I wonder how many of us have noticed the constant presence of steam in sci-fi films. It's a popular constant in starships, for some strange reason, always drifting past or bursting forth from unseen vents to lend sinister drama to a scene - Star Gate series, including spin-offs, on board the Starship Enterprise, on board the Space Tug Nostradamus in Alien and a host of other places where you have to stop and wonder who's using steam...and for what, exactly..on starships of the future?

I recently watched the early part of another sci-fi variant - the mutant genre - called appropriately enough "The Mutant Chronicles". Maybe Ron Perlman and John Malkovich just needed the money - who knows? I'm not a fan of than genre, but what caught my eye was....you guessed it...the use of steam far in the future.

The film is a cross between a couple of computer games and the usual contents of the Holloywood film vaults - a PC game called Ironstorm - excellent concept, BTW, and one called Doom, plus ho knows how many more. War continues in the future, now fought by the five great corporations that fight to control the vanishing resources of Earth, but wait...the only remaining fuel appears to be coal, and everything runs on steam, and I do mean everything.

In the opening battle scenes, starkly framed in the stark realism of trench warfare still practiced in the future, the armored fighting vehicles and artillery are steam powered, and even the large aerial transports are powered by coal-fired steam. It was humorously ironic to watch stokers stripped to the waist sweating as they shoveled coal into glowing boilers to build up enough pressure for the clanking steam-driving aircraft to limber aloft, trailing a plume of black smoke. - an apocalyptic vision of the future if ever one exists.

If your mind runs to odd notions and things that make you think waaay outside of any box, I recommend the first part of the film.

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That category does not seem to include the simultaneous presence of electricity, advanced nuclear and non-nuclear power (think anti-matter and dilithium/Star Trek) and steam, however.

Yes, steampunk seems to be a world of its own, kindof a retro future. But recently I had someone tell me what he did in the military - boil water. Granted, he said, he used nuclear fuel rods housed in a submarine to do it, but essentially he ran a very complex steam engine. Heat + water = steam to drive a turbine, generate electricity and turn a screw/prop.

If there ever was a steampunk inspired locomotive it would be the N&W's Jawn Henry. Google it.

Galen

When one considers all the "roles" Steam has played over the years,in the movies, from fog to "noxious chemical fumes", perhaps Steam should win a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar !!

I vaguely remember steam being used to launch the Vipers from the original (late 70's early 80's) Battlestar Galactica Series. Kind of the way it's used today on aircraft carriers. As I write this I can even remember an episode were one of the pilots was burned by it wile he was inside one of the launch tubes.

Spaceship Luna in Destination Moon was steam powered. The fuel was water heated by an atomic motor to create steam.

I still take my science fiction in books.
If you ever see it, read Steam Bird by Hilbert Schenck. I read it when it came out originally. The premise is that the USAF in its desperate, expansive, try anything once years, built a steam powered bomber. It's kept at an airbase that's staffed by steam (railroad and anything) fans and during one crisis is authorized to launch.
Lots of RR references, including a series of speed records passed as they accelerate for take-off.

You are confusing steam with condensation. If you blast any chilled gas or vapor into normal air it will cause the moisture in the air to condense and form "fog". Think CO2 fire extinguisher. Big white cloud, not steam.

Drop the pressure though and water boils and turns to steam at even low temperatures. It's still steam, even if it's not hot. Nicely demonstrated in a recent episode of Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections in which he 'boils' a cup of water in a vacuum chamber.

--Randy

dave1905 Wrote:You are confusing steam with condensation. If you blast any chilled gas or vapor into normal air it will cause the moisture in the air to condense and form "fog". Think CO2 fire extinguisher. Big white cloud, not steam.

------- and superheated steam at 1200 lbs/sq.in., takes some time to condense, and is dangerously invisible, at the location of its release ( leak, or other point of discharge ).

BR60103 Wrote:I still take my science fiction in books.
If you ever see it, read Steam Bird by Hilbert Schenck. I read it when it came out originally. The premise is that the USAF in its desperate, expansive, try anything once years, built a steam powered bomber. It's kept at an airbase that's staffed by steam (railroad and anything) fans and during one crisis is authorized to launch.
Lots of RR references, including a series of speed records passed as they accelerate for take-off.

That's not actually science fiction... the B-70 Valkryie bomber prototype was originally designed around a nuclear power plant, which means that the propulsive effort would come from...steam?

And F.E. Warren AFB, outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was home to the MX Rail System, MX ICBM warheads which were trundled around the railroad network of America to keep the Soviets from locking onto launch sites. I have seen some of the launch cars on the tracks in the back in the 80's, recognizable only by their suspension bogies designed to support the missile weight.

Steam is actually a useful technology.

A friend of mine has a laptop that takes so long to load we are convinced that it runs on coal!!

A notable example of steam in sci-fi would be the time-travelling flying train from Back to the Future III. Although I cannot remember when it appeared whether a Mr Fusion unit was powering it...

Andrew

MasonJar Wrote:A notable example of steam in sci-fi would be the time-travelling flying train from Back to the Future III. Although I cannot remember when it appeared whether a Mr Fusion unit was powering it...

Andrew

The real question is...why an old fashioned train? I imagine it would stand out in the future, or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter.