Orbital Mechanics 09.13.24


What is something you don’t often find in sci-fi books? Orbital mechanics. Science fiction, specifically old sci-fi, is what got me back into reading after a stint of pathologically avoiding it throughout middle school and half of high school. Now how old am I talking about, well it’s safe to assume anyone reading this was born after they were printed. I am talking about sci-fi published between the 50’s through the 80’s, from the dawn of space exploration where everyone’s imagination was running wild to when a new age of reusable space exploration was seemingly right around the corner. That is all unimportant thought.

When reading all those sci-fi books one thing is usually always true, orbital mechanics simply don’t exist. If you’re in space and you want to go a different direction you simply turn like a car and start going in that direction. I can’t speak on behalf of newer sci-fi works but for older ones this holds true.

Now to where I was surprised, Rocket Jockey by Lester del Rey. This was the first of these old sci-fi books that I had read that actually included orbital mechanics, and in this case an integral part of the story. The book is about people racing rockets around the solar system and talks about having to burn prograde and retrograde, dealing with planetary positions, and slingshot maneuvers. For a book published in 1952, 17 years before the moon landing and 9 years before even the first person would enter space, this is astonishing. One of the only other books I have read that has included this was Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, published a whole 21 years after this book. I understand that it is science fiction after all, you could theoretically say, along with the technology that allows for FTL travel and jump drives, something has been invented that allows for travel without relying on orbital mechanics as we currently know them.