Exploring a 1950s short story and radio play which itself critiques the relationship between science and science fiction

The vision of space portrayed in near-future science fiction often speaks to the hopes and fears of contemporary society. Children’s SF in particular can influence the scientific and technical innovators who might bring such visions to fruition. This week we take a look at the coherent vision of human space utilisation presented in the recent animated television series Thunderbirds are Go.

The concept of a scanner - a remote sensing device that can identify evidence of life at a distance - is a common staple of science fiction. While some science fiction takes this to an extreme, it’s neither a new idea nor one that is entirely divorced from science fact.

A lot of science fiction assumes we will adapt and use alien technologies, despite dramatic differences in their development and background physics. But how realistic is this?

In a universe in which faster-than-light travel is, to the best of our current underssanding, impossible, journeys to other stars are likely to be measured in decades or centuries rather than days or weeks.

The visual imagery of humans struggling with everyday objects many times their own size, or encountering usually benign animals as terrifying monsters, captures the imagination. Hence the popularity of the SF of miniaturisation.

A common theme in science fiction is to consider the possibility of teleportation - the ability to move instantaneously between two locations, whether through natural mental abilities or mechanical means

One of the key functions of science fiction is to explore both the potentialities and the risks of technologies, particularly those which are new or to which we aspire. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, automation has been a preoccupation of SF almost since it began.