Questions tagged [spaceship]
For questions about the specific functions or layouts (etc.) of spaceship or spacecraft in a work. Always use this tag in conjunction with the correct tags for that work.
637 questions
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Trying to remember a short involving an impenetrable barrier inside a tower
The story involved a tower on earth which might have been called the "pen" or "umbra" (penumbra?), and there was some sort of anomaly inside it. Humanity was trying to penetrate a ...
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How does a Star Wars X-wing fighter make it from the surface of a planet to space? [closed]
According to the Star Wars X-Wing Wikipedia page, the X-Wing has a max speed of 652 mph in atmospheric flight.
3,700 G (maximum acceleration)
1,050 km/h (652 mph; maximum atmospheric speed)
100 MGLT (...
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Policeman pursuing woman with baby on spaceship
Looking for a recent SF novel where the
protagonist is policeman pursuing woman with baby. They live on the inside of a giant spaceship/planet that is starting to fall apart.
Read as a Kindle book ...
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Humourous television series. An arrogant man seems to be giving a blow by blow account of a dangerous battle. He was describing a game of Risk
Two men are on a spaceship. One is arrogant and a windbag. He is telling a long and detailed story that seems to be about a dangerous battle in which he fought.
The other man loses his patience and ...
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Short Story. Spaceship controls are designed to perfectly match the pschological make up of the pilot. Emergency attempt to fly another's ship [duplicate]
I think I read this in the 80s probably in an anthology from a UK library.
All spaceships are individually designed for their pilot to match the things they like and the way their mind works.
There is ...
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Space adventure story: infiltration identified by restrictions on ship's menu
This is a 1950s-era short story, I think.
If I recall correctly, the hero wants spaghetti for dinner at the mess, and while investigating why he can't get it, he uncovers a conspiracy: The aliens who ...
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Looking for sci-fi short story about a spacecraft flight simulator consultant
I hesitate to provide much detail because with the last question I asked, I got many of the details pretty wrong, but still got the correct answer here, amazingly, so here goes…
I’ve been trying to ...
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2000s starship co-op game with ships like red and blue fighter jets and a human-face ship boss on a desert planet and in space
I need help trying to remember an old starship computer game. I wish I could remember how the title screen looked, but it was a co-op game. Player 1 was controlled by mouse, and it was a red fighter ...
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Sci-fi book where POV character wakes up in a spaceship, doesn't fit in, turns out to be a "control" human [duplicate]
This was a sci-fi book, where roughly all I remember of it is the ending. The POV character is a human who awakens on a generational spaceship. They go about meeting the other inhabitants, learning ...
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Philosophy powered spaceship
I'm looking for a short story about a spaceship crewed by philosophers who will the ship to travel through space. Probably around 20 years or more old.
I believe it was a female author. A team of ...
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Book in which a rogue AI infects a ship captain with a virus which turns her into an insect-like creature
Looking for a novel in which a malevolent, rogue AI infects a ship captain with a virus which turns her into an insect-like creature.
This rogue AI is being hunted - possibly it has a price on its ...
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1980's/1990's movie starting with exploring a spaceship
I remember watching a movie on VHS between 1990-1995 that starts with the exploration of a spaceship where there are mummified astronauts in spacesuits.
I seem to recall a large spaceship and a pan of ...
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Old YA book. (60s?) Young man wants to become a rocket ship pilot
YA USA hardback library book. 1960s or before. Very Heinlein YA type story, but not one of his books.
I distinctly remember the opening chapter. A young man is playing baseball. Maybe a college or ...
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Different series or movie that used the spaceship from the movie "Sphere"
I am really bothered by the thought about the ship being showed once in a series, but I couldn't find the series again. I remember watching a movie or a series where the story of the crew was shown ...
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Book where the protagonists are transported from the past into a futuristic spaceship
I am looking for a book I read on kindle a number of years ago (not an account I have access to now).
The concept was that 2 midshipmen (I think that was their rank) are transported forwards in time ...
