History Main / SpaceIsolationHorror

* ''ThoseDarkPlaces'' by Osprey Games leans harder into the industrial horror aspects. The threat is not a scary monster, but the simple fact that overstressed contractors working long hours in extremely dangerous conditions are quite likely to snap.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'', getting abandoned in space with no hope of rescue can cause your body to reanimate as a Marooned One, an undead bent of causing as much anguish as possible by getting other space travelers marooned like they were.

* ''TabletopGame/StarsWithoutNumber'' can be used for this sort of scenario, with Xeno Terror Beast on the list of creatures in the bestiary.

* ''Franchise/{{Alien}} the Roleplaying Game'' obviously falls into this, especially in "cinematic mode", where life is cheap and the characters are expected to be alone with the beast.

* ''Mothership'' by Tuesday Knight Games, follows a party of high strung teamsters, marines, scientists, and androids at the edge of space, with rules that expect your characters to be high stress and running out of oxygen. The module Dead Planet especially leaves your characters stranded with little hope of rescue in a system which disables hyperdrive, [[CosmicHorrorStory among other things]].

* ''Podcast/Wolf359'' has "Mayday", a BottleEpisode where Eiffel gets launched into space in Lovelace's ship. The ship sustained heavy damage in the explosion that launched him away from the Hephaestus, leaving the engines completely non-functional as he drifts off into space, with only radio static and hallucinations of his crewmates for company. [[spoiler:He keeps himself alive by repeatedly cryogenically freezing himself and using his one functional engine to turn slightly every 72 hours, which would get him close enough to the Hermes-station to radio them for help. It's not until months into his trip that he realizes that [[RealityEnsues it would take him about 6000 years to get close enough to the Hermes]], at which point his cryo-pod breaks down due to lack of water. Fortunately, his final radio broadcast gets picked up by the Urania, and he gets rescued by [=SI5=] and returned to the Hephaestus.]]

* ''{{Film/Gravity}}'': The fact that it happens on Earth's orbit matters little -- there is no way to contact anybody, there is very little air, there are very few options to escape, the roaming debris going at hundreds of miles per hour are destroying everything that gets in the way, and sanity begins to slip under such stressful conditions. It's probably a quick death if you get hit with that debris, but it's in no way merciful.
* Downplayed and discussed in ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'': Dr. Nikolai Romilly in one scene reveals to Cooper that he has no love whatsoever for being inside of the ''Endurance'' and the fact that a few inches of alumimum and titanium are all that is keeping him away from the endless, airless void of space and there's no sounds except for those of the life-support machinery doesn't helps him sleep. [[spoiler:When he has to spend several years on him lonesome inside of the ship because of time dilation, the fact he spent most of it in cryo or focused in doing scientific work only ''barely'' kept him from going mad from the isolation.]]

* ''Film/TheMartian'' might take place on the surface of Mars rather than in space per se, but it still has all the trappings of this trope. NASA astronaut Mark Watney is marooned {{Robinsonade}}-style on a barren planet without a breathable atmosphere, one sufficiently serious equipment failure away from dying in a variety of unpleasant ways and with a very limited supply of food and other consumables. A rescue mission would take many, many months to reach him even if the rest of his crew and MissionControl didn't think he was dead, and [[TheRadioDiesFirst the outpost's communications were irreparably trashed during the same accident that got him into this mess]] so he can't send a distress call. Oh, and did we mention the fact that [[TheAloner he has nobody to talk to but his diary?]]

* At the beginning of ''Film/AvengersEndGame'', Stark and Nabula are on the Benatar, Starlord's spaceship, following [[ReducedToDust the Snap]] when it breaks down and runs out of fuel, leaving them stranded light years away from a civilized star system. After they run out of food, Stark records a message, saying his goodbyes, though he mentions the possibility that since they're floating so far from Earth that the message may never be heard by anyone else. Luckily, Captain Marvel manages to find the Benatar and brings them back to Earth.

For story purposes (especially in the past when [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard sci-fi]] wasn't prevalent based on [[ScienceMarchesOn lack of knowledge]]) [[SpaceIsAnOcean the deep sea works just as well]], since it has similar conditions for survival and similarly-severe risks for going outside. In some ways it is worse, given how humanity that could help are no more than a few miles away, but usually cannot be contacted.

SubTrope of SciFiHorror. Compare EerieArcticResearchStation for a more terrestrial counterpart.

