History Main / MundaneDogmatic

The setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane ScienceFiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints on science fiction devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of UsefulNotes/Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fictions, but there are exceptions.[[note]] While critics sometimes snark "Who would want to read a 'mundane ' story!", Ryman is not using the term "mundane" to mean "boring"; Ryman is using it in the literal sense of it mid-15th century Old French root, "mondeine", which means "of this world" or "terrestrial."[[/note]]

SolarPunk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction.[[note]]For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel ''A Diary in the Age of Water'' includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of "the mundane" to the story.[[/note]] There may be overlap with PastoralScienceFiction, as the foundation tenets of MSF are environmentalist and pro-nature.[[note]]Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist SpaceOpera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blasé about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that [[AllPlanetsAreEarthlike there's lots of other Earth-like planets]] we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution.[[/note]]

SolarPunk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction.[[note]]For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel ''A Diary in the Age of Water'' includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of "the mundane" to the story.[[/note]] There may be overlap with PastoralScienceFiction, as the foundation tenets of MSF are environmentalist and pro-nature.[[note]]Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist SpaceOpera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blasé about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that [[[AllPlanetsAreEarthlike there's lots of other Earth-like planets]] we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution.[[/note]]

SolarPunk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction.[[note]]For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel ''A Diary in the Age of Water'' includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of "the mundane" to the story.[[/note]] There may be overlap with PastoralScienceFiction, as the foundation tenets of MSF are environmentalist and pro-nature.[[note]]Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist SpaceOpera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blasé about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that there's lots of other Earth-like planets we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution.[[/note]]

The setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints on science fiction devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of UsefulNotes/Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fictions, but there are exceptions.[[note]] While critics sometimes snark "Who would want to read a 'mundane ' story!", Ryman is not using the term "mundane" to mean "boring"; Ryman is using it in the literal sense of it mid-15th century Old French root, "mondeine", which means "of this world" or "terrestrial."[[/note]]

* FasterThanLightTravel: space travel is limited to sub-light speeds and is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Most is set on Earth or in the Solar System.

The Mundane Science Fiction movement has been critized for ignoring that speculation about future science and technology has always been central to sci fi. As well, critics have pointed out that yesteryear's "impossible technology" in sci fi is now reality in some cases.

Thanks to ScienceMarchesOn, there is also growing acceptance of ''very'' limited FTL based on the AlcubierreDrive and [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]] in more recent works, but it will ''not'' be a method of CasualInterstellarTravel, as the former will be prohibitively expensive and dangerous - effectively operating as a form of LudicrousSpeed - and the latter will be incredibly difficult, if not outright ''impossible'', to create with human tech, thus often being scavanged from {{Precursor|s}} ruins.

SolarPunk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction. [[note]]For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel ''A Diary in the Age of Water'' includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of “the mundane” to the story.[[/note]] There may be overlap with PastoralScienceFiction, as the foundation tenets of MSF are environmentalist and pro-nature. [[note]]Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist SpaceOpera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blase about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that there's lots of other Earth-like planets we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution.[[/note]]

[[folder:Anime]]

* Most of the early ''Manga/AstroBoy'' stories were surprisingly grounded in reality, since Tezuka wanted to create a future world his viewers could relate to. For example, in the entire history of the franchise there's been only one mention of a human-built spacecraft leaving the solar system (at the end of ''The Transparent Giant''). Later stories went a little crazy with the alien invaders, though.

* The ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' comic books ''[[Recap/TintinDestinationMoon Destination Moon]]'' and ''[[Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon Explorers on the Moon]]'' feature a deliberately scientifically-realistic (minus some ScienceMarchesOn) depiction of a manned moon mission that preceded NASA's by several years but anticipated several details of it. (Yes, really!) Hergé described his vision for the story as "No moonmen, no monsters, no incredible surprises."
%%* ''ComicBook/JannahStation'', like the rest of Creator/JosephCadotte's "Paradise, Inc." universe, unintentionally follows the Manifesto.

