Questions tagged [space-exploration]
Space Exploration is the idea of traveling through space, beyond a home planet's orbit to discover things unknown to the explorer. Use this tag for questions about space exploration in science fiction or fantasy, not for real life questions. For real life questions, visit our sister site Space Exploration at space.stackexchange.com.
178 questions
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Short story about a decades-long mission to collect a soil/rock sample from a far away planet. There are multiple generations of astronaut children
I read a short story excerpt from a textbook in high school. I would love to continue the story.
The story starts with astronauts beginning a deep space mission to collect a soil sample. I remember ...
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I can't find a short sci-fi horror story about a solitary man on a desolate planet
I've been trying to find this story for ages. It is a short story I read in a small anthology, around 2012, but I think it's much older. I got it out of my middle school library. None of the other ...
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Looking for an SF novel with huge "spiders" on a planet which is frozen most of the time [duplicate]
This SF novel has a very rich and complicated plot, but I remember very little of it. I read it about 20 years ago, probably in a paperback.
What I do remember is that it takes place on a planet with ...
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Short story involving time dilation and a girl growing up while her astronaut mother explores other planets
I am trying to find a short story I read a few years back in a science fiction course. I believe the name of it was "Borrowed Time" but there is a short film and a new anthology with the ...
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Series of books about space exploration
I read this series of novels in paperback more than 40 years ago. There were at least three books in this series, but I'm not sure exactly how many. Not more than six, I believe.
All I remember is ...
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Sci-Fi novel where explorers from Earth visited 3 planets
What is the title of a Sci-Fi novel where explorers from Earth visited 3 planets? I remember that these planets were occupied by certain groups of people and evolved over the years. The first planet ...
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Titan by Stephen Baxter- why land in 3 vehicles?
In Titan by Stephen Baxter, a heavily modified space shuttle with two capsules in its cargo bay lands on Titan, but the two capsules detach and land separately before the shuttle re-enters.
Since they ...
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"Bonne mammifération" short story
I read this short story at least 30 years ago and it was probably even older. I read it in a collection in French, but is was almost certainly a translation, because I remember a footnote of the ...
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TV miniseries about a race to Mars from summer 2014
I saw two episodes of this series on an airplane flight probably in 2014, I believe on the SciFi (SyFy?) channel. The basic story was a race to Mars between NASA (or its successor) and China. The NASA ...
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Sci-fi movie with lost astronauts, ending with the phrase “let’s see what’s out there”
I’m sure I can remember a sci-fi movie that ends with 3 astronauts in a capsule after some sort of adventure that ends with them getting lost in space, and one of them saying “let’s see what’s out ...
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Book where Earth is flooded and the main character escapes in a spaceship with a sex robot
This was a classic sci-fi novel. I read it about 20 years ago but it was older. Okay, so here is a description of the book’s plot:
It starts with the destruction of the Earth, but it’s not blown up ...
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Kids’ picture book involving a friendly robot taking kids around the galaxy
I recall reading a book frequently in the late-80s or early-90s, but cannot remember the name and would love to find the book for my son.
In the book, a group of kids are taken around the galaxy by a ...
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1970s short story about lone explorer on spaceship learning dark secret about his mission
I think I read this one in a early 1970s era "Best of" anthology. It's about a man who was sent from earth on a spaceship, without any companion but the ship's computer. As he approaches ...
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Short story about planetary explorers who encounter a sentient, six-legged, wolf-like creature
I'm looking for a short story that I read in in a sci fi anthology in the 90s.
The story was about planetary explorers that landed on a planet that supported life. There was a six-legged, wolf-like ...
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Short story about flowers that look like seductive women
From the late 60s or 70s: explorers on a new planet find what appear to be a sexy naked woman resting in the forest. One man does what comes naturally, after which the "woman" curls up and ...
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Space explorer finds an advanced alien biologist's collection [duplicate]
Can anyone name this short story? I read it in an anthology before 1997.
A human explorer had a pet talking bird, partly for company and partly because it was good at telling which alien fruits were ...
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First "space walk" described in fiction?
