Keeping up with the times

[Louie]

One of my favorite parts of reading classic SF, is the use of now outdated ideas of the universe. The one that sticks out to me, and is apropos since we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, is Arthur C Clarke's A Fall of Moondust. In which, it was thought that the surface of the moon (at least, in this one particular region, supposes Clarke) was like a sea of sand that you could sail on like an ocean. The plot leans heavily on that assumption. Something NASA was actually worried about before Apollo 11 landed, 8 years after the book was published, and the footpads of the Apollo Lunar Module only sunk into the regolith a few inches, as Neil Armstrong can be heard reporting.

What inaccuracy from classic SF sticks out to you?

Science Fiction vs. Science: Bidding Farewell to Outdated Conceptions of the Solar System (via Tor.com)

[David H.]

In Asimov's Lucky Starr series (writing as David French), he of course has a tidally-locked Mercury, a watery-Venus, etc. The later reprintings include a note from Asimov that "Oh well, science had advanced, not gonna rewrite this!"

[Trike]

David wrote: "In Asimov's Lucky Starr series (writing as David French), he of course has a tidally-locked Mercury, a watery-Venus, etc. The later reprintings include a note from Asimov that "Oh well, science had..."

Edit: the Niven thing is in the article. Now *I’ve* been gotten by the info bug.

Niven’s first short story “The Coldest Place” also featured a tidally-locked Mercury. Problem being that between the time he sold it and it was published, we found out differently.

The Expanse got Ceres wrong in similar case of bad timing.