* ''Film/{{After Yang}}'' (2021), about a near-future family that buys a lifelike android, Yang, to be a "big brother" to their adopted Chinese daughter, Mika. Kang helps her learn about her Chinese heritage and helps soothe her anxiety about being adopted. When Yang starts malfunctioning and is sent for repairs, the parents and the child miss him and the important emotional role he played for the family.
* ''Film/{{Gattaca}}'' (1997), about a culture that uses genetic testing to determine social status, including access to professions.
* ChrisMarker's ''Film/SansSoleil'' (1983) is an experimental travel documentary that mixes in some fiction. It juxtaposes filmed and stock footage images of Japanese horror film, a beauty pageant, intoxicated homeless men, guerilla warfare, and an Icelandic volcano (some of which are color-modified with a video synthesizer) all over a synthesizer score and philosophical narration about memory, as the narrator reads letters from a fictional person.
* ''Film/ChildrenOfMen'' (2006), which depicts a blighted, dystopian near-future Earth in which no one can bear children anymore. In the film, an authoritarian government tyrannizes the people and refugees are held in cages and camps.
* ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' series sidesteps a lot of Manifesto-prohibited tropes by setting the action on Earth AfterTheEnd with human-created ArtificialIntelligence as the villains, and by framing most of the spectacular physics violations as happening in simulations in an enormous VirtualReality system. Unfortunately, the realism of the setting takes a big hit for using humans as "batteries," although the [[ExecutiveMeddling original concept]] of [[WetwareCPU humans-as-distributed-processors]] was relatively plausible.
** The series skirts FunctionalMagic in later films when [[TheChosenOne Neo's]] powers work in "reality," although this may be explainable as a result of cyborg technology in his spine.
** The series also features widely used anti-gravity technology, which takes it pretty far away from realism.
* ''Film/DestinationMoon'' (no relation to the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' comic aside from the subject matter) and ''Film/ProjectMoonbase'', Both these movies had Creator/RobertAHeinlein as a consultant and were very realistic.
* ''Film/MoonZeroTwo'', a space adventure movie Hammer made in the '70s. It's meticulously realistic, the only thing it has that is a little iffy scientifically is ArtificialGravity, which they only inserted because they didn't have enough money to do moon gravity effects for the entire movie.

%%** ''A Fall Of Moondust''

%%** ''Islands In The Sky''
%%** ''Prelude To Space''

%%** ''The Sands Of Mars''
%%* Creator/BenBova:
%%** The ''Grand Tour'' series of books.
%%* Kim Stanley Robinson:
%%** The ''Literature/RedMarsTrilogy''
%%* Maureen F. [=McHugh=]
%%** ''Literature/ChinaMountainZhang''

%%* Creator/CharlesStross
%%** ''Literature/HaltingState''
%%* Creator/CoryDoctorow
%%** ''Literature/EasternStandardTribe''

* Creator/WilliamGibson's novels codified the CyberPunk genre, and aside from some [[{{Zeerust}} dated]] ideas of how computers work the technology is all plausible.
* From Creator/GregBear: In ''The Forge of God,'' while there are aliens, they are never seen. Instead we see a robotic HordeOfAlienLocusts that they dispatch to destroy us. The sequel, ''Anvil of Stars,'' is not as adherent, while FTL is still impossible, humans travel between the stars at sublight speeds, and develop AppliedPhlebotinum that borders on FunctionalMagic.
%%** ''Darwin's Radio'' and ''Darwin's Children''
* ''Paradises Lost'', a {{Generation Ship|s}} story by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin. No aliens, no faster-than-light travel, just a slow ship full of humans traveling (mostly out of scientific curiosity) towards a distant, possibly habitable planet.
%%* Nearly all of the science-fiction of Creator/MichaelCrichton fits this trope, with Sphere and Timeline being notable exceptions.
%%* ''Literature/InTheLandOfNod'' takes place in such a universe.
* Most work by Creator/AlastairReynolds. All of his work averts ArtisticLicenseSpace, as he worked for the European Space Agency as an astronomer, and has a doctorate in the same subject.
** The ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries''. Travel is limited to slower than light "lighthugger" ships. The universe has aliens, but they are ''thoroughly'' [[StarfishAliens alien]]. A ''very'' limited type of FTL travel of the AlcubierreDrive variety is introduced late in the series, but it has some... [[RealityIsOutToLunch interesting technical issues]].
** ''Literature/HouseOfSuns'' has much more fantastic technology than his previous works, but still adheres to the laws of physics [[spoiler:even with its faster-than-light travel]].
* ''Literature/{{Existence}}'' is Creator/DavidBrin's take on this trope. Unlike his more famous ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series there's no supertech FTL or psionics, and aliens only appear as [[BrainUploading uploaded]] "Emissaries" in crystalline Artifacts hurled at STL speeds over countless millions of years [[spoiler:and they're all extinct as far as one can tell]].

