History Main / DramaticSpaceDrifting

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' did several varieties of this several times; one notable instance is D'argo and John floating in space after jumping out a ship which they'd loaded with explosives to [[spoiler:ignite an inhabited moon's atmosphere, destroying Scorpius' gammack base.]]

--'''[[SchlockMercenary Kaff Tagon]]'''

* ''{{Farscape}}'' did several varieties of this several times; one notable instance is D'argo and John floating in space after jumping out a ship which they'd loaded with explosives to [[spoiler:ignite an inhabited moon's atmosphere, destroying Scorpius' gammack base.]]

* Similar to the first ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' entry, above, in the episode "The Last One Left" of ''Series/WingCommanderAcademy'', you see the empty helmet of [[spoiler:Daimon Karnes]] floating in space, at the end of the episode.

* Similar to the first ''WingCommander'' entry, above, in the episode "The Last One Left" of ''Series/WingCommanderAcademy'', you see the empty helmet of [[spoiler:Daimon Karnes]] floating in space, at the end of the episode.

* ''{{Gundam}}'' often features this, usually with a character's battered mecha, although the pilot's often still alive inside. An episode of ''MobileSuitZetaGundam'' begins with the body of a soldier from the One Year War having drifted out somewhere around Saturn.
** Not to mention early episodes showing Kamille's mother's corpse drifting.

* "The Short, Happy Life of Roons Sewell", a comic arc in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse, ended with Roons' death; the front of his Y-Wing exploded, sending shrapnel through his flight suit and ejecting him into space. There's an image of him still out there during his eulogy, frozen dead with a manic smile on his face. Unusually for this trope, it's a relatively uplifting thing - he gave his life, he saved people in doing this, his sacrifice had meaning. If we cannot celebrate the moments we hold back a dark tide, why fight it at all?
** In [[RebelLeader Rogue Leader]], an XWingSeries comic, it was shown that a week after the Battle of Endor, the sanctuary moon's skies are still crowded with ships and bodies. Some pilots, including Wedge, signed up for salvage duty, because even Imperials deserved a proper funeral.

* An underwater version of this is seen in ''TheAbyss,'' in the wreckage of the USS Montana.

* The opening shot of the Warhammer 40K film {{Damnatus}}, including a human skull for no discernable reason other than {{GrimDark}}.

* {{Alien}} had a rather Narmy example where [[spoiler:Kain's dead body]] is shot from an airlock as if out of a cannon.

* Happens in ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Shatterpoint]]'' with the troop complements of a number of destroyed [[DropShip Drop Ships]] - infantry, grenadiers, and the like. Except because they're in environment suits, they're still alive. And because they're clones, ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome they keep fighting]]''. In fact, the associated short story is told through the eyes of one of these troopers. [[spoiler: [[EarnYourHappyEnding He lives]]]].

* ''StarCraft'' had a scene in the Terran ending, showing an arm drifting amidst debris, blood trailing from the stump on one end, and smoke trailing from the cigarette still held between its fingers on the other. This troper is fairly certain a law of physics got broken somewhere in that.
** Chemistry. No oxygen to sustain the combustion.
** ''RuleOfCool''. Just pure ''RuleOfCool''.
*** A [[UnderStatement not quite honest government]] showing it might also be a factor.
*** Obviously, the cigarettes are loaded with oxygen. This is how all those non space marines are breathing on alien planets.
* Sprinkled throughout {{Dead Space}} in the zero-gravity sections. Can be expected or a horrifying surprise depending on how well orientated you are.

* The {{Halo}} series begins and ends with this trope. More specifically, it begins when the [[{{CoolStarship}} Pillar of Autumn]] first drifts into view, continues on with the [[{{SpaceMarine}} Master Chief]] escape from the first Halo, and ends with [[spoiler: his escape from the destruction of the the Ark.]]
* Played with in LegoStarWars: the animation of the destruction of the first Death Star shows all sorts of exploding starship parts flying straight at you, ending with a flailing Stormtrooper minifig.

* In the winning ending of ''VideoGame/WingCommander II: Special Operations 2'', the empty helmet of [[spoiler: the traitor Zach "Jazz" Colson]] is shown floating in space.
** [[IncrediblyLamePun So he'd be singing the blues now]]?

