1950's Spaceships

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Robbo

Maybe the nuclear saltwater rocket with a very cinematic disregard for radiation?

The nuclear saltwater rocket is already considered to be cinematically efficient. You might tone down its risky side effects (ie, Volatile system and fuel, dangerous exhaust)... or maybe not. In fact, I think a 1950's-era cavalier attitude towards radiation fits perfectly with it, even if the engine itself is potentially quite dangerous.

Originally Posted by Faolyn

I think that, in order to get what you normally find in 50s SF (or at least in the movies I've seen, which, I admit, were mostly on MST3k), you want TL6^. In other words, you can just make anything up, really, using your unobtanium of choice, or just say that typical 50s-era rockets work a heck of a better than they ever did in reality.

On the contrary, I think limited TL9^ to TL10^ is a fine fit for 50's-era "hard" (but optimistic) sci fi. At the time, they understood the theoretical limits of engines, but they didn't yet know the limits of engineering - they thought these hyper-efficient nuclear drives would be available within 50 years, along with Fusion reactors and flying cars. I suppose you could call that TL6^ or TL7^... but why reinvent the wheel? The equivalent engines are present in the Spaceships series, just far ahead of where 50's sci fi thought they'd be. Likewise, the weapons of choice for these craft tend to be Lasers, Particle Beams and Missiles; again, TL 9-10 is an appropriate fit. Just say that they are limited in computer technology for whatever reason. This is actually pretty standard, even in modern science fiction like Star Trek (admittedly space opera rather than hard sci fi) which has FTL travel and matter<->energy converters, but no cell phones or internet.