How science fiction helped inspire the modern space movement

They've also become more diverse. Voices like those of Mary Robinette Kowal -- author of the award-winning alt-history novel "Calculating Stars" -- and Ted Chiang have grown the sci-fi oeuvre over the past several years. And just as space travel ambitions have spread to other countries, a number of international authors have emerged among science fiction's elite. For example, Chinese novelist Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem" has sold more than 8 million copies, is being adapted into a Netflix series and drew President Barack Obama's praise after he read it during his time in the White House. "The scope of it was immense," Obama said in 2017.