It may be speculative fiction, whose ultimate question is "What If," but Science Fiction writers have always tempered their "what if" fantasies with their own scientific knowledge. Issac Asimov was trained as a scientist, and his science fiction was always very technically detailed.
Arthur C. Clarke was also trained as a scientist and knew of inventions being developed that he used in his stories, such as spaceships and what the near-future might be like with inter-planetary missions.
Space Fantasy: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Then there are writers whose science fiction is aimed not at exploring the potential of science per se, but rather to inspire the dreamers using scientific means. Edgar Rice Burroughs is the best example of this.
The creator of Tarzan was not a scientist, but he read popular science magazines and was inspired by discoveries in astronomy to write two series of novels set on Mars and Venus respectively. Both Mars (called Barsoom by its inhabitants) and Venus were the settings of wild fantasy adventure common to his books.
Mars was depicted as a harsh desert world with deep canyons and harsh sandstorms, while Venus was a lush tropical world with thick jungles and air you could cut with a butter knife. Burroughs mined these settings well for his fantasies, but these were based on what Mars and Venus were thought to be like at the time he was writing (1910s-1930s).
Space Program
The first explorer probes to Mars and Venus were sent out in the 1960s and the worlds they discovered were vastly different than the ones Burroughs and others had imagined. Mars was barren and desolate, with a thin atmosphere. Venus was so hot that the circuits in the probes sent to the planet burn out after a few hours. Neither of them were the worlds that Burroughs had envisioned.
After these discoveries, depictions of both planets changed accordingly. Colonies on Mars were not the vast cities of the desert Burroughs had imagined, but enclosed and connected by airlocks. The movie Total Recall is a good example of this.
Nostalgia
Nonetheless, this has not stopped authors from mining Burrough's stories, among others to write their own Barsooms and their own tropical Venus' adventure stories, although its made clear by the author that the planets they depict are not Venus or Mars, or are the two planets some time in the far distant future.
Just as Steampunk pays tribute to the world of Jules Verne, Retro-Futurist Science Fiction pays tribute to Burroughs and all the dreamers of his time who envisioned mankind finding another planet like Earth that's a short distance away.
Robert O'Connor - I am a professional amateur. Everything I do, I do it out of love, not money. I'm also flat broke.
