Interstellar Propulsion Systems on Page and Screen

[Palanan]

I’m looking for books and movies which feature plausible approaches to interstellar propulsion technology, based on real-world physics and space science.

This rules out most of the major franchises, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., and I can’t think of many standalone movies which feature plausible designs and propulsion systems.

For novels the list is much broader—Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson features a Project Orion-style nuclear-pulse propulsion system, and Robert Forward featured beamed-energy propulsion in Rocheworld.

I know I’ve come across many others, but I can’t bring any other titles to mind, and I’d appreciate as many references as people can supply—novels, movies, TV, as long as the propulsion systems are based on valid real-world principles.

Please note I am not looking for any discussion of the broader merits of these titles, just references for those which incorporate plausible starflight technologies.

[The Glyphstone]

Do you consider an Alcubierre drive to be a plausible approach to propulsion? If so, the Castle Federation series by Glynn Stewart features it prominently.

[Seppl]

The Known Space collection by Larry Niven popularized the concept of a fusion ramscoop (Or "Bussard ramjet" if you want to look up the general concept). That is actually quite the elegant idea to get around the drawbacks of rockets, instead using interstellar gas as fuel. Apart from the practical construction of the scoop, the main problem is that these were written some 50 years ago and people were thinking that interstellar gas is a lot denser than what we believe today.

[Rakaydos]

You know the movie Avatar? The one with the blue cat ladies?

The ship the main character arrives on is laser boosted, antimatter engine slowed with cold sleep for the passengers.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
Do you consider an Alcubierre drive to be a plausible approach to propulsion? If so, the Castle Federation series by Glynn Stewart features it prominently.

Absolutely I do, and I appreciate the reference.

Originally Posted by Seppl
The Known Space collection by Larry Niven popularized the concept of a fusion ramscoop….

Ah yes, I remember these, as well as the problems with the density of interstellar gas.

Originally Posted by Rakaydos
The ship the main character arrives on is laser boosted, antimatter engine slowed with cold sleep for the passengers.

I do love that ship. As I recall, James Cameron spent about ten pages on it in the treatment, although sadly I haven’t read those pages.

What you do mean by “laser boosted”? Is there a station on Earth training a laser on the ship? And if so, is there a corresponding station at Pandora to accelerate it back home?

[The Glyphstone]

Absolutely I do, and I appreciate the reference.

I wholeheartedly recommend it. And while you're at it, take a spin past his Interstellar Mage series as well despite it being the literal opposite of your original request (FTL via magical teleportation).😀

[Rakaydos]

What you do mean by “laser boosted”? Is there a station on Earth training a laser on the ship? And if so, is there a corresponding station at Pandora to accelerate it back home?

Yes, and no. If there was a laser at pandora, they wouldnt need the antimatter drive. The earth laser can "catch" them when they return home on antimatter power.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rakaydos
If there was a laser at pandora, they wouldnt need the antimatter drive.

What you're describing isn't obvious to me. Can you point me towards a source for this?

[Psyren]

Mass Effect introduces a fictional element that reduces an object's mass when subject to an electric current, thus enabling FTL and sublight space travel. Is that the kind of thing you mean?

[DeTess]

'The lost fleet' series by jack campbell might be of interest to you. It's interstellar drives are fairly standard wormhole/jump-point based, but it gets the physics of in-system flight, and especially in-system fleet engagements pretty right. Apart from that, I'm not sure how many examples you'll find because a realistic interstellar drive is by necessity slow, which mans your story is generally confined to 1-2 star systems at most.

edit: what I meant by this is that fairly hard science fiction tends to either confine itself to one solar system, or makes relatively quick interstellar travel its 'one big lie'

[Rakaydos]

What you're describing isn't obvious to me. Can you point me towards a source for this?

It's fairly simple, by leaving the laser at home, the laser can only push you away from home. So it works for moving away from home faster, or slowing down while arriving.

That leaves the problem of slowing down at the destination, and leaving the destination. Without a laser at Pandora, that's what you need the antimatter drive for.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
Mass Effect introduces a fictional element that reduces an object's mass when subject to an electric current, thus enabling FTL and sublight space travel. Is that the kind of thing you mean?

Thanks, but this is outside what I’m looking for, since it relies on something that was invented to give a science-y reason for FTL.

