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Science Vs Science Fiction 0.21/ January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW Project Number: JMW- 4 5 Science Vs Science Fiction A Interactive Qualifying Project Report: Submitted to the Faculty of WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science by Joseph Holmes [email protected] VI Ryan Wallace V [email protected] Date: January 12 th, 2005 Professor John Wilkes [email protected] Dr. Peter Campisao [email protected] This document represents the work of WPI students. The opinions expressed in this report are not necessarily those of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute administration or staff. January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW Executive Summary The purpose of this project is to examine the historical development of space propulsion, shielding, and energy storage in science fact and science fiction and then determine the influence of the fiction on the fact. To date, there have only been minor studies of the interaction of science fiction and science research, most being done to determine how realistic the specific science fiction scenarios are. Our question is more general. We theorized that serious (and influential) science fiction would prove to be at least partly based in real science research. The reason for this is that several of the popular author of science fiction have been analyzed by scientists at NASA (mostly physicists), and have been found to presenting scenarios that do not violate the laws of physics. Often technology follows along the line of that which was available during the time. It is often the case that science concludes that some of the possibilities explored in fiction might be possible, true or important and hence are worth researching. As part of science, one can only build what one conceives. This is one of the main base of Kuhn's paradigm theory about how science advances. If, as a society, one cannot believe that something could exist, based on the current concepts of reality, such as physics of the time or other theorems, then there is no way someone with credible credentials will try to develop the new technology. To develop these technologies, a shift in the beliefs of society (or at least the specialists in the relevant field), is needed. Science fiction might be one of the instruments that causes a paradigm shift to occur, if it encourages people to question whether something once thought to be impossible is conceivable. We see science fiction as broadening society's horizons in this way. To meet the overall goal of this project, certain underlying objectives and tasks needed to be accomplished. The first of these objectives that were identified was that the histories of the applied science and technologies of propulsion, shielding, and energy storage needed to be assessed and described in terms of their development at given points in time. This required doing extensive research online, looking at articles discussing the histories January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW of the technologies and then organizing the information into a chronological format. The second objective was to do the same for the science fiction literature. The science fiction required looking for books that contained the technologies that were to be researched and then to organize these science fiction works in order by year and discover to what extent the technology is developed in fiction when it is being seriously researched by scientists. The last objective was to take the time sequenced information of both technologies and science fiction and then analyze the results to see which came first, science fiction can only cause change in science if the fictional development preceded the published research, based on funded proposals. The overall findings of this project were less definitive than we had expected. Due to time constraints only a few areas of technology were explored. In each of these areas of technology, a further restriction to a few alternatives was required. In the area of Propulsion: Solar sails, magbeam, ion drive, and nuclear drive technologies were examined. Shielding, when exploring the histories, was focused on: aerogel, cold plasma, and electromagnetic shields. Electromagnetic got more attention and had the stronger support in the science fiction literature, but the materials researched have gotten more attention in the NASA budget. In energy storage, the histories of the research in the field, and the science fiction, brought out the subdivisions of: antimatter, black power, and, although almost purely in research, fuel cells. The final analysis of the results showed that, in most cases, the science fiction didn't precede the research by enough time to make a firm case that the science fiction influenced the science research. We think it tended to be a stimulus rather than just being a concurrent development, but can't prove it except in the rare care that a scientist acknowledges the influence of Sci Fi writing work on his research program. Along the same lines, with Ion drives and nuclear drives, the actual science fiction did not precede the research, although due to gaps in the research it might have encouraged the researchers to come back to these technologies after they were largely abandoned by prior scientists. Given the concurrence of theorizing in science and science fiction exploration of the same idea (extrapolated to its logical conclusions) one needs to have 11 January 12th, 2005 JHH RTW testimony from the scientists in the field to document the extent to which science fiction has inspired or encouraged key figures in the history of the scientific community who developed certain lines of research. We do not have such testimony but would now know who to contact to get it. The results from this project lead us to conclude that further research must be done to bring the project to a definitive conclusion. This might make it seem that the project was unsuccessful because it is inconclusive. We would hold quite to the contrary. Even though more research must be completed to actually determine if science fiction can cause a paradigm shift in science, this project has proven that the idea is still viable based on time sequenced data. Had the science clearly preceded the science fiction and the science fiction been derivative rather than in the vanguard of ideas, the notion of science fiction significantly spurring science would not be viable. Through further research and the gathering of testimony, this thesis could be proven one way or the other. Another way to see whether science fiction influences science research is to see whether ideas that first appeared as science fiction are now considered promising by a panel of experts from the relevant sciences. Our research has been passed along to a team doing just such a "Delpi" study, so at least this step will be taken , though all reference to Sci Fi treatments of the ideas that have such origins has been removed in that study. The results should be available by March, but alas we cannot await them. Refer to Climis et al. and Partridge et al. for the unmanned and manned technology results respectiviely. iii January 12th, 2005 JHH RTW ABSTRACT The purpose of this project is to examine the historical development of space propulsion, shielding, and energy storage in science fact and science fiction and then determine the influence of the science fiction on scientific fact illustrated by these cases. There was no definitive conclusion to this project. The timelines suggest that science fiction has an influence on science research and that it draws on the science to span the technological development implicit in he science, even before the science is firm. Some theoretical positions are adopted "early" in Sci Fi because of their technological "promise". However, that position doesn't clearly support the claim the Science Fiction precedes and shapes the development of the science. iv January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Overview 3 2.1. Information 3 2.1.1. Science Fiction's Basis in Reality 3 2.1.2. Technology Now and 50 Years Ago, The Differences 6 2.2. Imagination and innovation 7 2.3. Summary 11 3. Project Purpose 13 3.1. Introduction 13 3.2. Problem Statement 13 3.2.1. Locate Technology in Fiction 13 3.2.2. Determine Impact on the Time Period 14 3.2.3. Determine correlation between Science Fiction and Fact 14 3.3. Summary 14 4. Methodology 16 4.1. Introduction 16 4.2. Methods 16 4.2.1. Determine Which Science Fiction works are reliable 16 4.2.2. Determine Significant Science Fiction Technologies 17 4.2.3. Determine Science Fact Technologies 17 4.2.4. Determine correlation between Science Fiction and Fact 18 5. Findings 19 5.1. Introduction 19 5.2. Propulsion 19 5.2.1. Solar Sails 20 5.2.2. Nuclear Drive 23 5.2.3. Ion Drives 28 5.2.4. MagBeam Propulsion 32 5.2.5. Summary 34 5.3. Shielding 34 5.3.1. Introduction 34 5.3.2. Science Fiction 34 5.3.3. History 36 5.3.4. Summary 39 5.4. Energy Storage 39 5.5. Summary 42 6 Results 43 6.1. Introduction 43 6.2. Shielding Results 43 6.3. Propulsion Results 44 6.3.1. Ion Drive 45 6.3.2. Magbeam 46 6.3.3. Solar Sail 47 January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW 6.4. Energy Storage Results 48 6.5. Summary 49 7. Conclusion 50 7.1. Result Analysis 50 7.2. Future Work 51 7.3. Summary 53 vi January 12 th, 2005 JHH RTW 1. Introduction Technological advancements are based upon what a culture can conceive of as possible.
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