Space Is Air - Television Tropes & Idioms

Space Is Air when a work treats spacecraft as if they were aircraft; they bank into turns, keep their engines firing at all times, and may even have wings built into their design. This is primarily because audiences are more familiar with how airplanes work than they are how spaceships work; thus, creators treat spaceships as if they are simply airplanes in space instead of using realistic physics, in order to avoid confusing the audience. This isn't necessarily a bad thing — after all, it can be used to great effect to make things look really cool — but it does push things down toward the softer end of Mohs Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness.

The way airplanes work is dependent on the fact that they're travelling through the atmosphere. Wings provide lift, flaps and rudders can reorient the plane by redirecting airflow, and their engines must be on constantly in order to counteract the effects of friction. Because space is a vacuum, none of these things apply to spaceships — wings and flaps are useless, and the engine only needs to be on when the ship is changing speed or direction. This means that spacecraft use dedicated thrusters to reorient themselves, and change direction in sharp bursts rather than gradually. If you see a spaceship changing direction without using maneuvering rockets, or making wide, sweeping turns, then that's because Space Is Air.

A subtrope of Space Does Not Work That Way, and sister trope to Space Is an Ocean. Also a frequent cause of Space Friction, and may be why Batman Can Breathe in Space. If you see Old-School Dogfighting in space, it's usually because this trope is in effect; it also dictates the appearance of many Space Fighters.

Examples

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Anime and Manga

Cowboy Bebop uses fairly realistic Newtonian physics for the most part, but during combat, Rule Of Cool pitches the laws of physics out the window and they revert to Old School Dogfighting.
Space Battleship Yamato combines it with Space Is an Ocean; capital ships act like sea-going vessels, while smaller craft act like airplanes, to the point of having dive bombers and torpedo bomebrs. Given that the show is very much in the style of World War II's Pacific theater Recycled In Space, it's to be expected.
Superdimension Fortress Macross: Given that the Valkyries can literally turn into planes, it's no surprise that they act like planes even in space.

Film

Star Wars may actually be the Trope Codifier, particularly with the Old-School Dogfight between Space Fighters.

Literature

The Star Wars Expanded Universe has a lot of this, reflecting the films.
The Elder Things from H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness fly through space with their wings. Note that this isn't Science Marches On, as Lovecraft knew perfectly well that "aether" was a debunked concept, despite referring to it in-story to justify this trope; he just liked the idea of space being full of aether more than that of it being vacuum.

Live-Action TV

Although the earlier incarnations of Star Trek tend more toward Space Is an Ocean, later shows start to treat ships as much like airplanes as like sailing ships. Not only are we treated to shots of ships making expansive, banking turns like an atmospheric craft, but combat between ships is increasingly depicted as an Old-School Dogfight.
Used extensively Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. With the same stock footage almost every time.

Tabletop Games

Used in Battle Tech, where the rules for fighting in space are essentially identical to the rules for fighting on a planet — nevermind the fact that heat dissipation (a major factor in mech combat) would be completely different.

Video Games

Mass Effect: Averted for the most part, though the Normandy makes some suspiciously aerodynamic-looking maneuvers on occasion. Lampshaded by the pilot:
Joker: It takes skill to make a ship bank in a vacuum. Don't think it doesn't.
Star Wars games make extensive use of the trope, as with the films and the novels.
Star Fox has its Arwings handle exactly the same in space as they do in atmosphere — to the point where, in some incarnations (such as Video Game/Starfox64), it shows the ailerons moving on the wings when you turn... which would do absolutely nothing in space.

Webcomics

Crimson Dark has space fighters and bombers which act like planes.
Angels 2200 is about the pilots of carrier-based space fighters which look and fly like planes.

Space Friction

Space Does Not Work That Way

Speculative Fiction Tropes

Space Is an Ocean