Originally Posted by DeTess
'The lost fleet' series by jack campbell might be of interest to you. It's interstellar drives are fairly standard wormhole/jump-point based, but it gets the physics of in-system flight, and especially in-system fleet engagements pretty right.

Interesting, thanks.

Originally Posted by Rakaydos
It's fairly simple, by leaving the laser at home, the laser can only push you away from home. So it works for moving away from home faster, or slowing down while arriving.

That leaves the problem of slowing down at the destination, and leaving the destination. Without a laser at Pandora, that's what you need the antimatter drive for.

Is this described in an official source, and if so can you tell me the name and author of that source?

[Rakaydos]

Is this described in an official source, and if so can you tell me the name and author of that source?

Doesnt need to be, it's real science.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_htm....php#lasersail

[Palanan]

So, I'm still open to other examples from novels and movies.

Can't think of a TV series that's built around non-fantastical drive systems, although DS9 did have that episode where Sisko navigated a solar sailer through the wormhole, or something along those lines.

[Dire_Flumph]

Can't think of a TV series that's built around non-fantastical drive systems, although DS9 did have that episode where Sisko navigated a solar sailer through the wormhole, or something along those lines.

You're thinking of "Explorers" which had Sisko building a solar sailer. It wasn't supposed to be FTL though, they were traveling within the Bajoran system when they hit a tachyon anomaly that tech-teched them to Cardassia.

The Expanse isn't FTL (until later seasons/books anyway), but it's only sci-fi upgrade is a very efficient drive system. The more realistic look at high gravity acceleration and days/weeks to go between planets is refreshing there.

[Tvtyrant]

You're thinking of "Explorers" which had Sisko building a solar sailer. It wasn't supposed to be FTL though, they were traveling within the Bajoran system when they hit a tachyon anomaly that tech-teched them to Cardassia.

The Expanse isn't FTL (until later seasons/books anyway), but it's only sci-fi upgrade is a very efficient drive system. The more realistic look at high gravity acceleration and days/weeks to go between planets is refreshing there.

I never watched that one, but I thought the premise was they get thrown way out into space and get lost. The Bajoran system is like the opposite of that...

[Kitten Champion]

I never watched that one, but I thought the premise was they get thrown way out into space and get lost. The Bajoran system is like the opposite of that...

They start out in the Bajoran system - the point was for Sisko to prove claims of then-period Bajoran vessels travelling to Cardassia were plausible as a sort of hobby activity he did for funsies - but they (he's riding with Jake at the time) get caught in a Tachyeon stream or whatever and launched far into a distant part of space.

Eventually it turns out that those streams did wind up flinging them all the way in front of Cardassia and the episode ends with Gal Dukat there to greet them and eat some crow, as Cardassians have long dismissed the Bajoran's spaceflight claims as ludicrous as part of the long-standing occupational ideology.

[King539]

I'd recommend the book Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's a very hard and plausible to the point of pessimistic look at interstellar travel, and the interstellar drive is just as plausible. Lasers orbiting Saturn push the ship up to 10% of the speed of light, and it slows down at its destination using a fusion pulse rocket similar to a more advanced version of the Orion drive.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by King539
I'd recommend the book Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I appreciate this, thanks. I met Kim Stanley Robinson at a book-signing once, and I was impressed with the research he does for his novels.

[Yora]

The Expanse isn't FTL (until later seasons/books anyway), but it's only sci-fi upgrade is a very efficient drive system. The more realistic look at high gravity acceleration and days/weeks to go between planets is refreshing there.

They even do build a ship to travel to other stars. Which would take a hundred years to get there.

[DeTess]

I've recently gotten my hands on the full rulebook for the TTRPG 'Lancer', and it mostly uses realistic interstellar propulsion as well. By the most recent point in the game's timeline there are ways to do ftl, but those are limited to the most civilized regions of space because of infrastructure requirements. The book even goes into how time dilation from near-light speeds affect people and can affect your games.

It does a number of other interesting things with this as well. For example: Early on in the timeline of the setting a series of massive generation-ships travelling at a small fraction of the speed of light where send out from earth to a number of far-flung worlds while society on earth was busy collapsing because they screwed up the climate. Eventually that gets fixed, humanity returns to the stars and improves on star-ship design to the point that 'cruisng speed' becomes something like 0.95 c. This new ship technology is then used to spread humanity across the stars. This includes some of the worlds that were targets for these initial generation-ships. And because of distance and speed-differences, a number of these generation-ships actually get overtaken and end up arriving on a world that they'd expected to be pristine, only to find a thriving colony there that had already been in place for centuries. Naturally, this leads to significant tensions.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by DeTess
I've recently gotten my hands on the full rulebook for the TTRPG 'Lancer', and it mostly uses realistic interstellar propulsion as well.

