Science fiction has a long and distinguished history of anticipating the future and inspiring generations of scientists, who have in turn inspired sci-fi writers to extrapolate upon their research–the two professions enjoy a wonderfully symbiotic relationship, each having a profound respect for the other. In the area of space exploration, Jules Verne described the effects of weightlessness during mankind’s first voyage to the moon in his 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon”. Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was the first to describe a true space station, complete with a greenhouse, a laboratory, living quarters, a docking port for spacecraft and an international crew of six, in his 1920 novel “Beyond the Planet Earth”. In 1895, Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested a fanciful Celestial Castle in geosynchronous Earth orbit attached to a tower on the ground. The idea was picked up by Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov in 1960, American oceanographer John Isaacs in 1966, and Jerome Pearson of the Air Force Research Laboratory in 1975, before the space elevator was used in Arthur C. Clarke’s 1976 novel “The Fountains of Paradise”.

Last year, the ESA surveyed early sci-fi literature, artwork and film, looking for any concepts that could be used as inspiration for future spacecraft and missions. The more than 250 concepts collected from scientists, engineers, science-fiction writers and laypeople are showcased in this illustrated brochure (PDF). Perhaps some of these ideas will one day make their way into the real world.