Imagine that — Seattle sci-fi museum lets you go where writers have gone before

SEATTLE — A few weeks ago, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, one of the most powerful spacecrafts sent to the Red Planet, settled into orbit, providing a way for NASA scientists to study the heavenly body in unprecedented detail.

Could this have happened without the existence of science fiction? Could engineers have designed and built the spacecraft, or any previous rockets, without first thinking about the 1902 pioneering science-fiction film "A Trip to the Moon," which was based on a story by Jules Verne?

And what about the iPod or other MP3 player you're listening to? Could that have been possible without science fiction?

All scientific developments begin with a concept, no matter how strange the idea. And before a concept becomes a reality, it's technically science fiction.

If you look around, sci-fi has been instrumental in our space exploration, our cell phones, our personal music players, our TVs, our airplanes, our modes of transportation and even our microwave ovens.

Perhaps you can imagine a place where you can see displays of "Star Wars"' R2-D2, the cyborg from "The Terminator," the B9 Robinson Robot from "Lost in Space" and the cyborgized Alex J. Murphy armor from "RoboCop" all in one place.

Imagine an interactive display screen resembling a space dock that shows a ring of famous movie spaceships in high resolution computer animation. Imagine pushing a button on a spacecraft such as Han Solo's Millennium Falcon and seeing it break from formation to hover in front of you. Now imagine pushing another button and the Falcon's stats — its equipment, speed and dimensions — appear before your eyes.

Then imagine seeing a Hall of Fame display that includes, but is not limited to, Mary Shelley, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.G. Wells, to name just a few.

This place, unlike the desert Jundland Wastes of Tatooine in "Star Wars," exists.

It's called the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. And you can find it in the southeastern corner of the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

So, why is there a sci-fi museum and hall of fame? Well, according to the museum's advisory board chairman, sci-fi author Greg Bear, the idea and goal of the SFM is to educate.

"I got into science fiction when I was 7 or 8," he said. "It was during the 1950s. The United States space program was getting its start. World War II had ended a few years before, and I had traveled to different countries because I was a Navy brat. I saw that the world was much more different than a suburb in California. And science fiction helped me cope with these different ways of life.