* At the beginning of ''Film/AvengersEndGame'', Stark and Nabula are on the Milano, Starlord's spaceship, following [[ReducedToDust the Snap]] when it breaks down and runs out of fuel, leaving them stranded light years away from a civilized start system. After they run out of food and, Stark records a message, saying his goodbyes, though he mentions the possibility that since they're floating so far from earth that the message may never be heard by anyone else. Luckily Captain Marvel manages to find the Milano and brings them back to earth.

* ''Film/TheMartian'' might take place on the surface of Mars rather than in space per se, but it still has all the trappings of this trope. NASA astronaut Mark Watney is marooned {{Robinsonade}}-style on a barren planet without a breathable atmosphere, one sufficiently serious equipment failure from dying in a variety of unpleasant ways and with a very limited supply of food and other consumables. A rescue mission would take many, many months to reach him even if the rest of his crew and MissionControl didn't think he was dead, and [[TheRadioDiesFirst the outpost's communications were irreparably trashed during the same accident that got him into this mess]] so he can't send a distress call. Oh, and did we mention the fact that [[TheAloner he has nobody to talk to but his diary?]]

* Implied in Disney's ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'' as the fate of Experiment 626: he's to be taken by prison transport to a barren asteroid, and abandoned there. Perhaps the authorities forbid capital punishment, or the condemned is too indestructible to be executed. It's still marooning on a cold, lonely rock in the void of space.

* ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' is built to facilitate this type of story, following Interrogators of the Imperial Inquisition.

* ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' is built to facilitate this type of story.

* The CreepyPasta ''Lost Cosmonaut'' is about a woman who goes into space before Yuri Gagarin. She finds a "muttnik" capsule with half of a childs body orbiting it. When she threatens to tell, MissionControl blasts her into a higher orbit to starve or suffocate.

** In some versions, "It" masquerades as his copilot, who begs him not to open the airlock.

* Implied in Disney's ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'' as the fate of Experiment 626: he's to be taken by prison transport to a barren asteroid, and abandoned there. Perhaps, the authorities forbid capital punishment, or the condemned is too indestructible to be executed. It's still marooning on a cold, lonely rock in the void of space.

For story purposes (especially in the past when [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness hard sci-fi]] wasn't prevalent based on [[ScienceMarchesOn lack of knowledge]]) [[SpaceIsAnOcean the deep sea works just as well]], since it has similar conditions for survival and similarly-severe risks for going outside. In some ways it is worse, given how humanity that could help are no more than a few miles away, but usually cannot be contacted.

* In ''VideoGame/Observation'', you wake up a crippled space station at least 746 million miles away from home with no idea how you got there and where the rest of the crew has gone.

* Deliberately, the entire ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' franchise is an example of this trope. The developers of the first game stated that it was their intention to make the player feel trapped and alone in a very hostile and alien world. The visuals and audio work to built the atmosphere of isolation.

* ''Film/TheMartian'' might take place on the surface of Mars rather than in space, but it has all the trappings of this trope. NASA astronaut Mark Watney is marooned {{Robinsonade}}-style on a barren planet without a breathable atmosphere, one sufficiently serious equipment failure from dying in a variety of unpleasant ways and with a very limited supply of food and other consumables. A rescue mission would take many, many months to reach him even if the rest of his crew and MissionControl didn't think he was dead, and [[TheRadioDiesFirst the outpost's communications were irreparably trashed during the same accident that got him into this mess]] so he can't send a distress call. Oh, and did we mention the fact that [[TheAloner he has nobody to talk to but his diary?]]

* Music/DavidBowie's "Music/SpaceOddity" is an ApocalypticLog in the form of an exchange between [[MissionControl Ground Control]] and the astronaut Major Tom. The first portion is quite magnificent, but then Major Tom [[ThatWasTheLastEntry gives an ominous farewell right before his communication cuts out]], and the song fades into a cacophonic LastNoteNightmare as we're left [[NothingIsScarier wondering just what happened to the guy]].

* Dr. "Bones" [=McCoy=] has a healthy fear of this, as he mentions in the beginning of the 2009 ''Film/StarTrek'' movie. He goes on a lengthy diatribe of how dangerous it is to fly around in spaceships like shuttles and what may happen if they malfunction, how alien diseases are horrifying and how space in general is a collection of {{Death World}}s with an equally dangerous nothing in between them.
-->'''Leonard "Bones" McCoy (to Kirk):''' Don't pander to me, kid. One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait'll you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

SubTrope of SciFiHorror.