When I search for this, I am only getting hits about the real 1965 space walk.
As mentioned in the question about the vacuum of space, it seems to me that the early works about journeys to Luna ...
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First story in which the vacuum of space and its consequences were discussed?
I am not sure Verne had a clear understanding of the nature of the space between Luna and Earth -- at his time, since balloons were the only method of reaching high altitudes, no one had ever reached ...
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I am looking for a Sci-Fi book about scientists on an alien planet exploring the dead civilization that once lived there
I am looking for a science-fiction book that features genetic engineering, in a way. It is about a science team sent from Earth to an alien planet. On that planet, there used to live an intelligent ...
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Novel where FTL causes a centrifuge to attract towards center
Looking for a novel, who’s title I thought was ‘Barnard’s Star’, but the hits with this name didn’t seem to fit. The novel is about an expedition to a star (could still be Barnard’s).
Plot points I ...
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Short film about a man that goes to space for a long long time to search for life, and a robot (or the ship) takes care of him
The life-action short film (probably less than 30 minutes) starts with a scene where a kid falls (near a tree, I think), and his mother finds him (I think the kid passed out due to the fall). The kid ...
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Author and Title of a SF story from 60s, most probably read it in Fantasy and Science Fiction, possibly Analog or If
3 male astronaut-explorers land on a new planet about a mile away from an obviously artificial construct, a massive cube. Each starts setting up his equipment for the surveys they need to make. The ...
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Is A. C. Clarke's "Death and the Senator" really a jab at William Proxmire?
I've seen this claimed repeatedly, but no authoritative evidence, and I am not convinced. Was Proxmire really that famous as anti-space crusader by May 1961 (minus however long the story was in the ...
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Short story about a man trying to invent force field, but fails and someone else builds a better one
Short story could be from 1960-1980s. In English.
Scientists are frantically working in a lab trying to develop a impenetrable force field.
They have created one that does not use much power, but it ...
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Story-id: “Lost in Space” novel (posted on USENET in 87-88) with an engineer and an AI trapped on a interstellar freighter and the other crew dead
This is an incredible long shot, because I read this in the late 80’s in a USENET newsgroup and I have no idea if it ever appeared in print.
In schoolyear 87-88 I had newsgroup access via my ...
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What is the name of this (possibly 40 year old) Sci-Fi novel [duplicate]
my first question here, so forgive me if I do it wrong:
I would like to find the name of a Sci-Fi book I read over 30 years ago (possibly 40)
Author: he was some kind of military strategist i think. ...
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Book about two kids going to the moon with an old scientist
There was a children's book I used to have which I believe was about two kids who go to space and the moon (I think it's the moon) with an old guy (maybe a grandpa or just a crazy looking scientist) ...
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Story about a lone planetary explorer with a robotic assistant
I read this story in the late 60's. A man on a 6 month drunk is picked up by company agents and placed on a ship to some unexplored planet. You get the impression this has happened to him before. ...
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1960's-1970's (possibly older) sci-fi story about a man stuck on an inhabited planet with a twist [duplicate]
The story was about a man who crashed on an uninhabited planet and was wandering around for a few years looking for another crashed spaceship to use its parts to repair his spaceship. He had a small ...
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Young adult sci fi book where a team of human explorers wind up stranded on a planet, while covertly surveilling a less advanced civilization
Some time in the future, an advanced civilization has found a marker left by precursors, pointing at habitable worlds. The first intelligent life they find by following the marker is humans.
They form ...
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Could Buzz Lightyear's crew ever have returned to the world before their accident?
In Lightyear, Buzz's primary motivation is to help the crew of the Turnip return to their lives before the crash. However, it's unclear if the crew ever could have gone back to "life as normal&...
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Short story where interplanetary explorers find a strange planet that's weirdly suited for human life
I recall reading the story in a book that was part of a larger award anthology. The plot revolved around a small team of scientists (3-5) exploring planets searching for those potentially suitable for ...
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Is there an explanation for how Taylor returned to Earth?
Planet of the Apes (1968) spoilers
Cpt Taylor and his crew launched towards the Orion constellation and at some point of their journey they put themselves into artificial sleep. At the time Taylor ...