* Creator/MikhailAkhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's novel ''Literature/CaptainFrenchOrTheQuestForParadise'' largely fits this trope. The biggest offenders here are near-light-speed travel that is described as a form of teleportation, so virtually no time passes for the ship's crew while decades may pass for the outside world, and a one-time medical procedure that turns a human into TheAgeless. Otherwise, most of the other tenets are observed, including the lack of FTL travel, interstellar travel in general being expensive, rare, and time-consuming (from an objective viewpoint, at least) and AbsentAliens. In fact, interstellar travel is so rare that there are hardly more than several hundred starships in existence at the time the novel is set (roughly 20,000 years in the future) despite the presence of thousands of colonies, the vast majority of them being space traders, who represent the only link between the settled worlds (no SubspaceAnsible, and normal lightspeed communication is too expensive and useless to most people), with an occasional one-shot colony ship or a religious sect of some sort who managed to scrape together enough money.
* Creator/KevinJAnderson's ''Literature/{{Blindfold}}'' largely follows the dogma, the biggest violation would be the presence of a bacterium that, when ingested, temporarily allows for a form of PsychicPowers, although the author tries to explain it in a plausible way (it supposedly boosts a person's electrical perception sense to allow for touch telepathy, since our thoughts are little more than electrical impulses). FTLTravel is absent, and the colony of Atlas is completely on its own, being far enough away from Earth that it takes several decades for a ship to reach it. In fact, there have only been four ships arriving to the planet in the history of the colony, including the original colony ship, a prison transport (the prisoners integrated fairly well into the main population), a warship (sent by a militant Earth government, but the invasion was thwarted), and a missionary vessel. Another ship is expected to arrive within a decade. It's heavily implied that Atlas is humanity's only extrasolar colony due to the massive effort it takes to put together an interstellar mission. Additionally, despite the fact that the colony is several centuries old, it still only covers a fraction of the planet's surface. The colony uses both the FeudalFuture and WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture tropes. The only means of getting to space involves the use of a SpaceElevator that connects the hub of the colony to a ship that has been converted into a SpaceStation. [[spoiler:Both are destroyed at the end of the novel, meaning this capability is also lost.]]
* ''Literature/TheExpanse'' largely qualifies. All of the human technology is largely within what is possible. A notable element is that it even lacks inertial dampners of any sort. Every G of maneuver that their ships pull is passed directly to the crew. Which makes combat maneuvers difficult at best. [[spoiler:Though something in the setting is truly alien and there is little idea what it really is.]]

