How real is science fiction?

I grew up on classic hard science fiction, the likes of Arthur C. Clarke and for the Noctilucents trilogy I wanted to write something more plausible than implausible. So I used astronomy programs to model the position of the planets, studied transfer orbits from Mars to Earth together with propulsion systems and used my experience from the British Interplanetary Society’s project to design a station in the Mars polar basin (for which I contributed a paper on satellite communications and navigation) to help bring the Mars base to life.

But there were some artistic licenses. The atmosphere on Mars is really thin, so while there are dust devils, as on the book’s cover, in reality it is unlikely they’d cause the accident described in Martian Blood (trying to avoid spoilers!), which had led to some negative comments online.

I’ve reassured myself that the classic SF book The Martian by Andy Weir took a similar creative approach. For example, according to the plot summary on Wikipedia “a dust and wind storm threatens to topple their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which would trap them on the planet”. Again, in reality this is unlikely to occur.

At the end of the day, these are stories, combinations of plot and character, addressing the leading questions of the day….