The unreal and the real

 I spent Wednesday evening this week at Portsmouth Guildhall listening to astronaut Tim Peake.  It was part of his My Journey to Space tour, and a fascinating evening it was.

Tim spent six months up on the International Space Station, and the talk was about how he got to be selected as an astronaut and about his time up there.  I'd already read his memoir so I didn't learn anything new, but having the visuals to accompany his talk was really useful for me as a science fiction writer.

The evening started with footage of the astronauts blasting off into space.  I've read many reports by people who've watched rocket launches, and they all say that the sound from the liftoff batters your body.  The sound at Tim's talk was so loud that I could actually feel some of that sound battering at my chest.

Tim talked about the complexities of getting to the ISS.  When the rocket burn ends they're at around 200 kilometres above earth, but the ISS is 400 kilometres up, so the rocket has to do a series of precise burns to get into the right orbit.  

That was a reminder to me that if I'm lifting a shuttle off a planet  in my fiction it needs to have loads of power and sound and fury.  I do actually have a launch like that at the end of my current novel, and I have written in the battering effect of the soundwave from the launch on the bystanders.

Tim also talked about spacesuits, calling them mini-spaceships, and that was a reminder to me to make sure my characters pay due attention to suiting-up and checking over their suits.  I've read a couple of novels recently where the authors have had a rather casual approach to spacesuits.  I don't buy that.  I think however familiar you are with wearing an EVA suit you're always going to take the time to check that it's working perfectly before venturing out into the killing vacuum.  My characters always have a suit buddy who checks them over before they go outside,

Tim showed images of the scorched crew module after the astronauts had returned to Earth.  It looked pretty brown and burned up, and that reminded me about re-entry friction and heating.  I always make a point in my stories of mentioning the flames flickering around a landing shuttle.  It was useful to see some real footage of this.  And the flames really do flicker outside the windows.

Listening to Tim Peake talk was fascinating, and seeing real footage of the ISS and of the Earth from space projected onto a big screen was fantastic.  Hearing the details of the reality of living in space helped to reassure me that the unreality of my fiction is accurate.