and realism.

So, is Aldrin mostly right?   Mostly wrong?   Or is it more complicated?

 

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