Sci-Fi's Role in Shaping Future Technology

Welcome to the 45th edition of Safe For Work.

Table of Contents

• Safety News

• Podcast

• Sci-Fi short story

• SFW Films

In Safety News

• A team of engineers at Northwestern developed a wearable sensor system that uses machine learning to predict fatigue in manufacturing workers in near-real time

• Advances in exoskeleton technologies protecting workers in manual labour

Safe For Work Podcast

Episode 7 dives into technological advances in industrial manufacturing safety.

Science Fiction Short Story

Fantasy

Matt Cantor

A boy lays awake in his dark bedroom, staring at the ceiling. He cannot sleep.

Normally, the hum of the walls, the floor, would be enough to lull him down. But not tonight. It is such a soothing sound, the hum-- as much during what he calls the day as what he calls the night-- it is low and steady, so far from the source. It is like the gentle coo of a cradling mother. It is like the calm purr of a cat-- but tonight, it’s not quite enough.

The boy is not too hot or too cold. The boy is not anxious-- there are no nightmares waiting for him if he closes his eyes, but he keeps them open, staring at the ceiling. Imagining. He’s not going to sleep for hours. He’s going to stay awake for hours, just swimming through that movie he watched with his parents before bed.

He doesn’t remember what the name is. He’s not old enough yet to really be any good with the names of things-- but the impression has been made. Tomorrow, he’s going to ask his mother if they can watch “Pew-Pew Whoosh!!” again, and she’s going to laugh and laugh and tell him that yes, they can, but they’re going to watch a different one tonight-- and then another one the next night, and the next, and the next-- he has so much to discover! She’s so glad she chose to share it with him. She’d been worried it was going to be too intense-- too scary, maybe. But no-- there’s nothing even close to fear, beating in her son’s chest.

Spaceships! Oh, the spaceships!

The boy has never seen spaceships like this. Nothing even close to it. Sure, his parents have taken him out on little shuttlecraft with all the other families during periods of routine engine-maintenance to view the Odyssey from the outside-- all its decks and solar-panels and antennae and on and on and on-- and it’s a beautiful thing, it is. But it’s nothing like the ships the boy was seeing. Sleek and deadly, round and sharp-- or strange, wild shapes-- and all of them, whoosh! Hyperspace!

The boy’s eyes drift down from the ceiling towards one of the windows at the edge of the room, showing what it always shows. Space-- but not hyperspace. The stars are not stretched out into silly lines of light, they don’t go rushing by-- whoosh!-- no, they hang, completely still and plain, like they always do. And always the same stars-- the same stars today as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and they’ll be the same stars tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after-- all the way until they finally reach Alpha Centauri in two years, the same stars. What sort of a life is that? That’s no way to travel! In the movie, it was like bam!-- whoosh!-- and there they were! It plays over and over in the boy’s head-- incredible! It will stick with him for the entire rest of his life.

When the boy does finally sleep, he will dream of lasers, blam-blam-blamming back and forth across the black-- explosions-- bang!-- crash! Fireball! Nothing like the Odyssey’s lasers-- you can’t even see them firing to clear bits of debris, keep a safe path. They don’t even make a noise-- what kind of lasers don’t even make a noise?-- what kind of lasers don’t even make a fireball?

When the boy does finally sleep, he will dream of robots-- robots that move around and talk, but not like the maintenance frames of the Odyssey roll around and politely, smoothly answer questions. No, the boy will dream of robots with anxious stutters, awkward, tottering walks-- robots that stutter a little bit like he does, robots that totter a little bit like he does-- and plated in bright gold!

When the boy does finally sleep, he will dream of solid ground. He will dream of a planet. He will dream of sand beneath his feet-- not the metal floors, or the occasional carpets of the Odyssey. And gravity-- real gravity-- not just the constant, equivalent acceleration of the engines. And a sun in the sky. Not an artificial day/night cycle. Not UV-lamps for health. A real sun in the sky. Two real suns in the sky.

The boy was born on a planet, but he left before he was old enough to start remembering anything. He was here before he was old enough to start remembering. The next morning at breakfast, he asks his mother-- “When will we get there?”

“We’ll get there soon,” she tells him.

“Will there be two real suns in the sky?” he asks her.

She smiles. She knows why he’s asking. She loves that she’s asking.

“No,” she tells him. “There will be three.”

SFW Films presents: The Holo-Room

A grieving man uses a holographic simulation to recreate his estranged wife, but as he tweaks her personality to fit his desires, he must confront the moral and emotional implications of altering reality. Adapted from the short story in issue 35.

See you next week as we delve into the return of nuclear power.

Stay safe.