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Space Is Slow Motion: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Stuff happening in zero gravity requires a whole new outlook on the laws of physics as we're aware of them, but most writers ignore that and just make things move slower and floatier.
Never mind that in many circumstances, objects move faster in zero gravity since, obviously, there's no gravity to slow them down. If you kick off from a wall, you'll travel as fast your legs propel you. This trope presumably originates from footage of astronauts deliberately moving very slowly, because they know it's easy to let momentum get the better of you and hurt yourself bashing into something. It may also be a weird side-effect of [[Space Friction]], or of writers' only personal experience of "weightlessness" being a dip in the swimming pool.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Massively averted in an episode of ''[[Planetes]]'' where the crew barely manage to move a piece of debris out of the way of an oncoming spacecraft in time - said spacecraft flashes by ''very fast''.▼
== Film - Live-Action ==
* This trope gets its origins in popular media from ''
** Averted and subverted actually. The workpods Frank and Dave use move very slowly, but you don't want to hurry when slinging a multi-ton pod around delicate exterior equipment. But when {{spoiler|Frank is murdered by HAL}} he flails around wildly as he suffocates, and Dave bounces all over the airlock when he makes his famous Spacewalk Sans Helmet.
* Played straight during the spacewalk sequence in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''.
* ''[[Alien]]'' averts this trope during the space burial.▼
* Played so straight in the series ''Space1999'' that they filmed moonwalking scenes in ''slow motion''.▼
* Subverted at length (and with obvious relish from author [[Anthony Horowitz]]) in the space-set sequence that concludes the ''[[Alex Rider (Literature)|Alex Rider]]'' novel ''Ark Angel''. The first thing Alex does in space is bang his head after getting up too quickly. At one point he gets stranded in the middle of a room and has to throw his shoes to propel himself in the other direction (equal opposite reaction etc). Later he throws a hammer at an enemy, expecting it to drift slowly - instead it zooms across the room and hits the guy very painfully on the shoulder.▼
== Literature ==
* Quite definitely disproved in ''[[Myth Busters]]'': flailing around and then slowing down the clip looks a ''lot'' different than actual zero-gravity movement.▼
▲* Subverted at length (and with obvious relish from author [[Anthony Horowitz]]) in the space-set sequence that concludes the ''[[
▲* Massively averted in an episode of [[Planetes]] where the crew barely manage to move a piece of debris out of the way of an oncoming spacecraft in time - said spacecraft flashes by ''very fast''.
* ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures (Animation)|Jackie Chan Adventures]]'': Jackie and Hak Foo end up fighting in space during the Moon Demon episode, and Hak Foo is forced to rethink his [[Calling Your Attacks|attack names]]. "Tiger prowls...through pudding? Turtle...fist! Sloth...kick!"▼
== Live-Action Television ==
* Partial [[Truth in Television]]: Anyone who watches live feeds of space shuttles in orbit gets the impression that everything moves slower because when they rotate the position of the shuttle, they do it at a snail's pace to make sure they don't overshoot. Never mind that just to ''be'' in orbit, said shuttle is travelling around the earth at tremendous velocity...▼
▲* Played so straight in the series ''
** It is often necessary to move carefully in space, thus slower. Explained in many Science Fiction novels as 'You may be weightless, but you still have mass'. While it may feel and even look like you're floating serenely through space like a feather, in reality you just launched yourself at an aluminum bulkhead, head first, at several miles per hour.▼
▲* Quite definitely disproved in ''[[
** This is enforced by the fact that the maneuvering thrusters on the shuttle are really weak -- emphasizing precision over speed. From a standing start, it would take the shuttle over five minutes to do a complete roll.▼
* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' pilot episode
▲* [[Alien]] averts this trope during the space burial.
▲* In the [[Firefly]] pilot episode ''Serenity'' there is a scene where Serenity is passing a Reaver ship in open space. They are both in transit between planets or moons, moving in opposite directions, but pass each other at roughly jogging speed. At that rate it would take them (hold on, let me do the math, let's see, nuthin, and nuthin, [[Carry the One|carry the nuthin]]) roughly FOREVER to get there.
** While the probability for them to accidentally meet en route approaches zero. [[MST3K Mantra|Don't over-analyze TV or it stops being fun]].
== Video Games ==
* This trope is the reason [[Metroid|Samus]] moves so slowly in the air the Smash Bros. games.
== Western Animation ==
▲* ''[[
== Real Life ==
▲* Partial [[Truth in Television]]: Anyone who watches live feeds of space shuttles in orbit gets the impression that everything moves slower because when they rotate the position of the shuttle, they do it at a snail's pace to make sure they don't overshoot. Never mind that just to ''be'' in orbit, said shuttle is travelling around the earth at tremendous velocity...
▲** It is often necessary to move carefully in space, thus slower. Explained in many Science Fiction novels as 'You may be weightless, but you still have mass'. While it may feel and even look like you're floating serenely through space like a feather, in reality you just launched yourself at an aluminum bulkhead, head first, at several miles per hour.
▲** This is enforced by the fact that the maneuvering thrusters on the shuttle are really
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Tropes in Space]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Velocity Index]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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