History Main / CasualInterplanetaryTravel

* ''Series/TheExpanse'' takes place in the 2300s, where the Epstein drive, a fusion drive capable of constant thrust have enabled the colonization of the Solar System. A single person can have their own mining ship, most trips take a couple weeks at most, and there are regular passenger services between population centers.

* The Franchise/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.

* ''Franchise/TheAvengers'' have Quintjets capable of going from Earth to Mars in the space of a few hours, at the most.

'''Fry:''' Ten...nine...eight...seven...\\

->''Eternal Father, King of birth, who didst create the heaven and earth!''
->''And bid the planets and the sun, their own appointed orbits run!''
->''O hear us when we seek thy grace, for those who soar through outer space.''

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': The Sangtee Empire covers at least two star systems and have shipping lanes through space, however interstellar travel is still a large undertaking for them especially to places outside the Empire's borders.

* In Creator/AAPessimal's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', HEX (via the Travelling Engine) makes it easy for the Roundworlders to experience the Discworld in small, well-escorted parties. Things still go wrong, especially when Sheldon twocks the Engine and randomly programs it in such a way that HEX has to spend time untangling things. Penny gets to be First Woman on the Moon. At first, she is not greatly impressed.

* Used for a few gags in ''WesternAnimation/{{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.
-->'''Fry:''' Can I count down?\\

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

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. At the other end of the spectrum, see InterplanetaryVoyage and GenerationShips.

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* Subtle examples can be found in the Franchise/{{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 ''Anime/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.
** In the UC timeline, there exist colonies out at Jupiter, for gas-mining purposes. Travel out to the Jovian colonies is therefore fairly common and not much of a big deal, though it does take about six months on average to make the trip.

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' series is a bit vague about its cosmology but it seems that "dimension", "world", and "planet" mean the same thing in the setting. Spells like Dimensional Transfer are readily available to {{Magitek}} mages, and in ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaViVid'', the heroes take a shuttle to another planet like one would take a bus to another town.

[[folder: Fan Works ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

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

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein
** His "Future History" has regular interplanetary travel available to the majority of humanity, but also ''repeatedly'' details how much work it took to make it Casual - see the [[Quotes/CasualInterplanetaryTravel quotes page]].
* In Heinlein's juvenile ''Literature/{{The Rolling Stones}}'', buying a spaceship capable of flying from the Moon to the Asteroid Belt is roughly equivalent to buying a sailing vessel big enough for a family to go on an ocean voyage.
* ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown:'' A trip to Mars on a passenger ship takes weeks, and doesn't seem terribly expensive.

[[folder: Live Action Film ]]
* ''Film/{{Gattaca}}'' has the eponymous company launching several spacecraft a day, including one to Titan, and is in no way implied to get the only company in the business.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In the Canadian show ''Series/{{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 Franchise/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.
** For Earth specifically this is averted for several seasons until we have time to build our own ships, despite long since having become an interstellar power due to the SG teams and the stargates enabling CasualInterstellarTravel.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'' takes place in the 2300s, where the Epstein drive, a fusion drive capable of constant thrust have enabled the colonization of the Solar System. A single person can have their own mining ship, most trips take a couple weeks at most, and there are regular passenger services between population centers.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' travel within a star system takes a couple days, a week at most. While interstellar requires at least one week in jump plus the time to travel to/from the edge of both systems.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In Creator/KimStanleyRobinson's ''[[TwentyThreeTwelve 2312]]'', a trip from Mercury to Pluto via terrarium (hollowed-out asteroids containing largely self-sufficient biospheres) is measured in weeks. Relatively fast, but still leading some of those travelling to get temp jobs for the duration.

* In Creator/KimStanleyRobinson's ''2312'', a trip from Mercury to Pluto via terrarium (hollowed-out asteroids containing largely self-sufficient biospheres) is measured in weeks. Relatively fast, but still leading some of those travelling to get temp jobs for the duration.

-->--J.E. Volonte

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's "Future History" has regular interplanetary travel available to the majority of humanity, but also ''repeatedly'' details how much work it took to make it Casual - see the [[Quotes/CasualInterplanetaryTravel quotes page]].
* In Heinlein's juvenile "Literature/{{The Rolling Stones}}" buying a spaceship capable of flying from the Moon to the Asteroid Belt is roughly equivalent to buying a sailing vessel big enough for a family to go on an ocean voyage.

In context, it's not that bad; historically, ChristopherColumbus' ''first'' voyage [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14gdcm/how_much_in_modern_dollars_did_it_cost_for/ cost less than two million]] - and [[Creator/RobertAHeinlein 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.]]

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

* Series/TheExpanse takes place a couple hundred years in the future, where fusion drives capable of constant thrust have enabled the colonization of the Solar System. A single person can have their own mining ship, most trips take a couple weeks at most, and there are regular passenger services between population centers.

* In Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, a trip from Mercury to Pluto via terrarium (hollowed-out asteroids containing largely self-sufficient biospheres) is measured in weeks. Relatively fast, but still leading some of those travelling to get temp jobs for the duration.

* Slowly seen coming about in ArthurCClarke's [[TheSpaceOdysseySeries Space Odyssey]] series. 2001 A Space Odyssey has the first manned mission ever to Saturn (retconned to Jupiter in the rest of the series to match the film), by 2061, the third book, interplanetary travel is evidently much more common, with colonies or outposts on several planets and moons and book opens with the protagonist as a guest on a luxury commercial cruise to a comet. By 3001, interplanetary travel is fairly routine.

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* Subtle examples can be found in the Franchise/{{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 ''Anime/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.

[[AC: Fan Works]]
* In Creator/AAPessimal's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', HEX (via the Travelling Engine) makes it easy for the Roundworlders to experience the Discworld in small, well-escorted parties. Things still go wrong, especially when Sheldon twocks the Engine and randomly programs it in such a way that HEX has to spend time untangling things. Penny gets to be First Woman on the Moon. At first, she is not greatly impressed.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionFilm]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

** 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."

* In Creator/AAPessimal's ''{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', HEX (via the Travelling Engine) makes it easy for the Roundworlders to experience the Discworld in small, well-escorted parties. Things still go wrong, especially when Sheldon twocks the Engine and randomly programs it in such a way that HEX has to spend time untangling things. Penny gets to be First Woman on the Moon. At first, she is not greatly impressed.

* In Creator/AAPessimal's ''{{Discworld}}'' and ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' crossover ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation'', HEX, (via the Travelling Engine), makes it easy for the Roundworlders to experience the Discworld in small, well-escorted parties. Things still go wrong, especially when Sheldon twocks the Engine and randomly programs it in such a way that HEX has to spend time untangling things.Penny gets to be First Woman on the Moon. At first, she is not greatly impressed.

In context, it's not that bad; Historically, ChristopherColumbus' ''first'' voyage [[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14gdcm/how_much_in_modern_dollars_did_it_cost_for/ cost less than two million]] - and [[Creator/RobertAHeinlein 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.]]