* All of the Creator/IvanYefremov's ''Literature/GreatRing'' books, him being a prominent scientist himself. Even late into the series chronology, when they finally invent the FTL travel, it remains a difficult, complicated and very involved affair.
* ''Literature/SaturnsChildren'' . Not something you expect from adventures of sex bot after human extinction, but it is written with physics in mind. There is no FTL, AI is a mirrored NI, and robot society is a natural evolution of our own, space travel is slow etc etc.
* ''Literature/{{Voyage}}'', by Creator/StephenBaxter, that describes an alternate timeline in which NASA's efforts after the Apollo program were dedicated to a manned Mars mission instead of the development of the Space Shuttle [[spoiler: at the cost of almost no unmanned space exploration (probes and the like)]]. The only piece of space technology that pops up there not fully developed in RealLife is a nuclear rocket [[spoiler: that suffers a meltdown in orbit]] based on the real-world NERVA program of the '60s.
* ''Literature/{{Seveneves}}'' by Creator/NealStephenson: The first two-thirds of the book is clearly speculative science set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. Space travel is ahead of what we have now (notably, the International Space Station - known as "Izzy" to its inhabitants - boasts a captured asteroid and a section with CentrifugalGravity) and genetic engineering is also more advanced (but plausibly so) than what we have but all of those things could be realized within a decade or so. The last third contains far more speculative space tech but nothing that would violate known physical laws.

%%* ''Series/TheSixMillionDollarMan''
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' is arguably on the dividing line: most of the setting is quite mundane -- no FTL, no aliens, no teleportation or time travel... and it is one of very few TV series examples to get the properties of space (e.g. no propagation of sounds in vacuum) right. However, there are several instances preventing it from truly fitting the trope:

** While the series is generally quite realistic and plausible as far as tech levels go (KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter, no [=AIs=] etc.), some tech items/weapons, like the laser pistol in "Heart of Gold," are not very plausible: weapons-grade lasers intended to do more than blind someone should be much larger due to the cooling system required and have an external power supply -- they should not look like small handguns (unless materials that are superconductive at room temperature and cigarette pack–sized, but high-capacity power cells have been developed in the verse).
* ''Series/DefyingGravity'', although there is some debate about whether or not the ''Antares''' communication system is FTL, even though it is never explicitly stated or even implied to be so. It ''appears'' to be FTL, because characters millions of kilometers away will be carrying on a casual conversation without any time lag, but this may just be for the audience's convenience. The characters could in fact have been waiting around for minutes at a time for their friends to respond to their messages ''offscreen''.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'' might generously be said to fit into this, at least conceptually. The titular vessel is a heavily-automated five-mile-long mining ship, more than capable of holding and processing enough resources to keep both itself and a small crew going indefinitely; it has a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet ramscoop]] to allow for interplanetary or interstellar travel; there's explicitly no FTL and no aliens; travelling to and from the ship happened rarely and required bulky spacesuits and cramped shuttles. However, by the second episode the ship had broken the light barrier "because it had been accelerating for too long", and within a couple of years such soft sci-fi staples as time travel, dimension-jumping, teleportation, and psychic powers had become commonplace, with most episodes no longer taking place on the ''Red Dwarf'' itself. The joke switched very quickly from "how realistic the ''Red Dwarf'' is" to "how low-tech and boring it is compared to everything else they ever encounter''.

* ''Series/JupiterMoon'', the flagship show of British Satellite Broadcating for the eight months that channel existed, was supposed to be a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture SoapOpera with "no little green monsters", just "young people as they are today with their domestic troubles, love affairs and so on" but on a space station orbiting Jupiter, with FTL on the drawing board but very much an aspiration rather than a reality. How much it lived up to that promise is another question -- the main plot quickly became about something called "The Apparition".

* ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' (a ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' setting). In the year 2100, there is no FTL, no aliens, no breaking physical laws. But the sheer alienness of the people inhabiting this setting is both realistic and overwhelming.
* Phil Eklund's ''High Frontier'', a boardgame, is about scientifically-plausible exploration and exploitation of the resources in the solar system. The expansion, High Frontier: Interstellar, focuses on the building, launch, and travel of non-FTL colony starships.

%%* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', and ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution''.