* Similar to the first Wing Commander entry, above, in the episode "The Last One Left" of ''Series/WingCommanderAcademy'', you see the empty helmet of [[spoiler:Daimon Karnes]] floating in space, at the end of the episode.

* DoctorWho in ''The Impossible Planet''

* ''StarTrek'' does this pretty often, but one of the standouts is in ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', "The Best of Both Worlds", part II, where we see an incredible amount of debris after the battle with the Borg at Wolf 359 - nearly forty Federations ships all blasted to pieces, amounting to ''11,000'' deaths. Of course, many would have preferred [[MissingMomentOfAwesome actually seeing the battle]].

* One of this troper's favorites, in ''{{Firefly}}'' during the episode Objects in Space in which [[spoiler:Jubal Early is thrown off of Serenity to (assumedly) drift forever and ever and ever. Played for comedic value at the end of the episode, where even Jubal Early recognizes he is performing some excellent DramaticSpaceDrifting]]

* ''[=~2001: A Space Odyssey~=]'' when [[spoiler:Frank Poole's body is drifting.]]

** Fun fact: when done with male Shepard, the scene is a shot-for-shot reconstruction of [[spoiler:Frank Poole's death]] in ''[=~2001: A Space Odyssey~=]''.

* Similar to the first WingCommander entry, above, in the episode "The Last One Left" of ''WingCommander Academy'', you see the empty helmet of [[spoiler:Daimon Karnes]] floating in space, at the end of the episode.

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* In the winning ending of ''WingCommander II: Special Operations 2'', the empty helmet of [[spoiler: the traitor Zach "Jazz" Colson]] is shown floating in space.

** When investigating the transport destroyed in the intro of ''WingCommander IV'', you may see [[StrippedToTheBone a charred skeleton]] floating around in space.

*** A [[UnderStatement not quite honest government]] showing it might also be a factor.

* Sprinkled throughout {{Dead Space}} in the zero-gravity sections. Can be expected or a horrifying surprise depending on wel orientated you are.

[[quoteright:349:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spacedrift_3526.jpg]]

* {{Gundam}} often features this, usually with a character's battered mecha, although the pilot's often still alive inside. An episode of ''ZetaGundam'' begins with the body of a soldier from the One Year War having drifted out somewhere around Saturn.

* The new Star Trek film shows us how one ends up with dramatic space drifting when it depicts a person hurtling out of a breach in the hull of the ''Kelvin''.

* ''BattlestarGalactica'' had Lee floating through space after the destruction of the Blackbird, watching ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus'' tear two Cylon basestars to pieces. Ron Moore got the idea from a battle in the Second World War in which an ejected American pilot drifting in the ocean watched the Americans and Japanese fight it out around him.

-->I sure wish I could worry about this from ''inside'' the hull.
-->--'''[[SchlockMercenary Kaff Tagon]]'''

* In {{Mass Effect}} 2 [[spoiler: after you rescue Joker and toss him into the escape pod, Shepard is separated and thrown out into space. His/her suit begins to leak and Shepard flails wildly as he/she falls into the atmosphere and burns up.]]
** Fun fact: [[spoiler: when done with Manshep, the scene is a shot-for-shot reconstruction of Frank Poole's death in 2001: A Space Odyssey.]]

[[WingCommander http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wc2_806.jpg]]
[[caption-width:350:[[DieHard Yippi ki ay, motherfucker]].]]

* Happens in ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Shatterpoint]]'' with the troop complements of a number of destroyed DropShips - infantry, grenadiers, and the like. Except because they're in environment suits, they're still alive. And because they're clones, ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome they keep fighting]]''. In fact, the associated short story is told through the eyes of one of these troopers. [[spoiler: [[EarnYourHappyEnding He lives]]]].

* The last chapter of [[LoisMcmasterBujold Lois McMaster Bujold's]] ''Shards of Honor'' focuses on a shuttle crew recovering bodies in Escobar orbit after the big battle. For no apparent reason. We never see any of the characters again, and only one of the corpses was (very, very briefly) in the preceding book.

[[caption-width:350:[[DieHard Yippi ki ay, motherfucker]].