[calenel]

The problem with hard sci-fi is that the science is made up by people with liberal arts backgrounds. It usually doesn't survive first contact with a critical technical mind. So the answer is to deemphasize the science. Lots of alien makeup and exploding spaceship models does not shift the emphasis back, but do look cool. You have to make the science so advanced as to seem to be magic. That way you don't have to defend the tech and you can focus on the story. Series that don't try to explain the tech have a better chance of survival.

[GeronL]

I have tried to explain to people that you cannot hear an explosion in space. That if a ship had shields that could block laser/phaser that it would be invisible because you could not see light reflect from it.

It gets tiring some times.