History Main / SpaceFriction

* In the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 game ''Project Sylpheed'', your ship steers as if there's air resistance in space, with this becoming more pronounced in atmosphere. In a related note of bizarreness, cutting the engines and coasting works even in atmosphere, despite the fact that the ship should fall out of the sky if it's not done in an effectively zero-G environment.

* Played painfully straight in the classic [[UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers Atari 8-bit]] game ''VideoGame/StarRaiders''. Not only is sublight travel performed by setting your spaceship's engines to fire continuously (consuming energy in the process), but if they get damaged your ship abruptly comes to a halt, leaving you to sputter to the nearest starbase for repairs.

See also SpaceIsAir, SpaceIsCold, and GravitySucks. Related to FrictionBurn. Contrast FrictionlessReentry.

Despite being a form of HollywoodScience, this could also be a JustifiedTrope in settings where InertialDampening technology exists. Remember: inertia is the tendency for an object in motion or at rest to stay that way unless acted upon by an outside force, therefore any spaceship incorporating technology which nullifies or alters inertia will eventually drift to a stop unless subjected to continuous thrust. Mind you, despite this simple and logical explanation being a perfect example of FridgeBrilliance, it could just as easily be the result of a writer who [[DidNotDoTheResearch doesn’t know or care how space works]] getting something right [[AchievementsInIgnorance in spite of their ignorance]].

A form of HollywoodScience. See also SpaceIsAir, SpaceIsCold, and GravitySucks. Related to FrictionBurn. Contrast FrictionlessReentry.

However, the reason these things happen is friction. [[note]]And also air resistance, which is basically just friction against a fluid.[[/note]] On a straight road, with good tires, you can coast quite a long way on even a slight downgrade. In space, where there is no friction between the car and air to contend with, you can coast even at top speed almost ''forever'' (albeit perhaps not in a perfectly straight line, due to gravitation), or until you hit something, which, given how big space is, is literally astronomically unlikely.

However, the reason these things happen is friction. [[note]]And also air resistance, though this usually only becomes relevant if you're traveling at near-sonic speeds.[[/note]] On a straight road, with good tires, you can coast quite a long way on even a slight downgrade. In space, where there is no friction between the car and air to contend with, you can coast even at top speed almost ''forever'' (albeit perhaps not in a perfectly straight line, due to gravitation), or until you hit something, which, given how big space is, is literally astronomically unlikely.

* ''Anime/{{Planetes}}'': Most of the early story was about collecting debris that were dangerous precisely because items in space never slow down or stop.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'', unsurprisingly. In fact, in an instance where someone takes advantage of inertia (''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': "The Battle") by letting a derelict coast alongside them, everyone else is amazed by the notion -- and, indeed, it turns out that his decision was prompted by his being NotHimself. In the other known instance ("Booby Trap"), it takes Geordi being inspired by ancient records to come up with the idea of escaping an engine-detecting minefield by pulsing the engines once and then coasting.

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Beast Below", the Doctor can tell something strange is going on because [[GenerationShips Starship UK]] is moving through space despite the engines not running. Which is obviously impossible.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': "Out of Gas" has the ship come to an apparent "stop" when it runs out of fuel, which is actually the result of the setting's curious interplanetary drive system losing power. [[note]]The ship's drives actually mess with gravity and inertia, effectively removing it temporarily to let the ship move and maneuver at incredible speeds, and losing power causes the inertia to reassert itself and the ship to slow to a crawl. [[AllThereInTheManual None of this is actually remarked on in the show.]][[/note]]
* ''Series/RedDwarf'' did this in "Demons and Angels" when the ''Dwarf'' temporarily explodes and the crew narrowly escape in a ''Starbug''. The nearest asteroid with an "S3"[[note]]"Solar 3," i.e. Earth-like and breathable[[/note]] atmosphere is six hours away, but they only have enough fuel for five hours' flight. That's not the last bit of fridge logic in this scene. ''Red Dwarf'' also ditched Space Friction in a later episode (see below).

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'' had a variation of this; Astrotrain, in space shuttle mode, pleads to his passengers to "jettison some weight, or we'll never make it to Cybertron". This seems to be an excuse to throw the other, dying Decepticons out of Astrotrain, but note that his engines were still on and burning brightly for some reason. [[http://knoledge.org/mormegil/rfc-tftm.php Parodied here.]]

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'': in one episode, the Bebop is out of fuel, but the characters are unconcerned and are just killing time while the ship coasts to its destination. Despite this, ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' is not entirely a realistic series using Newtonian flight physics. There are plenty of occasions where the ships behave in Newtonian-correct ways (maneuvering thrusters, braking with forward-firing engines...), but plenty more when they don't (the [[OldSchoolDogfight dogfights in space]], for instance, follow atmospheric flight patterns). The dogfights, however, may get a RuleOfCool exemption.

* ''Anime/{{Planetes}}'' did its research. Most of the early story was about collecting debris that were dangerous precisely because items in space never slow down or stop.

* Averted in [[ComicBook/{{Tintin}} Tintin's adventure on the moon]]. The rocket kept going forward even when the engines were shut off (it was mostly kept on to make an artificial gravity for the crew) and had to turn around and fire the engines towards the moon to kill all the speed they built up.

