Getting it Right: Science and Science Fiction

Getting it Right: Science and Science Fiction

I have a bad habit that I can not keep hidden anymore. In spite of my shame its time I came out of the closet

I can't stop watching bad science fiction.

If this doesn't seem like such a problem to you I should probably introduce myself. My name is Adam Frank and I am a Professor of Astrophysics. My problem is that professional astronomers like myself are supposed to be sober about our science. We know the difference between a proton and a parsec, a satellite and a star. When watching a stupid space opera where the hero says, "Zolton stop! Step into that plasmon converter and you'll age 100 light-years", we wince knowing that a light-year, (being the length a light-beam travels in a year), is a unit of distance not time. When the science in science fiction gets mangled we professional astronomers drop our suspenders of disbelief and should, in good conscience, walk out of the movie.

I am different. I stay no matter how dumb it gets. I stay because I just love seeing images of spaceships cruising over the arc of a distant planet. I love seeing images of a horizon with three suns, rather than one, hanging in the sky. I will sit through the worst junk just for a good special effects visualization of what the distant stars look like close up.

Sometimes though I wish somebody could get it right. Sometimes I wish the writer would do enough research to make the science in the story part of the plot not just a source of techno-babble. Take, for example, the recent film "Mission to Mars". Recently I made the pilgrimage to my local 100-screen multiplex to catch it. My wife has long since abandoned me in my bad-habit so I was, alas, alone. I sat through the whole thing and after the lights came up I left, disappointed as usual.

The story follows the first human expedition to Mars, which after hardships discovers an outpost of a long departed Martian civilization and blah, blah, blah. You can fill in the rest. The sad thing about this film is they did spent some time showing how difficult it would be to really get to Mars. For one brief shining moment I hoped the journey to Mars, and not the Martians, was going to be the basis of the plot. It could have been great.

Consider the possibilities. It took the Apollo astronauts about a week to get the Moon, a mere 250,000 miles away. Mars is more than 1000 times more distant. Just getting to the Red planet astronauts will spend a full year crossing the depths of interplanetary space. They will be far from the protective veil of the "near-Earth environment" and passing solar storms (blasts of matter and radiation from the sun) will mean real danger.

There is also the issue of psychology. Getting a group of people to live and work together in a tin can while facing a host of very life-threatening challenges ought to be pretty interesting. Then there is landing and survival on the planet itself. It won't make much sense to travel that far and then come back after a week. Astronauts will, mostly likely, have to make an extended stay on the new world. It seems to me this should make for some damn high drama.

As a species humans seem born to explore. Mars is our next and most exciting goal. The real question of how people would deal with a real Martian mission could have a made an excellent movie. There was no need for ten-foot tall aliens and mountain-sized people-eating tornados (not that it didn't make for a really cool scene though).

So, is it important that science fiction movies get the science right? It the long run, probably not. We are, however on the edge of a real, not fictional, era when human beings become a space faring race. As every Hubble Space Telescope image has shown, we are opening a new window on the Universe around us. There are stories out there waiting to be told. I'll probably keep watching slime monsters from planet Playtex eat brave astro warriors but what I'm hoping for is someone ready to imagine the real future we're ready to create.