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An 80s or early 90s (1990) animated sci-fi series that took place in space on a space ship
The cartoon came in either the 80s or early 90s (probably 1990). The cartoon took place in space on a spaceship. The crew of the spaceship was human. The leader was a man and there was one female ...
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Do we ever see someone toggle their lights (or close their curtains) in exterior miniature shots?
In Star Trek we typically see many exterior space shots of starships, like the Enterprise-D pictured below, where some windows are illuminated and some are dark (see yellow highlights). Up until ...
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Book written early 80s or before about a 2m tall student on a school spaceship [duplicate]
Book is about several students from different planets but all human on a school spaceship.
The main character is at least 2 meters tall. This comes into the plot because when they visit earth he has ...
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Looking for an Ark Spaceship story from the 1960s
I am searching for a story and its author from the 1960s about an ark spaceship that has been traveling space in search of a new planet. The hero tends the onboard forest which produces oxygen for the ...
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70s? Sci-Fi Novel Pilot tears apart cockpit to rebuild it in a pattern he is familiar with
While watching a playthrough of the new game Starfield by a YouTuber, the "Pilot" of a ship brings the console toward him and swings wings around so they are closer to him.
It reminded me of ...
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Space movie seen on pogo tv with a man in a malfunctioning space pod
In my childhood, a space movie probably used to come on Pogo TV in which a man's pod malfunctioned and opens early and he eats alone some paste tube food for many days. And when the other persons wake ...
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Sci-Fi novel where a manufacturing AI is occasionally sabotaging equipment as it makes it
While reading Citadel by John Ringo [for the third time], they mentioned a fault in equipment that was causing accidents. And I had a flash of "Oh, I remember this", but I was wrong.
Now I ...
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Sci-Fi movie where an alien construct is operated by the pilot dipping his hands into strange liquid
Can you help identify a sci-fi movie that this scene is from? I made a reference to a sci-fi scene where a character pilots an alien ship or some other construct by dipping his hands into a strange ...
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How are the inhabitants of Earth supposed to be transferred to Pandora?
In my question here, I asked about the political system on Earth during the time of the Avatar movie.
A comment by Klaus states
In The Way of Water, it is briefly mentioned that the Earth is
becoming ...
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Movie about a spacecraft that plays musical notes
Movie where a man builds a dirt mountain in his house and contacts a spacecraft that plays musical notes.
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Short story (possibly by Hal Clement) about an alien ship stuck on Earth
This feels like a story from the 1950s or so, and like a Hal Clement story, but I can't bring it to mind.
The story is about a disabled alien vessel in some isolated place on Earth (the American West, ...
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First story having both the bad guys and the good guys avoiding using weapons in a space craft or space station that would puncture hull?
It seems like this comes up a lot: despite the bad guys having murderous intent, there is at least a tacit agreement not to use projectile weapons or anything else that would make a hole in the ship's ...
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Where is the shuttlebay on an Excelsior-class starship?
This is a question I've had for a while but where all the information I've been able to turn up has been inconsistent, even from official sources. The question is: where on the Excelsior-class is the ...
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What specifically made it so that a TIE fighter wouldn't be out near Alderaan by itself?
In "A New Hope", when the Falcon arrives at the ruins of Alderaan, they encounter a TIE fighter. Someone remarks that such a small ship wouldn't be out that far by itself. However, in "...
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What is meant by the term 'spinship' in Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos series?
I am halfway through Endymion, the 3rd book of Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos series.
In his universe, he basically differentiates between two types of starships, namely torchships and spinships. While ...
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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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Short story: Ship's computer corrupted by crew epidemic of madness
This is a short story I read in an anthology - it feels like a 1960s or '70s story. Crew on a spaceship are going crazy due to a communicable disease and being locked in the brig/medical bay, with the ...
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Expedition to explore ocean under ice on solar system's planet satellite
I've read the book easily 15 years ago (~2008); I borrowed it from a public library in Atlanta Ga. The book was paperback. I can't recall the look of the cover with any certainty. The author was one I ...