** The [[RedsWithRockets Soviet]] US-A radiolocator oceanic reconnaissance satellites required a lot of power and a very low orbit due to poor radar resolution. The huge solar panels would have created too much drag. The solution? [[ILoveNuclearPower Onboard nuclear reactors]].

* The film ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' references physics nicely when one of the NASA astronauts explains physics to our drilling team by pointing out that if she [[GroinAttack kicked one of them in the balls]], he'd float away. "Rock Hound" asks [[DeadpanSnarker when they start training for that.]]

* Zigzagged in the season 2 finale of ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. The starships avert this: the ''Archimedes'', once disabled, is sent flying towards an inhabited planet drawn in by the planet's gravity and their own momentum, and the ''Cerritos'', in order to get through the debris field without being disabled itself, has to shut down main power and coast on inertia while using thrusters to dodge fragments. The debris field itself, on the other hand, plays the trope straight, as there's apparently no danger of it raining down on the inhabitants.

* Shown in [=GuavaMoment's=] LetsPlay ''[[http://lparchive.org/X-COM-Apocalypse/chapter49.html X-Com: Apocalypse]]'' as a sign of Tynam's growing insanity and the excessive levels of bad research present in ''X-COM: Interceptor''.

* In the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} game ''Project Sylpheed'', your ship steers as if there's air resistance in space, with this becoming more pronounced in atmosphere. In a related note of bizarreness, cutting the engines and coasting works even in atmosphere, despite the fact that the ship should fall out of the sky if it's not done in an effectively zero-G environment.

* ''Videogame/FromTheDepths'' has air resistance in high-orbit. While it is noticeably lower than air resistance when at altitudes where air-breathing jet engines work, one must still keep their spacecraft streamlined to maximize their velocity. Of note is that spacecraft will never outrun an airplane courtesy of jet engines being significantly more powerful than the ion engines that spacecraft must use.

* Averted in [[{{Tintin}} Tintin's adventure on the moon]]. The rocket kept going forward even when the engines were shut off (it was mostly kept on to make an artificial gravity for the crew) and had to turn around and fire the engines towards the moon to kill all the speed they built up.

* In the film Film/SpaceCamp, one of the instructors actually informs the students that they keep drifting unless encountering an opposing force.
* The film Film/{{Armageddon}} references physics nicely when one of the NASA astronauts explains physics to our drilling team by pointing out that if she [[GroinAttack kicked one of them in the balls]], he'd float away. "Rock Hound" asks [[DeadpanSnarker when they start training for that.]]

* Avoided in ''BattleSpace'', the space-combat game that takes place in the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe. What makes it more confusing is that it's a 3D space game played in 2D, so you have to take notes to each ships position, inertial direction, its pitch, yaw and roll rates, usually playing on a map which is about 300 times too small for any space encounter. A movement phase for a single fighter might take up to around 5 minutes (or more if the player needs to calculate ahead a few turns, which they undoubtedly will have to), which is probably one of the reasons why the game never took off.

* In ''Videogame/SpaceEngineers'', friction is completely absent bar a minuscule amount at very low speeds to prevent objects from endlessly drifting. In order for a spaceship to have full control, it needs thrusters on all six faces (forward/reverse/left/right/up/down) and a gyroscope for rotation; lacking a axis means the ship must rotate to bring a thruster to bear in order to cancel out velocity in that direction. It's all kept under control by a fairly restrictive absolute top speed that nothing in the game can exceed, no matter how much acceleration it's capable of.

* In Origin's classic spaceflight sim/RPG ''SpaceRogue'' you could toggle between 'Cruise' mode where (according to the manual) the computer automatically handled your main engines and maneuvering thrusters, letting you point where you want without having to manually counter-thrust to stop and apply min thrust in the new direction. You still had to fight your own inertia though. And you could turn this off completely for 'Newtonian Flight' if you so desired, allowing you to burn hard in one direction and then spin and coast backwards. This was a game breaking tactic since enemies always evade when perused, but stay locked on you if you're the one being chased, allowing you to fire away without much worry of evasion. You could also use the Newtonian Flight mode to slingshot around gravity wells...if you were really good at it.

* The indie 4X game, ''Videogame/StarRuler'' has newtonian physics on all the ships. The only thing restricting ships is their acceleration speed (and fuel), meaning you can have ships zipping through star systems at a sizable fraction of the speed of light. Ships disabled from crew death, power failure, or running out of fuel will cause them to drift along their path until the game kills it after a few minutes to save processing power. If you have stations orbiting other stations, and the core station is destroyed, the orbiting stations will be catapulted out of their orbit, then fall into orbit around the star; this can lead to stations spinning around a star at insane speeds, with nothing to limit their maximum speed.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' even showed one of the Eagle ships ''rocking in space''.

* Zig-zagged in the game ''Battlecruiser3000AD'' (possibly also the prequels and sequels in the same series). When you stop applying thrust you will eventually stop. But if you shut down all power to the engine you will go on with constant speed until you turn.

* Fans of the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series guesstimate that the universe has the viscosity of maple syrup. [[SpaceClouds Many sectors also have the visibility of maple syrup.]] However, ''Videogame/XRebirth'' explains that the space friction is due to the ship's automated flight assists. Update 3.60 allows players to disable the flight assist, allowing the ''Albion Skunk'' to freely spin about with no friction.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Spaceships in ''WebComic/StationV3'' run of fuel and start drifting whenever it is [[RuleOfFunny funny for them to do so]].