* ''VideoGame/SpaceEngineers'' takes place in the year 2077 and eschews almost all science fiction favorites like shields and FTL; only ArtificialGravity generators remain, an AcceptableBreakFromReality as magnetic boots would severely limit spaceship interior design. SpaceFriction is absent, with only an arbitrary maximum speed which can be raised but with many unintended consequences[[note]]such as breaking the game's collision detection, causing ships at high speed to simply phase through each other instead smashing with [[WreakingHavok glorious results]][[/note]].
** Somewhat averted a little with the introduction of jump drives, however it should be noted that such parts are incredibly difficult to make, and consume an insane amount of power, making their utility questionable at best if you don't plan on going too far from your home base.
* ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' uses only modern or near-future / in-development rocket technology, plus a few abandoned rocket programs like the NERVA nuclear rocket. Aside from some rocket performance skewing [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality for the sake of fun]], the game relies on real physics. The only break from the mundane dogma are the Kerbals themselves, who appear as [[BigHeadMode cartoonishly proportioned]] LittleGreenMen. Various {{Game Mod}}s deviate from the dogma, such as the ''Interstellar'' mod introducing an AlcubierreDrive.
* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' Most of the games before the introduction of "primal armor" and related technologies -- while the rest of the technologies shown may not be remotely practical or cost effective today, the first few entries in the series are hard science fiction with none of the technologies present requiring the laws of physics to be altered, and most of them currently possible given sufficient funding. The only fantastic elements are the fact that the technologies showcased are commonplace and treated as cost effective. Needless to say, giant robots are unlikely to be used as the mainstays of armed forces, ESPECIALLY not by non-state private military contractors that don't have the luxury of a large tax base. The mechs and energy weapons shown are all possible with technology currently available or on the drawing board, and realistically have heat issues and have weight limits dictated by the square cube law. The entires in the series that have primal armor and other fantastic elements are softer science fiction that falls more in the applied phlebotinum category.
* ''VideoGame/ChildrenOfADeadEarth'' takes place during an interplanetary war in the ColonizedSolarSystem. As one of the hardest science fiction games, there's no aliens, no teleporters, travel takes literal months, and every bit of technology shown has [[ShownTheirWork significant real-world mathematics behind it]] -- which one can play with using the DesignItYourselfEquipment system -- and has either been produced or the theory behind it is known and is in testing, such as nuclear rockets, gigawatt lasers, and railguns.
* ''VideoGame/{{Outpost}}'' turns around the colonization of a planet orbiting one of the closest stars to ours after Earth is rendered unhabitable due to the impact of a large asteroid. The game was developed with the help of a former NASA scientist and it shows, with absolutely no FTL or aliens to speak of --well, except a disaster that is an "alien virus epidemic" and one research tree about "alien (aerial, terrestrial, and marine) ecology" even if your world is a Venus-like hell or an airless Moon-like one.

%%* ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}''

* ChrisMarker’s ''Film/SansSoleil'' (1983) is an experimental travel documentary that mixes in some fiction. It juxtaposes filmed and stock footage images of Japanese horror film, a beauty pageant, intoxicated homeless men, guerilla warfare, and an Icelandic volcano (some of which are color-modified with a video synthesizer) all over a synthesizer score and philosophical narration about memory, as the narrator reads letters from a fictional person.

* ''Film/DestinationMoon'' (no relation to the ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'' comic aside from the subject matter) and ''Film/ProjectMoonbase.'' Both these movies had Creator/RobertAHeinlein as a consultant and were very realistic.
* ''Film/MoonZeroTwo,'' a space adventure movie Hammer made in the '70s. It's meticulously realistic, the only thing it has that is a little iffy scientifically is ArtificialGravity, which they only inserted because they didn't have enough money to do moon gravity effects for the entire movie.

* ''Paradises Lost'', a GenerationShip story by Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin. No aliens, no faster-than-light travel, just a slow ship full of humans traveling (mostly out of scientific curiosity) towards a distant, possibly habitable planet.

** The ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' series. Travel is limited to slower than light "lighthugger" ships. The universe has aliens, but they are ''thoroughly'' [[StarfishAliens alien]]. A ''very'' limited type of FTL travel of the AlcubierreDrive variety is introduced late in the series, but it has some... [[RealityIsOutToLunch interesting technical issues]].

