The idea that perhaps science-fiction (SF) literature contained innovative technological ideas that could possibly be brought to the point of development with either today's technology or technology that is just around the corner was the driving force behind a recent European Space Agency (ESA) study entitled "Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction" (ITSF).

The main objectives of the study were to review the past and present science-fiction literature, artwork and films in order to identify and assess innovative technologies and concepts described therein which could possibly be developed further for space applications. In addition, it was hoped to garner imaginative ideas, potentially viable for long-term development by the European space sector, which could help in predicting the course of future space technologies and their impact.

Those involved in the study (scientists, engineers, SF writers, laymen) reviewed and brain-stormed on the technologies in SF literature and came up with a list of technologies which an expert team is assessing to see whether they might be worthy of greater in-depth evaluation. Some technologies might be judged unfeasible, some might have already been tried before and found not to work. However, new tools and techniques are being developed all the time and what was not possible several years ago might be possible today. Indeed, the study has already suggested a couple of promising areas for further investigation. Many of the concepts, technologies and devices thrown up by the study are contained in this brochure, together with artists' conceptions of these ideas.

Science-fiction literature, artwork and films are full of descriptions of space technologies and systems - often just pure imagination, sometimes based on some semblance of fact. Early science-fiction authors, artists, and illustrators described space concepts and spacecraft based on the limited scientific knowledge available at the time, whereas more modern writers generally portray the same basic systems as used in real-life space flight in their literature and art, even though artistic licence is often employed. It still gives them the opportunity, however, to promote their ideas, which may not otherwise be possible through more formal scientific evaluation processes.

Novel ideas clearly play an important role in science and technology, even when they do not have an immediately testable aspect, and writers predicted satellites and spaceflight well before they were actually possible. For instance, man has dreamed, and explored ways, of going to the Moon for centuries (take Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1650s), but it is only in very recent times that the technologies and infrastructure were in place to actually make it possible. It should thus be feasible to identify some new ideas in SF capable of convincing engineers to work seriously from such imagination. One has only to look at the past, where concepts described by Jules Verne, for instance, or Arthur C. Clarke and many others, have subsequently been developed or rediscovered.

Although early writings were often wildly inaccurate in many areas, some of the predictions made did come to pass and some of the systems and technologies described were subsequently successfully developed. Examples include ultra-high-velocity projectile launchers (1865); retro-rockets (1869); planetary landers (1928); rocket fins for aerodynamic stability (1929); vertical assembly buildings (1929); clustered rocket boosters (1929); EVA, pressure suits, life-support tethers (1929); construction of orbital space stations complete with living quarters using material ferried up and regular service visits (1945); satellite communication, with the satellites in geostationary orbit (1945); solar- and light-sails (1920, 1951, 1963); multiple-propellant storage tanks (1954); streamlined crew modules for atmospheric entry (1954), and so on.

Another example of a technology mentioned in the SF literature is that of the space elevator. This concept was first mooted in 1895 by a Russian scientist, looked at again some 60 years later by another Soviet scientist, studied further by an American physicist in 1970, and became the subject of an SF book by Arthur C. Clarke in 1979. NASA has recently completed a detailed study of the concept of space elevators and concluded that in possibly 50 years or so, this method of cheap transportation to geostationary orbit could become a reality. In fact, both NASA and ESA are looking at quite a few concepts in the advanced-propulsion area, some of which have been described to a greater or lesser extent in the SF literature.

In any discussion about the future of technology, it is difficult to determine exactly when a technology might be taken up and become ubiquitous. There are plenty of technologies that have taken (and still do take) many years to be accepted and deployed. Equally today there are many technologies in existence that could never have been conceived of one hundred years ago or even fifty. This phenomenon allows writers to put ideas or dreams down on paper that are not immediately dismissed as irrelevant either by the layman, engineer or scientist and which may perhaps ultimately bring the seemingly fantastic inventions into reality.

Science fiction can thus be used to stimulate thoughts and ideas that could perhaps be turned into a more realistic scenario with the eventual development of new innovative technologies not as conservative as those currently used in the space field. In fact, Hugo Gernsback, founder of " Amazing Stories" magazine in 1926, noted that science fiction was socially useful precisely because it inspired research and inventions.

On the other hand, we also have it in ourselves to develop technologies for their own sake, as well as for some ultimately useful purpose, including exploration. Inventors often invent things or come up with concepts that have no immediate or obvious application or a use outside a narrow specific domain and it requires a leap of imagination by someone else to turn that invention into a useful product elsewhere. This is where spin-off from space technologies comes into its own, and why it can take so long for some ideas or technologies to reach the marketplace.

A pioneer or dreamer will still have his dream regardless of whether the technology is actually available to make it a reality (take Dick Tracy and his two-way wristwatch radio for instance in the 1940s - that has only become a reality today, 60 years later with miniaturisation); and equally an engineer or inventor will still create a machine regardless of whether there is a defined use for it or not (take some of the developments in the robotics field, for instance). The application and selling of that idea often comes much later. On the other hand, innovative engineers can certainly take a dream or an imaginative idea and bring it to reality.

The study on innovative technologies for space applications emanating from science-fiction literature, art and films is something that is new and original for ESA and it could have important consequences for the use of existing and the development of new technologies. It is an in-depth look beyond the actual borders of science and techniques, and it deals with exciting concepts that might be worthy of eventual consideration for ESA's long-term space programmes and be explored in the decades to come. Quite apart from the potential contribution to future technological progress in space activities, the study and its description, categorisation and evaluation of technologies should offer a stimulating perspective to the science-fiction community at large, and provide science-fiction authors with fresh ideas and trends.

There have always been explorers and pioneers - it is a basic, not only human instinct - from animals in search of new pastures, from prehistoric man who crossed continental divides in pursuit of food and to find new places to live, and to people in our own times who have sailed the oceans and traversed the land in search of adventure. Where would we be today without the great explorers of the past?

So we have an in-built need to explore new places - especially the tiny pinpricks of stars in the night sky - simply because they are there and we are curious. For the purposes of such exploration, we have a need for new or improved technologies. Given that we have this built-in desire to explore, we will eventually develop the technologies to do this, when the real need is there and when other enabling technologies and materials become cheap enough or feasible enough to do so. This may take years or even centuries to achieve - but looking at the ideas and concepts of the past, which may have been forgotten or overlooked because they were not in mainstream science and technology, is certainly a worthwhile exercise and they may just give us a kick-start.

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