One thing that I really enjoyed about our study of Lewis' "Space Trilogy" was the analysis of how Lewis used traditional ideas and theories of our solar system and its planets when it came to creating his fantastical world in the the "Space Trilogy". Examples of this include how Lewis expands upon the old idea that there were massive canals dug into the surface of Mars by an ancient race, and the deep clouds over venus being heavy rain clouds.
It's really cool to see how Lewis took these unbelievable ideas about these planets and used them to bring life and fantasy to his stories. Most notably, Lewis used this idea of heavy rain clouds over Venus to turn Perelandra into a watery and stormy world. What I find exceptionally interesting about this approach is that it reveals some of Lewis' purposes in writing. He is not attempting to give a "Star Trek" depiction of science fiction. Rather, Lewis is embracing the unrealistic and the fantastic. He is appealing to what Chesterton referred to as mans desire to be astonished. The inaccuracies of his work do not speak to them being out dated, but to them being fantastic in nature.
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