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What are these symbols in the corridors of star destroyers?
I was watching the star destroyer flythrough and noticed these odd symbols all over the corridors.
What are they?
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Why do Starfleet ships employ cetaceans?
On certain Starfleet ships (at least the Enterprise-D and the Cerritos), there is an area (essentially a large pool) where sentient dolphins give aid in navigation. This area is called "cetacean ...
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Book about 2 spaceships one of which was trying to contain a zombie outbreak
Written in the form of logs.
One of the ships seems evil at first but as the story goes on it's revealed that it was trying to contain a zombie outbreak but the story was narrated from the POV of ...
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Book about a spaceship with cities, deserts, lakes, and artificial sun and stars
I am looking for a book that has a spaceship with cities (including a "New London") as well as lakes and an artificial sun and stars. The ship starts to crack and the authorities try to hide ...
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Story where a spaceship realizes that it has been hit by an asteroid that destroyed its ability to detect being hit by asteroids
There was a science fiction story that I read at some point (I can’t remember if it’s a self-contained story or part of a larger book) that’s centered around an ai in a spaceship that realizes it has ...
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Space opera-type book where human ships fight with lasers and use sand as a defensive technique
The book in question is a space navy-/space opera-type book. The human ships in the book(s) used primarily lasers as their weapons. As such they have countermeasures that I think were known as "...
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A short story from the 1950s about a tiny alien spaceship
It's definitely not the Meteor by John Wyndham, but was based on a similar idea. Premise is humanity waits for a giant alien spaceship to land - all the US government is there etc. etc. When the ship ...
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Book: Civilisation has limited time to progress from medieval to space travel
Here is a difficult one: I only read the blurb on the back, and didn't read it at the time. Now I wonder what it was... It must've been early 90's, late 80's.
It was something like: "The ...
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Sci-Fi young adult book read 1995-2001 with a not quite human boy in an egg-like space capsule on a beach
Looking for a fantasy or sci fi book about a boy found in a capsule on a beach.
I do not know the title, or the author's name. I also don't know when the book came out originally. I believe the author ...
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What is the origin of the "self-destruct sequence"?
As far as I'm aware, we don't have anything like a self-destruct or auto-destruct sequence in real life ships at sea or in space, so where did the idea originate? I'm thinking of a specific function ...
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Book with a ship that has its hull automatically repair
The book was in a space opera/rpg style. The hull was described as being made from a very rare and expensive material that would concentrate and refract laser fire back to the enemy. It would repair ...
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80s-90s movie about teenage alien boys landing on earth
I watched this movie in the early to mid 90s about a small group of teenage like alien boys that landed, possibly due to a tech issue or even crash landing, on earth. They were found by some younger ...
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Old scifi book: detective, alien conspiracy, change appearance machine, huge brain in space ship, alien communicates by flashing lights from stomach
I am looking for an old book. People can use a machine to change appearance and genetically modify themselves. The main character is a detective or cop, he follows a suspect into the sewers and finds ...
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Old sci-fi story, humans meet alien spaceship that burns planets while searching for meaning of life
Can you please help me find this old sci-fi story. It went something like that:
In the future, humans discover through telescope that somebody is traveling from planet to planet and sets them on fire. ...
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Looking for a short story about space crew who are taken over by an alien consciousness
I think I read it in a collection of horror or SF. The incident happens after landing on an alien planet. It may be Mars. I can not recall a physical entity being involved but somehow one of the crew'...
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Looking for time dilation spaceship "restart the Earth's rotation" sci-fi short story, please
The plot is something happens to the ship, time dilation millions of years, the ship's AI is damaged but before it goes offline it relieves the Captain and puts the science officer in charge. They ...
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UK scifi book with children kidnapped in spaceship
I read a library book in the late 60s. Set in the UK, a man takes five children for a ride in a spaceship, intending to "save them" from pending destruction of Earth.
Nerdy Brillo is able to ...
