If I had a nickel for every time somebody has asked why the Death Star plans weren’t just sent as an email attachment. 😉

JP could be science fact if it was about Woolly Mammoths though. They may yet find a frozen one with viable DNA.

The passage of time can take a toll on a hard SF tale. Just about every story set on Mars before the first probes reached it in the 60’s are too fantastical now. The film Robinson Crusoe on Mars, which used the scientific theories about the red planet in 1964 to craft it’s plot was rendered fantasy less than a year later.