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Story about spacecraft crew losing consciousness as they get farther from Earth
I'm trying to recall a sci-fi short story that I once read, about a spacecraft that's attempting to travel farther from Earth than anyone ever has before. As it gets farther away, the crew start to ...
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Book about a world where things improve when being used [duplicate]
In the '90s, I read a book that about a world where things improve when being used.
In the book, people on Earth have some kind of device that remotely scans the universe, looking for worlds/...
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Sci-Fi story about people traveling through space in confined spaces then fighting once returning planet side
The story was more or less about 2 people being in space for a long period of time in a small space. They had been living like this for either many months to possibly even years. Towards the end of ...
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Trilogy in the 80’s about space travel to another world
Growing up in the 80's my mother introduced me to a trilogy she read. I don’t remember the name but they traveled to another world and worked to colonize it. 2064 or something idk. The books were ...
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Book about a female protagonist travelling through space with alien creatures called the Leviathan
The main character of the book was selected to travel space with these aliens that also were able to act as spaceships called the Leviathan. They were helpful to Earth in fixing its problems.
As they ...
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Short story- crashed pilot must run/jump around a small planet to catch the sun and charge her life supporting suit
I'm looking for a short sci-fi story of a pilot who crashed with her spaceship on a small, low gravitate planet or asteroid.
In order to survive she must run/jump around it to catch the sun and power ...
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What has been the first time that someone visited more than one galaxy beyond their own?
This Q&A site already has several questions regarding traveling to other galaxies than in the main setting.
What has been the first work where somebody has visited at least two galaxies beyond ...
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1980s or earlier sci-fi short story where a planet is calling to a woman and she becomes an astronaut to travel there
The story I'm looking for had a female protagonist, a young girl (unattractive and unloved) whose ambition is to become an astronaut and travel to the stars. There is a particular planet that is "...
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explorers unwilling to return [duplicate]
Unusually for such a request, I think I know the title: “The Deserter”. Trouble is that ISFDB lists seven short stories with that title.
Setting is one of the cold planets. To explore it, people ...
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Looking for a novel about a mysterious sphere/cube shaped object
I read a story years ago that revolved around a mysterious ‘ship’ (it was a basic shape - I believe the name of the book was also around this shape) found in the universe. It had some species worried ...
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Space exploration/RPG PC game where humanity is trapped in a space bubble
I've been trying to find a PC game that I played a demo for back in the early 90s (give or take).
It was a space exploration/RPG with sprite graphics and I think a top-down perspective. You fly ...
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Novel: Earth fights galaxy-wide empire, loses, gets one seat in galactic senate/parliament
Read this novel circa late 1950s. Plot as follows from vague and imperfect memory. Earth is expanding into near stellar neighborhood. Finds planet that once held a now-vanished civilization, but which ...
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Story from the 1950s/60s/70s featuring a dangerous water creature like a yellow hammerhead
Can anyone ID a short story (I think) from the 1950s/60s/70s about an expedition to a planet which is mainly water on the surface. One of the human visitors sees, below him in the water, something ...
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Why are Star Trek Federation ships white?
Does anyone know why Starfleet ships are so white? They are research vessels "seeking out new life" but trying NOT to be seen before first contact. Kalemene never would have seen “the Ground-shaker” ...
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Book called "Thunderbird" by an author named Katy about space or flight
I read a book called Thunderbird by Katy something I have forgotten her last name. I vaguely remember it being about either space or flying or flying in space.
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Terrans land on a planet with cat-like aliens and start going missing, two of the crew are werewolves that think it is the perfect place
I just remember a glimpse from around 40 years ago. The story may be older.
An exploration space ship from Terra is landing on an alien planet. The Earthlings are coming in contact with the alien cat-...
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Short comic about alien explorers visiting an abandoned world with giant statues that turn out to be alive but move very slowly
A sci-fi short story, probably part of a comic sci-fi/horror anthology. I remember seeing it when I was 13, but still remember the twist ending clearly.
Judging from the artwork, something around 60'...
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