marycatelli | adventures in steampunk space-faring

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So, if steampunk spaceship are faring from planet to planet -- if the planets are settled (with some world-building assistance of implausible climate by modern science 0:) --

Is everything known?

The 19th century was the era in which the globe was being definitively mapped, but still in the time when large stretches could still be marked terra incognita even if you didn't write "here there be dragons." For these planets to still be unknown stretches --

Well, there are going to have to serious limits in their ability to survey the planets from space. And still more serious ones in their ability to land. Large flat open spaces without severe winds, perhaps. That way everything has to radiate outwards.

Crossposts: http://marycatelli.livejournal.com/873855.html

Threaded | Flat

From:

nodrog

No, because consider the 800 lb gorilla of space exploration: Ionizing radiation. Solar wind, cosmic rays. If the example of cholera is any guide, an occupational hazard on steamships of the aether will be somewhat like “caisson disease” - people get sick from it, die of it, but no one knows why. (It doesn't appear contagious. That's a good thing.)

Plus, go ahead, try to map Venus from orbit with any 19th-century means.

Plus, don't be too sure photography from orbit is any kind of panacea. The Hồ Chí Minh trail was designed specifically to evade notice by aerial observation, and vast swathes of Central America still show nothing but “bunched broccoli” forest canopy.

Certainly much can be done - finding the source of the Nile would be the work of a quiet afternoon, and as it happens old irrigation canals, roads &c. can be discerned by changes in that bunched broccoli.

But sooner or later, you gotta put boots on the ground.

Update: Re: Ability to land - remember the old saying, “You don't need a parachute to skydive - you only need it if you want to do so again.” You can always land, anywhere!

Edited Date: 2017-05-14 04:32 pm (UTC)