A few years ago, I wrote a book called Inflight Science that described the science that we experience when on a plane flight, giving the reader a chance to explore the things we observe through the airplane window as much as the science and technology that makes the flight itself possible. Interstellar Tours is a sequel to Inflight Science that takes things to the next level. This is the science we might experience on an interstellar space liner of the twenty-second century.
As much as possible, the facts are as solid as those featured in the pages of Inflight Science. However, cosmology is inevitably a very different science from the physics of our world. It features more speculation because we can’t do experiments or directly examine many of the phenomena that we are looking at from a vast distance. Where that’s the case, it will be made obvious in the text, but what we will experience on the flight is based on our current best understanding.
The only exception to this approach is in the first full chapter, Welcome onboard. With our current technology, it is not possible to make a journey to distant stars. To be able to take our journey across the galaxy, we will discover the need to make use of technology that is pure science fiction after exploring and dismissing hypothetical technology that is based on current theory. Certainly for the moment, there is no feasible way to make human interstellar flight practical.
Science fiction is sometimes treated as second class literature – but I think it gives us a wonderful opportunity to ask ‘What if?’ The genre has been caricatured by an author who should know better as being limited to ‘talking squids in outer space.’ But the real science fiction is about telling stories that explore the ways that humans might react to the impact of new science and technology on their lives and their environment. Although this book is set in outer space, there will be no talking squids – its role is to bring us closer to astronomical and cosmological features that would be on the tourist trail if only we could get out there – all based on the best current science.
Given that we won’t be meeting any talking squids, it’s worth reflecting why this is the case. Around 1950, the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi was taking part in a discussion around the lunch table at Los Alamos, the site of the US atomic bomb project during the Second World War. The subject of flying saucers (as Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs were then known) came up. Fermi is reported to have said to his colleagues ‘Where is everybody?’ It seemed strange that there was so much talk of aliens from space at the time – but that there was no scientific evidence for the existence of alien life.
For centuries there has been speculation about living beings (often all too predictably humanoid) existing on heavenly bodies. In the early days, this even included the Sun. And, since the 1940s there was a steady stream of sightings of UFOs, or as we are now supposed to call them, UAPs – unexplained aerial phenomena. (They were renamed, partly due to the military’s love of novel abbreviations, and, more reasonably, because quite a lot of these phenomena are not flying objects.) One of those present at the Los Alamos discussion remembers seeing a cartoon that was popular the time reflecting the unexplained disappearance of trash cans from New York City, which blamed this on little green men taking them away. Aliens were very much part of the zeitgeist. But they were hardly knocking at the door of the White House.
Although we can’t be certain, there is no credible evidence that UAPs have any connection with visitors from other planets. As it has been widely pointed out, given that so many individuals now carry high quality cameras with them at all times, built into their smartphones, it is strange that we still only get vague fuzzy photographs to support claims of UAP sightings. More so than ever, we can now ask ‘Where is everybody?’
It seems unlikely, then, that we are being visited by aliens. There certainly may be alien life out in the galaxy (though if there is, the chances are that the majority of it is more like bacteria than humans), but we don’t have any good scientific evidence to back up its existence. There’s an old saying ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’, which is technically true – but it is simply telling us that, for now, science, which needs to be evidence-based, has nothing useful whatsoever to say about alien life. All we have is pure speculation, unsupported by evidence, or stories.
I’m not knocking aliens in science fiction – there are some great characters, though the ones we develop affection for, from Mr Spock to Yoda, tend to be far more anthropomorphic than anything we might expect real aliens to be like. The reality is that fictional aliens are often playing a role that helps us explore what it is (and what it isn’t) to be human. But until we have any scientific evidence, fiction is where they belong. That being the case, aliens will not be making an appearance on our interstellar tour.
There may be no aliens here, but what you will be able to see is an impressive collection of images, provided on the Interstellar Tours website. Where possible these are photographic, but any featuring fine detail of distant systems, planets and solar system will be artists’ impressions. The aim is to get the feel of experiencing a visit to these locations, but it is important to bear in mind that the exact detail shown may not be correct.
For the moment, though, it’s time to take our place on board the starship Endurance* and to get a quick introduction to the technology that is going to be necessary to make our voyage possible and survivable.
* Our starship is named after Ernest Shackleton’s wooden ship, lost in 1915 when it became trapped in pack ice when exploring Antarctica. We can never underemphasise the influence of the twentieth century TV show Star Trek on the interstellar touring business. Our entire starship fleet has three syllable names, beginning with E.