Space power is an absolute necessity in science fiction, just as it is in real-life space travel. The topic covers everything that can serve as a source of power in space, from the simple chemical reactants used by real-life rockets upwards. In "The Legacy of Heorot", written by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes in 1989, nuclear fusion is used both in power plants and rocket engines to provide the energy required to cross the distances between the stars. In the television series "Star Trek", which goes back as far as the 1960s, the even more powerful matter/anti-matter reaction is used as a power source. Greg Bear even used the concept of a technology that could completely convert mass into energy in his book "Anvil of Stars".

These are concepts involving huge energy outputs, but there are also much more subtle examples of space power to be found in science fiction. Peter F. Hamilton's "Nightsdawn Trilogy" contains the idea of dragging conductive tethers through a planet's magnetic field to generate electric currents, as well as living ships which are capable of absorbing the diffuse background radiation of space. Perhaps even more unusual is an idea from the late-1990s film "The Matrix", in which human beings are harnessed as sources of power. "People power" in its most literal sense, one might say!

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