SolarPunk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction. For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel A Diary in the Age of Water includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of “the mundane” to the story.

There can be overlap with PastoralScienceFiction, because one of the founding arguments of MSF is environmentalist and pro-nature. [[note]]Ryman and his collaborators worried that escapist SpaceOpera works about casual FTL travel to distant galaxies could make readers feel blase about ruining the Earth, as there is a sense in much sci-fi that there's lots of other Earth-like planets we could move to if we ruin this one due to pollution.[[/note]]

Solar-Punk fiction can include elements of mundane science fiction. For example, Nina Munteanu says that her solarpunk novel A Diary in the Age of Water includes elements of mundane science fiction to add the "gritty realism of “the mundane” to the story.

* [[ArtisticLicenseSpace Fundamental inaccuracies regarding space]]

The setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints on science fiction devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of UsefulNotes/Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fictions, but there are exceptions.[[note]] While critics sometimes snark "Who would want to read a 'mundane ' story!", Ryman is not using the term "mundane" to mean "boring"; Ryman is using it in the literal sense of it mid-15th century Olf French root, "mondeine", which means "of this world" or "terrestrial."[[/note]]

The setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints on science fiction devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of UsefulNotes/Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fictions, but there are exceptions.[[note]] While critics sometimes snark "Who would want to read a 'mundane ' story!", Ryman is not using the term "mundane" to mean "boring"; Ryman is using it in the literal sense of "of this Earth".[[/note]]

The setting adheres to the precepts of the Mundane Science Fiction Manifesto, a system of self-imposed restraints on science fiction devised in 2004 (with author Geoff Ryman as the sole named contributor) which is similar in spirit to the constraints of UsefulNotes/Dogme95 in film. Such settings are usually hard science fictions, but there are exceptions.

* ''Film/{{Moon}}'', a film about a lonely miner on the Moon who single-handedly runs a mechanized mining station, with an robot as his companion, has been described as "like ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'' except it actually makes sense." It was screened at NASA's Space Center in Houston at the request of one of the professors there, due to its realistic depiction of helium-3 mining.

* ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' series sidesteps a lot of Manifesto-prohibited tropes by setting the action on Earth AfterTheEnd with human-created ArtificialIntelligence as the villains, and by framing most the spectacular physics violations as happening in simulations in an enormous VirtualReality system. Unfortunately, the realism of the setting takes a big hit for using humans as "batteries," although the [[ExecutiveMeddling original concept]] of [[WetwareCPU humans-as-distributed-processors]] was relatively plausible.

* ''Series/JupiterMoon'', the flagship show of British Satellite Broadcating for the eight months eight months that channel existed, was supposed to be a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture SoapOpera with "no little green monsters", just "young people as they are today with their domestic troubles, love affairs and so on" but on a space station orbiting Jupiter, with FTL on the drawing board but very much an aspiration rather than a reality. How much it lived up to that promise is another question -- the main plot quickly became about something called "The Apparition".

* ''Series/JupiterMoon'' was supposed to be a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture SoapOpera with "no little green monsters", just "young people as they are today with their domestic troubles, love affairs and so on" but on a space station orbiting Jupiter, with FTL on the drawing board but very much an aspiration rather than a reality. How much it lived up to that promise is another question -- the main plot quickly became about something called "The Apparition".

%%* ''Series/StarCops'': This BBC series was a pretty good attempt at realistic "High Frontier" SF.

%%* ''Anime/GhostInTheShell''

* The ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'' comic-books ''[[Recap/TintinDestinationMoon Destination Moon]]'' and ''[[Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon Explorers on the Moon]]'' feature a deliberately scientifically-realistic (minus some ScienceMarchesOn) depiction of a manned moon mission that preceded NASA's by several years but anticipated several details of it. (Yes, really!) Hergé described his vision for the story as "No moonmen, no monsters, no incredible surprises."