History Main / CasualInterplanetaryTravel

* Averted in the more hard sci-fi novels of StephenBaxter, particularly {{Literature/Voyage}}''.

* Subtle examples can be found in the {{Gundam}} series, which likes to use [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point Lagrange points]] around the Earth for its colonies, with the furthest ones at the L2 point (where the Principality of Zeon is located) being past lunar orbit. The L3 point (where MobileSuitGundam begins for example) is on the opposite side from the moon at any given time. Travel between these points, or from one to the Earth or the moon, takes a few days at most. Going out past the immediate area of lunar orbit, however, takes several months.

** Interplanetary travel is like crossing the street. Cubert and Dwight built a craft capable of doing it; they found it in an ad in a comic book. In another episode, Fry laments that he'll "never get into space" because his brother got to Mars first. Leela points out, "You went [to space] for donuts this morning."

* Averted ''hard'' in ''The Childrens Crusade'' by RobertReed. The three superpowers attempt manned landings on Mars - all of which fail. The American ship manages to reach Mars, but finds their lander inoperative - they leave back for Earth, while systems on the ship fail and kill 4 of the 7 crew. The European Union launches two ships. One of the landers explodes on entry, and the other lands - but is bogged down in extremely fine Martian dust, causing it to sit at an odd angle, making it impossible to lift off again, stranding the crew on the surface. The Chinese build an elaborate, highly efficient ship powered by a fusion rocket, which explodes from impurities in its reaction chamber as it leaves Earth's orbit.

* In the Canadian show ''{{Starhunter}}'', interplanetary travel is semi-realistic but casual; push on the gas and you go faster, but it does take a couple of days to get from the moons of Jupiter to Mars. Interstellar travel exists (via {{Hyperspace}}), but is very new, cutting edge, rare, and dangerous.
* The StargateVerse has various shuttle-craft (Al'kesh, Puddle-Jumpers, etc) that make it a breeze to fly from a planet's surface to say, the nearby moon. Not that ''every'' galactic Joe can own one, since they're mostly in the hands of organized militaries, empires, and crime syndicates, but it's not unheard of for a particularly enterprising individual to have their own private spacecraft.

* In the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series, travel between planets is casual to the point of day trips to other planets by middle class people being possible (with favorable orbital positions).

* ''{{Manga/Aria}}'' has people from earth regularly visiting Mars for business or pleasure.

SisterTrope of CasualInterstellarTravel. Sometimes there's minimum range limitation that makes only interstellar transit easy (say, wormholes), sometimes interstellar travel is still sublight or very difficult, but this is easy.

* From what we see of Lister's past in ''RedDwarf'', interplanetary travel is quite casual, with people living on several different planets and moons and often moving or having vacations to another. However, ''interstellar'' travel is not casual, and requires being sealed in stasis as it takes years.

In context, it's not that bad; Historically, all four of ChristopherColumbus' voyages ''combined'' didn't cost 20 million[[hottip:*:ThatOtherWiki ''refuses'' to cough up the exact price, so I'm citing something dramatic to incite WikiMagic - "the best way to get accurate information from the internet is to cite a random guess as true, and wait for the fireworks."]] - and [[RobertHeinlein once you reach orbit]], [[http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0603/Thougthexperiments.shtml you're halfway to anywhere]]. Once the infrastructure was in place, the original American immigrants made their journeys on ''personal funds'' - so there's no reason that the phenomenon shouldn't repeat itself by the 2050's so long as we get a "space Mayflower" by the 2020's. [[IWantMyJetpack Better get to work on that.]]

* The StargateVerse has various shuttle-craft (Al'kesh, Puddle-Jumpers, etc) that make it a breeze to fly from a planet's surface to say, the nearby moon.

* ''{{Firefly}}'' has this, as TheVerse is confirmed to take place in one large, multi-star system.

* ''{{Exosquad}}'' has people travel between Earth, Mars, and Venus, as if it were to another country.
* Used for a few gags in ''{{Futurama}}'' (which flip-flopped between InterplanetaryVoyage as the plot or [[RuleOfFunny humor]] demanded), most notably in the second episode, when Fry is still new to life in the future, and the crew is getting ready to take-off and make a trip to the moon.

Currently it takes about 20 million dollars or government support to get a single human being into Low Earth Orbit, and only robots have gone beyond the moon. Aside from the massive cost there are supply considerations because getting just about anywhere takes months if not years. However, in many stories involving space (and nearly all outside of literature), even if interstellar travel is hard, interplanetary travel is easy, taking a couple days at most and within the range of at least an upper-middle class person cost wise.

* Used for a few gags in ''{{Futurama}}'' (which flip-flopped between InterplanetaryVoyage as the plot or [[RuleOfFunny humor]] demanded), most notably in the second episode where Fry counts down to the ship launching, only to arrive when he gets to about 3.

''*They take off and rapidly approach the moon as Fry counts*''\\

* ''{{Firefly}}'' has this, as TheVerse is confirmed to take place in one Star System.

** More than one, actually. It's just that interplanetary travel is a lot easier (measured in hours to days rather than months).

Currently it takes about 20 million dollars or government support to get into Low Earth Orbit, and only robots have gone beyond the moon. Aside from the massive cost there are supply considerations because getting just about anywhere takes months if not years. However, in many stories involving space (and nearly all outside of literature), even if interstellar travel is hard, interplanetary travel is easy, taking a couple days at most and within the range of at least an upper-middle class person cost wise.

** Interplanetary travel is like crossing the street. Cubert and Dwight built a craft capable of doing it; they found it in an ad in a comic book.

* Subtle examples can be found in the {{Gundam}} series, which likes to use [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point Lagrange points]] for its colonies. These at a ''minimum'' are always farther from Earth then the Moon. The L3 point (where MobileSuitGundam begins for example) is on the opposite side of a sun, which means it is always farther away then Mercury and Venus and sometimes Mars. Mind you its fairly common to move colonies from said locations for a ColonyDrop on Earth.

* ''{{Aria}}'' has people from earth regularly visiting Mars for business or pleasure.