alt Hacker NewsDestination: Jupiter
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Kind of hard for SF stories featuring organic life (i.e. humans) to be based around Jupiter because of the planet's incredibly strong magnetic field and hence killing radiation belts - like the Van Allen belts around Earth, but much worse. Probes to the Jovian system have to be heavily hardened.
The author of that article somehow managed to miss the most famous Jupiter story of all. Arthur C. Clarke's "A Meeting with Medusa." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Meeting_with_Medusa
That novella was so enduringly influential that noted SF authors Stephen Baxter (a collaborator with, and sort of heir to, Clarke,) and Alastair Reynolds wrote a very good sequel a few years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medusa_Chronicles
Jupiter and Saturn moons always make inspiring hostnames. Right now, I have Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. Ganymede has the most powerful setup. Yesterday, I decommissioned Io.
Reading this post reminded me of another book I read a few years ago: Curious Moon [0].
It is written as a novel that teaches PostgreSQL by exploring the dataset of the Cassini orbiter around Enceladus, Saturn's moon. Highly recommended and fun read.
It is always fascinating to see how much influence authors and scientists have had on each other throughout history.
You sometimes see clear examples of how fiction fuels technology, and sometimes technology inspires fiction.
As a writer who hasn’t been published yet, I find that most of my stories start by imagining where today’s science might take us next, though every now and then, I catch a glimpse of something that feels truly original.
I'm curious if others here feel the same. Is the future mostly written by visionaries in fiction, or by the engineers and scientists bringing it to life? Or maybe it’s a union, intended or not, between both sides.