I Am the Work

In the 60s the space race and the UFO craze were in full swing, and aside from their sleek coolness—obviously space ships but able to fly around easily in the air (and sometimes even the water) and full of intriguing, mysterious gadgets—flying saucers were the key to fearsome powers and fantastic places.

I still like flying saucers—even though I’m way past “believing” in them—though now it’s partly nostalgic. Among my favorites: the saucers of Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth and Lost in Space, and a little number not many people mention, Bamboo Saucer, whose simple saucer was propelled completely by gravitational attraction. And the stop-motion ships of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers were cool. (And, in the “not quite actual saucers” category, I also admired the manta-shaped Martian war machines from War of the Worlds, the flying sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and the very saucer-like sub from the movie Fantastic Voyage.)
So, saucers would be old-school sci-fi and irredeemably hokey, should one choose to include them in such a story today, right? Not so fast, Flash.

I am working on an extended space opera about a huge, hollowed asteroid being the first passenger ship to leave the solar system, in part to stage a new human civilization around another star, but also because I like the idea of making a space ship, not sleek and perfect, but a big lump of iron and nickel. Why not? All the materials would be already up there, ready to use. I am also determined to make all of the science “plausible” in this tale—no warp drives, no death rays, no artificial gravity, no transporter, or any other magical devices. This includes the problem of arriving at a new planet and needing landing craft, which brings up the very real problem of reentry. Sure, Luke Skywalker can just fly his faster-than-light X-wing right on down to Dagobah, but in reality his spiky little ship would melt and burn up on the way down (unless maybe he was pointed backwards and blasting his engines the whole way to “keep the brakes on”—a horrendous waste of fuel).

So, a very necessary component to such a ship would be the transport vessels it uses to drop onto a planet, and you know what’s unique about flying saucers? They have this big, smooth underside, just like the heat shield on the back of a space capsule. And once they get closer to the ground and slow down, they can slip sideways through the air and generate lift like any other aircraft. The only trick is propelling them efficiently, but the basic shape remains quite practical.

Does it make you wonder? For years UFO debunkers have pointed to the fact that your typical flying saucer is far too small for interstellar travel. So who says the saucer is the interstellar traveler? And why do the sightings so often come in clusters?

Not that I believe in UFOs or anything…