This sounds fantastic. What’s the full title and author? I’d love to take a look at this, but can’t find it on Amazon.

Originally Posted by DeTess
And because of distance and speed-differences, a number of these generation-ships actually get overtaken and end up arriving on a world that they'd expected to be pristine, only to find a thriving colony there that had already been in place for centuries. Naturally, this leads to significant tensions.

It’s a dilemma that we’ll have to face sooner or later—send out generation ships, knowing they may become obsolete en route? Or never send out ships at all, and risk losing a window for colonization?

More broadly, slowships vs. FTL is a dynamic which comes up throughout SF, and it was the one element I enjoyed from ST: Voyager. Vernor Vinge develops this in detail in A Fire Upon the Deep, and Alastair Reynolds alludes to the darker side of generation ships in one of his novels, although his books tend to run together for me.

[J-H]

Most of Larry Niven's Known Space universe works on sublight propulsion for a few hundred years, until the Outsiders sell humanity the hyperdrive. Kzinti use "gravity polarizers" (actual mechanic unknown) powered by fusion engines, while Humanity uses less-manueverable Bussard Ramjets, which work by using some sort of magnetic field thing to harvest interstellar hydrogen to power a fusion torch, or in one case, a laser drive. Notably, Protector makes extensive use of these, including combat at light-seconds or light-minutes, plus gravitational slingshotting around suns.

Edit: Ninja'd

[DeTess]

This sounds fantastic. What’s the full title and author? I’d love to take a look at this, but can’t find it on Amazon.

It's just 'Lancer' By massif press. I don't know if they currently have a physical print run, but you can buy the pdf here: https://massif-press.itch.io/corebook-pdf . There is also a free version of the rulebook, but you'd probably mostly be interested in the setting info, which isn't included with the free one -_-

[Palanan]

Aha, thanks for the link. That's an impressive project, although I'm not into mechs myself. It looks like the lore chapter is the one with the information of most interest to me.

It's out of price range for me, especially just for one chapter, but I'll keep this in mind.

[thethird]

It's just 'Lancer' By massif press. I don't know if they currently have a physical print run, but you can buy the pdf here: https://massif-press.itch.io/corebook-pdf . There is also a free version of the rulebook, but you'd probably mostly be interested in the setting info, which isn't included with the free one -_-

Aha, thanks for the link. That's an impressive project, although I'm not into mechs myself. It looks like the lore chapter is the one with the information of most interest to me.

It's out of price range for me, especially just for one chapter, but I'll keep this in mind.

It's by the author behind Kill Six Billion Demons, which is a good webcominc but completely unrelated otherwise to these threads stated interests.

[HandofShadows]

The board game BattleTech has sips that can more or less fold space. But range is limited (30 light years) and it takes a LOT of power to do it, meaning you can't jump often as you need to recharge (usually using a huge solar sail). Other restrictions are you can't be near a gravity well so depending on the star you could spend a few days to weeks getting to the planet at 1G acceleration.

[Hatu]

The board game BattleTech has sips that can more or less fold space. But range is limited (30 light years) and it takes a LOT of power to do it, meaning you can't jump often as you need to recharge (usually using a huge solar sail). Other restrictions are you can't be near a gravity well so depending on the star you could spend a few days to weeks getting to the planet at 1G acceleration.

Yes, the Battletech Kearny-Fuchida jump drive is a purely fictitious FLT, but the in-system fusion drives are theoretically possible (though they are ludicrously efficient). They're fairly similar to the Expanses' Epstein drive, allowing ships to generate artificial gravity by accelerating on the first half of the trip, then flipping around and decelerating for the second half.

Unlike the Expanse (AFAICT), Battletech fusion drives can land on planets. So you get stylish spheroid DropShips intended to deliver the game's signature giant stompy robots straight to a planet's surface.

[Palanan]

Does anyone remember an old game called Web and Starship? Interstellar strategy game between two alien empires, one of which with FTL, the other with sublight ships that built portals once they reached a world. Earth is caught in between and can use both technologies.

I never had a chance to play, always wondered how the strategies would unfold.