Books and magazine covers from the collection of Maison d’Ailleurs, together with images from ESA’s own photograph collection.
The idea is to show how close or how far was an early artist’s conception from what was later built and launched. In many instances, we are not yet at the stage that science fiction authors and artists imagined.
While we have constructed a handful of space stations – in very different forms to that imagined by most science fiction covers – we have not yet established settlements on planets (or indeed in space), nor have we yet achieved interplanetary flight. On the other hand, some of the renderings of spacesuits or planetary landers and rovers are close to what we employ in space today.
This is interesting because early science fiction authors, artists and illustrators described space concepts and spacecraft based on the limited scientific knowledge available at the time, whereas more modern writers generally portray the same basic systems as used in real-life spaceflight, even though artistic licence is often employed.
In addition, advances such as miniaturisation and robotics provide modern writers and illustrators with the benefit of existing and proven technologies that can be directly adapted. Anything produced much before the first satellite, Sputnik, appeared in 1957 was more a product of real artistic inventiveness.
The design of the ISS is very different from the spoked-wheel concept of many science fiction images. Early science fiction writers portrayed spacecraft and systems based on the scientific and technical knowledge available at the time.
The wheel design reflected the belief that the discomfort and potential fatality of weightlessness must be combated by rotating the station to create artificial gravity, with the crew working and living inside the rim. With the founding of the US civil space programme in 1958 and the preparation of detailed space station designs, the wheel shape was found to be impractical and it was decided that docked modules offered the best approach.
By 1970, both the USA and the USSR were planning modular designs for their stations. All modern space stations – Salyut, Skylab, Mir, the ISS – have been based on the cylinder. Cylindrical modules are added as necessary for living quarters, laboratories and utilities. In addition, huge Sun-following solar panels provide power, a feature missing from the science fiction pictures. One wonders how the artists conceived power being supplied to their circular stations.